Kelowna resident Kessa Desmarais holds up a bottle with a message in it she found on the shore of Kamloops Lake on June 15.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Kessa Desmarais
June 16, 2025 - 10:30 AM
Kelowna resident Kessa Desmarais was in Kamloops to celebrate her sister’s graduation over the weekend when she found a love letter in a bottle, washed up on the shore of Kamloops Lake.
On Sunday, June 15, she went for a walk with her mom along the lakeshore in Tobiano. While the pair typically walk along the beach, the water was so high they walked a lot higher up than usual, more in the brush and amongst washed up logs.
“I was trying to watch my step and I see this bottle by my foot and thought, oh my goodness, there is a message in the bottle, I said ‘mom, there is a message in here,’” Desmarais said.
She tried for some time to open the lid, even banging it on logs until she twisted it open to retrieve the letter.
“It was wet inside, I was really careful because I didn’t want to rip it and slowly rolled it out and laid it down,” she said. “It was hot out so it dried quickly, and it was fully readable.”
This letter was found in a bottle along the shoreline of Kamloops Lake on June 15.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Kessa Desmarais
The letter was a love letter dated May 24, 2011.
“I gasped, I was like, ‘this is crazy,’ and the fact it was wet and still in good condition was so cool,” Desmarais said. “I felt I was thrown into the middle of a romance novel. I’m obsessed with romance novels, what are the chances?’”
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The letter was written by someone called ‘C’ who was heartbroken that Tanner James was moving to Victoria.
“'C' had debated leaving Kamloops but she wasn’t sure, and was too undecided to move with him," Desmarais said. "She was super in love with him and didn’t want things to end and was basically pouring her heart out. It was poetically written, with beautiful hand writing. “It said they were 'so young'. I’m assuming they would’ve been late teens or early 20s.”
Desmarais has returned home to Kelowna where she works as a content creator, but left the bottle and note at her parent’s house in Kamloops in hopes 'C' or Tanner James will reach out.
“It would be so cool to connect with them, I want to know what happened to them and give them the letter," she said. "I don’t think you throw a letter in a bottle in a lake and expect it to be found.”
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