He found an 82-year-old letter in a bottle from the grandfather he never met — the desperate World War II note rekindled a long-lost family bond
A man named Tom Larsen had no memories of his granddad, Carl Larsen, who once wished to join WWII. Unfortunately, his grandfather passed the year he was born. However, eight decades later, they found a message inside a bottle tied to a tree that has now reunited their family in Washington. As reported by King 5 on Tuesday, December 30, 2025, the grandfather's lost message now serves as an inspiration for his grandson.
In 1943, when Carl Larsen was too old to enlist in WWII, he stepped forward to volunteer to help build the Alcan Highway, a military supply line that stretched between Canada and Alaska. Tom had no memories of his grandfather except for the keepsakes. He never got a chance to know his grandpa, who passed away the same year he was born. However, his granddad had left an unusual message inside a glass bottle tied to a tree, hoping for an answer. Eighty-two years later, a Canadian surveying team found the bottle with a wire deep in the forest, about 750 miles north of Vancouver, near Fort St. John, British Columbia.
"And then somebody saw this wire on this tree and pulled it, and out pops this bottle," Tom explained. Tom hesitated to open it initially due to his fear of causing damage to the message inside. However, after opening it, he found the delicate yet clear handwritten note of his grandfather for the first time. The note simply mentioned his granddad's name, along with his address and a request to the reader who finds it to write him back. The surveying team was able to connect the details of the address with Carl's great-granddaughter in California and, eventually, her dad, Tom, in Bothell.
A 2004 study published in the Journal of Linguistics and Education examined stories linked to household artifacts to find one's identity. Through ethnographic research with parents and children, the study found that objects with familiar connections speak deeper narratives about the family's histories. These artifacts also bear untold stories of family members and can be part of family literacy education. For 80 years, Tom had no idea about the kind of person his granddad was; yet the small letter hidden inside a bottle made him feel closer to Carl through his short writing.
While Tom is unsure why his grandfather left the message inside and hid it in an unconventional spot, he considers the bottle's discovery a miracle. Although Carl isn't alive to witness his message reaching the rightful readers, his grandson Tom is inspired to do something similar as a tradition to be continued. "Maybe I should go out in the backyard and put a bottle on a tree and see if 80 years later somebody will mail it to somebody in the Larsen family," Tom added.