Lee Croucher, a fisherman from Newfoundland, holds the soccer ball he found from Ulaajuk school in Pond Inlet. The ball was lost 10 years ago. (Photo courtesy of Lee Croucher)
Pond Inlet soccer ball’s 3,000-km journey ends on Newfoundland beach
Ulaajak school principal says students kicked ball into ocean 10 years ago wondering how far it would go
A soccer ball from Pond Inlet recently ended up as an unlikely catch for a Newfoundland lobster fisherman.
Lee Croucher works out of Beaumont, Long Island, off the coast of Newfoundland, and calls Roberts Arm, N.L., population 805, his home.
He told Nunatsiaq News he found the soccer ball on May 30 while lobster fishing with his uncle.
“It was all high and dry on the beach,” he said, estimating it must have come ashore over winter because he doesn’t remember seeing it last fall.
Croucher and his uncle were a little more than a kilometre from where he fishes from. The ball, a faded neon green, had Ulaajak school written on it in black marker. It was sitting near Croucher’s lobster pots for a couple of weeks before he decided to investigate.
“I’ve got two small girls … and I was going to get the soccer ball just for them to play around with,” Croucher said.
Once he realized how far it had travelled, he thought it would make a great keepsake for his daughters.
“It would be a good thing for show and tell,” he said.
This soccer ball from Ulaajuk school in Pond Inlet made the journey of several thousand kilometres to Newfoundland after it went missing 10 years ago. (Photo courtesy of Lee Croucher)
Ulaajuk school is a kindergarten to Grade 5 school in Pond Inlet, about 3,000 kilometres north from Long Island.
Croucher said it was “pretty neat” to discover the ball had travelled so far, and mused it had likely seen a “little bit of different weather” along the way.
“Not something like this you find every day,” Croucher said.
Sandra Rutledge, principal of Ulaajuk school, said she knows who wrote on the soccer ball — it was a now-retired teacher who labelled all the school’s equipment with a black marker about 10 years ago.
When Rutledge learned of the ball’s journey, she called the teacher, who confirmed for her the ball’s origin.
“She was shocked and laughed” when she found out, Rutledge said.
Rutledge told Nunatsiaq News the teacher, who doesn’t want to be identified, recalled to her that about 10 years ago students were playing with soccer balls at the school, which backs onto the ocean.
“The kids were playing and they were joking around saying, ‘I wonder how far this would travel to’ and they kicked the ball into the water,” Rutledge said.
No one really thought about it again for years. Then, on May 31, a social media post started circulating about the wayward ball.
“We almost died going, ‘Wow, we’ve made it to Newfoundland.’ So everyone’s been quite excited about it,” Rutledge said.
She said other media have been in contact with her about the discovery of the ball.
“With all the horrible stuff going on in the world, I guess people have grabbed onto the story because it is a nice feel-good story,” she said.
“We’re just shocked how far [the story] has been circulating.”
Rutledge said teachers at the school are pleased and proud that everybody is talking about Pond Inlet’s “little school” in the far North.
“It’s like we have travelled everywhere now,” she said.
I once threw a bottle with a letter some 40 years ago, still waiting for it to be found 😂
We once found a helium birthday balloon on a beach in Nunavik that had been launched from California just over a week earlier.
What’s the statute of limitations for littering?
Just kidding.
A great story, this ought to be made into a movie, possibly animated, the adventure of the soccer ball, its ten year mission to go where no soccer ball has ventured before.
“Wilson’s Adventure”
Phil, thanks so much for following through with letting the kids at \Pond |Inlet think about that story, many people would not have bothered but you did take the time and trouble and for that you should be proud.
Good Lobstering mojo…….