It’s one of those “Only in Yellowknife” stories.
Jeremy MacDonald is a scuba diver, and runs a Facebook group that shares the stories of their various dives, as well as the many objects and belongings they may find. Rings, boat parts, snail covered tomatoes, and even an entire truck that had fallen through the winter ice, the “S**t I Found Diving In YK” page is full of fun little stories of a local explorer.
MacDonald was kind enough to speak with us, and share the story of one of his most recent dives; one where he was able to return the lost item.
“What we were doing, there was a group of us from the Joint Task Force North, we were doing a joint cleanup. Joint Task Force North helps participate in the city cleanups along the highways, well the scuba club decided we would do an underwater cleanup.”
MacDonald explained that he and his team were in the process of cleaning up tires and other debris near the government docks. While he and a comrade were cleaning through other pieces of trash, he noticed the distinct green of a twenty dollar bill. After moving aside the rest of the garbage, MacDonald reached in, and pulled out an entire wallet.
Fortunately, upon checking who the wallet might belong to, Macdonald found that it was a man he knew.
“I had actually done some jobs for him over at the fish plant before, so I gave him a call, and in Yellowknife fashion, he didn’t answer his phone. So I knew where he was, I knew where he was working, and I saw his boat was over at the fish plant, so I just got down to the end of the dock and yelled as loud as I could ‘Hey! I found you wallet!’ and he heard that.”
The man had lost his wallet about two weeks prior, and told MacDonald that he knew it was missing, but just didn’t know where it was. It seems the wallet was returned in the knick of time as well, as MacDonald said the man was about to go through the process of renewing his Driver’s License.
MacDonald and his scuba diving friends have found many items at the bottom of the Yellowknife area’s lakes and rivers. He explained that most items are found fairly close to the docks as people are transitioning between land and boat. He gives some advice for boaters, saying that if you do lose an item to the water, try to write down your GPS coordinates, and take pictures of the surrounding areas so that the recovery can happen that much quicker.
