Canoeists find message in a bottle in Victoria’s Inner Harbour, plan to honour it with trip to Alaska next month

The ‘Soggy Beavers,’ a competitive canoe team, recently found a bottle bobbing in Victoria’s Inner Harbour.

Inside, they found a message and what appeared to be human ashes.

“It says something along the lines of, ‘If you find this, please throw it back in the ocean. My last wish was to see the world,’ Russell Henry, a member of the team, told CBC News. “And on the other side is a photo of a man and it says 'Celebration of Life.’”

The team nicknamed the remains “Ash” — and decided to honour the request.

Next month, the Soggy Beavers will bring the bottle with them on their weeklong 1,200-kilometre race from Port Townsend, Washington, to Ketchikan, Alaska.

“There’s really no way he’s going to see much of the world (in the harbour),” Henry told CTVNews.ca.

“We don’t know who this man was, or exactly what his wishes were, but a tour up the entire BC coast and a jump start on this final journey of his seems like one small way to pay our respects,” the team posted on Facebook.

The team hopes they’ll be able to drop the bottle far enough north in the Pacific Ocean that currents will take it to Asia.

“But I think there’s always the chance we find somebody who says, 'Hey I’m sailing to Japan,’ and we could hand him off. I think it would be cool, people just handing him off so he makes his way around the world,” Henry said.

Eager to know more of the man’s story, the team hopes the family of “Ash” gets in touch with them.