Scottish girl’s message in a bottle discovered in Norway 25 years later
A message in a bottle released into the North Sea from the east coast of Scotland in 1996 has been discovered in Norway.
Joanna Buchan, then eight, wrote the letter as part of a school project before it was launched from a boat off the fishing port of Peterhead – the most easterly point of the mainland Scotland.
Some 800 miles from the start of her quarter-century journey, Joanna’s green bottle was found in Gåsvær in northern Norway by Elena Andreassen Haga in 2020.
After discovering the letter, Elena contacted the sender on Facebook. However, Joanna, now 34 and an anesthetist in Port Macquarie, New South Wales, Australia, only came across Elena’s message request on Monday.
Opening Elena’s note, Joanna said she was met with “confusion, followed by a dusty memory of the project and being part of it, but no memory of writing the letter herself.
“It was a surprise for me too!” she said The Independent.
In the letter, school-aged Joanna recounts the life and times of her pet dog, Dougal, various school projects, and her fondness for collecting Blu Tack with her friend William. “By the way, I hate boys,” the message concludes decisively.
“Dear discoverer,” begins Joanna’s letter.
“My name is Joanna Buchan and I live in…Peterhead and my postcode is…I’m 8 years old. I collect pogs and love teddy bears. I have a dog named Dougal and his birthday is March 29 and he will be 15, in dog years he will be a hundred and something. I have a fairly large house. And I have a best, best, best friend. I love collecting Blu Tack but my mom hates it. Our school’s project is about post offices and next year’s is Charlotte’s Web. It’s a novel. But I love sweets. By the way, I hate boys. Sincerely, Joanna Buchan.
Elena, 37, told BBC Scotland she found the bottle in the summer of 2020 and immediately noticed the note rolled up inside.
“It’s not very often that you find something with that kind of meaning,” she said.
“We opened it and we had to be very careful because as you can see in the photo of the letter it was probably in the water for a while, but we managed to unfold it and we can reading this.. it’s actually from Scotland, so that was pretty cool.
“My son Eliah was six when we found the bottle, honestly he didn’t quite understand the fuss at first – old fashioned fun I guess.”
After the miraculous tale of the bottle’s journey made headlines this week, the fisherman who dropped Peterhead students’ letters into the sea shared his own memories of the event on Facebook.
Gary Bruce, now director of Ams Global Group Ltd, was relief skipper at the time and his wife, Jane, taught at Peterhead Central School.
He recounted Joanna’s recollection of the school’s postal service project. The kids wrote the messages, put them in the green bottles, and it was up to Gary to release them back into the sea afterwards.
“We had two bags full of bottles, there must have been about 35 in total,” he said.
“I didn’t want to launch them too close to Peterhead because they would most likely be beached nearby, so we sailed close to Fair Isle, just off Shetland, the geographically furthest inhabited island of UK and tipped them in the water there.
“A few of the bottles were found fairly soon after – but it was a huge surprise to learn that the message from Joanna, who is now a doctor in Australia, was found 25 years later. It would be fascinating to know where the tides carried it in the years that followed.
Since the first exchange of messages, Elena and Joanna have stayed in touch.
“I think we’re friends now!” said Joan. “We talked a lot about the madness that took off!”
When asked if there were plans to return the letter to her, she added: “No! It’s up to her (Elena) to keep it. Guardians of the Finders, right??
“Would love to see it again someday though!”
Joanna no longer collects Blu Tack, instead turning her forces to hoarding cats. “All rescues. I’ve progressed!” she said.