The message in a bottle found in Dyea, Alaska. Photo by Pam Joy.

 

A Skagway resident has found a message in a bottle washed up on a beach with no indication of who sent it or from where. Now she’s looking for help to find its sender. 

At the northernmost tip of the inside passage sits the beach at the Dyea flats. Dyea was once a Gold Rush boomtown, now it’s home to a few dozen residents and a recreational area managed by the Skagway Borough. In amongst a pile of washed-up logs, branches and general flotsam Dyea resident Pam Joy stumbled across one of those special finds that beachcombers always hope to discover. A message in a bottle.

Closeup of the message. Photo by Pam Joy.

“I was walking along the (Dyea) flats, like I always do picking up trash like I always do and, and I saw this bottle peeking out and I picked it up and was just about ready to chuck it in my bag. And I saw there was a piece of paper in it. And so anyway, it was a message in a bottle. It said Happy New Year 1987!” Said Joy.

The tides had been over 20 feet a couple of days before, plus there was 40 mph gusting winds. Joy thinks it was the combination of the two that may have dislodged the bottle from wherever it had been resting.

“I’m amazed that it had been in the water this long and not been broken. But then I’m thinking, Well, maybe it’s maybe somebody like from Skagway who threw it, or Haines, and it’s just been stuck down in the bottom somewhere all that time and just got stirred up by the storm. Maybe it really hasn’t traveled very far. Or maybe it came from Australia. Who knows? Who knows?” Asked Joy.

The bottle is clear glass with a beige plastic screw-on top. The safety seal is still attached.

“The only other clue I have is that there’s a Rite in the Rain logo at the bottom of the piece of paper. And it’s in a liquor bottle. So, you know, New Year’s Eve, I’m sure there was alcohol involved in this event,” said Joy.

Rite in the Rain paper has been around for over a century. This piece has been ripped out of a small spiral notebook with the spiral at the top of the page. The message was written in black ink. 

It definitely looks like an adult it’s kind of like cursive writing,” said Joy.

But the sender of this message in a bottle didn’t include any other information.

Pam and her message in a bottle on the Dyea flats. (Mike Swasey)

I really wish that I had some way to identify who it was or how far it’s come and where it came from. I would like to be able to let the person know who wrote this. That I found it where I found it. In case it has come a long distance or you know, just the fact it’s been in the water all these years,” said Joy.

She has posted a photo of the bottle on social media and asked friends to share, but hasn’t had any luck tracking down the sender.

I’ve spent most of my life by an ocean, I grew up in Maine, and spent lots of time on the beach. And I even worked on a fishing boat in Maine, hauling traps and hauling up things out of the bottom of the ocean. And many, many years on the beach. And this is the first message in the bottle I’ve ever found, so I’m very excited,” said Joy.

Over the last few years she’s found a rice bag from eastern Asia, little bits of trash with different languages on them. 

And there’s of course, tons of crap plastic. You know, bags and candy bar wrappers and beer cans,” said Joy.

She says unless she miraculously figures out who sent the message, she’ll add it to her collection in her home in Dyea.

“There’s some other old bottles that have been found out here in there. But none of the others have messages in them. So I’m gonna stick this in the window with the other bottles I think,” said Joy.

The oldest message in a bottle found, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, was thrown overboard by a boat captain in 1886 from Hamburg, Germany in an effort to better understand shipping routes. It was discovered in Australia in 2018. Making the message over 130 years old.

Today scientists have devised instruments based on the message in a bottle design, they’re called Argo Floats. These large cylinders can adjust buoyancy to travel at specified depths. They help scientists record data on ocean currents, water temperature, salinity, and other oceanographic information.

If you have information about this message in a bottle please email news@khns.org.