A man from Moscow and his family were on vacation on a rocky beach in northwestern Russia when they stumbled upon a rubber duck bath toy that had drifted away from home and was stranded ashore.
After some research, graphic designer Vladimir Matusevich learned that the yellow duck had traveled about 6,000 miles from a small town in central Canada to the coast of the Ribahi Peninsula.
The bumpy, dusty rubber duck carried the number "1417", clearly marked with a felt pen.
After some hard work, the Russian dad finally found the first person to send the rubber duck on a wandering journey. Releasing rubber ducks to float freely is part of the charity rubber duck race.
"We're playing on the deserted north coast." Matu said in an interview: "There's nothing more interesting than looking at something that's been thrown out of the sea."
"There's a lot of interesting stuff that's accumulated there: two- to three-century-old shipwrecks, bright buoys on fishing nets, shells, colorful ropes, and so on."
"My wife stumbled upon this duck."
Matu suspects that the toy duck is from a duck race, as he knows there is no such race in Russia, so he hopes to find the origin of the duck socially.
"I wrote about 300 pages and text messages on social. I didn't find Monica Iverson, the owner of the duck, but Monica wrote me back. Matu said.
Iverson is a Canadian from Ardmore, a small town 135 miles northeast of Edmonton. She organized the Ardmore Duck Race in 2017 and she describes herself as the owner of that toy duck.
But it wasn't until this summer that she saw a message from Matu in 2019 and replied to him.
"I said, 'Hey, yeah, that's our duck.'" She said, and then confirmed that the handwriting on the duck matched her handwriting, "And those numbers of mine have a tail on it and a horizontal on the 7." ”
"I'm one hundred and fifty percent sure it's our duck."
The duck — one of 2,000 similar ducks — sailed on June 4, 2017. The Duck Race is raising money for local students in Ardmore.
"What this duck went through must be astronomical." She added.
Matu spotted the duck on August 16, 2019, surprised by the distance it spanned. "It's interesting." "We think the duck is probably from the UK, and the route itself is already interesting."
Only Iverson himself knew how ducks swam so far.
"I still can't believe it."
Currents expert Paul Myers said the duck could have been thrown into Hudson Bay, crossed the bay counterclockwise to the Hudson Strait, bypassed Quebec and then entered the Gulf Stream, where the duck then flew northeast across the Atlantic Ocean. The toy duck was then washed up on the shores of the Russian Peninsula.
This journey route may exceed 10,000 km.
"I was even more surprised that the duck survived." Miles said, "You know, it wasn't sunk by the waves. ”
The Muscovite is now planning to bring the rubber duck back to its rightful owner — but before that, he'll have to take a few funny photos on the road. He also prepared some souvenirs to send back to Canada from Russia with the ducks.