A handwritten note that was buried in a bottle in the beach for more than 50 years.

Photo Credit: Lumley family / Parksville Qualicum Beach News

Did You Write This Note?

56 year old message in a bottle dug up from Parksville Beach

A real life hidden treasure!

Is your name Dick or David Brown? Were you out on Parksville beach for Thanksgiving weekend back in 1966? A family finally dug up your note! 

A little girl on vacation with her family in Parksville discovered a long-buried message in a bottle. 

Six-year-old Leah pulled a dirty bottle out of the hole she and her dad were digging and asked, “what’s this?” Her mother, like most moms, told her to throw the dirty thing away. 

But Grandma had other ideas. A former police detective, Lori Lumley could see something inside the old bottle and decided to investigate.

“I think the parents and the grandparents were more excited than the six-year-old. She kind of glossed over it,” Lumley jokingly told Parksville Qualicum Beach News.

The old note was written in pencil. That’s how it survived the water damage of being buried in the beach for 56 years. Lumley estimated by the handwriting that it was written by an 8 or 9-year-old.

The message reads:

October 10/66

Dick & David Brown were here, we buried this great note. Thanksgiving Weekend.

David Brown

Dick Brown

It’s not the most insightful message, but it’s a cool historical find nonetheless!

Lumley is now working to find the note’s authors and to discover more about their time on the beach all those years ago.

She’s trying to track them down on social media. So if you know a Dick or David Brown and want to hear the end of this story, then you know what to do!

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