A Canon camera found in Lake Kelso | Douglas Wilhelm Hard

This story has appeared in the InsideHalton.com newspaper and was reported on CBC Radio.

Back in the Fall of 2010, Sherry and I went for a visit to Lake Kelso Conservation Area, and by that time of year, they had let the water out of the reservoir for the winter. Consequently, Sherry and I walked on the bed of the lake. As we walked around, Sherry picked up something she found: a small hand-held digital camera that she had found partially buried in the mud. We were considering throwing it out, but then it pricked our curiosity to see if we could retrieve the contents of the SD card. It was a Canon IXY camera, and after opening the compartment, we found that the SD card still appeared to be reasonably dry. There was a serious amount of corrosion on the connectors, but the card itself seemed to be in good shape. I took it home.

At home, I plugged it in, and after a few tries (taking it out and scratching off some of the corrosion from the connectors), I was happily surprised to see that I actually got access to the card. The last few photographs were of a family smiling while they were canoeing on the lake, so we assumed that they had visited Lake Kelso in the Summer of 2010, and I guess the camera was accidentally dropped into the water.

After examining the photographs, I determined that the family must have just purchased a new car, as there was a photograph of what appeared to be a very new model and from the background, there was a business with a prominent number and address out front, so I assumed the owner may have come from the apartment across the street. I created a small black-and-white printed advertisement that I meant to put up in the apartment. I always kept it in my car and then, a few months later, when we were visiting the Art Gallery of Ontario (I think...), we stopped off at the apartment closest to where the photographs were taken (Roselawn Terrace) to put up the poster and waited.

No one contacted us, and unfortunately for whatever reason, my computer was not able to read the card anymore, either. I assume someone just tore down and threw out the poster I had put up. After all, I didn't even know if I had the right apartment building (although it turns out I did).

Over the next decade, the SD card sat on my desk, and I would occasionally scrape more of the corrosion off of the contacts and tried again. In all that time, nothing ever happened. Then, during COVID, one evening when I was completely exhausted (I had been recording lectures all day and it was already two or three o'clock in the morning, but I was just too tired to go to bed), I tried again, using the tip of a pair of scissors to scrape off the corrosion, and surprisingly enough, up popped the explorer for that card. This time, I didn't make the same mistake and instead immediately copied over all of the contents.

Next came the thought of how to find the original owner. I knew that a simple advertisement would not find the original owner in a city like Toronto: there was no way that enough people would see it, so I had to come up with something funny: a meme that people would actually share and be interested in. That was really the only way this would work is if it was funny and shareable.

I shared it on Facebook, and a friend (former graduate) shared it on reddit, and within 14 hours, I was contacted by person sitting at the picnic table above, Ivan Laos. It turns out that they had not visited Lake Kelso that summer, but rather in visited in July of 2009, so the SD Card had survived and was protected by the camera for over one-and-one-quarter years. Ivan had also lost other items, but he was able to successfully recover everything else.

What's really impressive is not us finding it (which was just by chance and Sherry's keen eyesight), but rather:

The engineers who designed the SD Card: that it was able to endure the moisture, corrosion, and temperature ranges.
The engineers and designers of the Canon camera: that the compartment was able to protect that SD Card for over a year in sub-optimal conditions.
The power of social media: that I was able to be connected with, in less than one day, one of two persons in a city of almost three million a decade after the event in question.

Also, despite actually putting my real e-mail address on the graphic before posting it (in the version shown above, I just exed out my username), I didn't get any spam. Later, Herb Garbutt wrote an article about this in the Inside Halton newspaper. We were also interviewed on CBC Radio's Here and Now with Gill Deacon through the help of her producer Emma Waverman. It was an interesting insight into how such live broadcasts are set up and produced. I have a new-found respect for the significant work that goes on behind-the-scenes in producing and presenting such broadcasts: it seems so easy and seamless when Gill actually presents the information.

For what its worth, when I did drive to Ottawa once in a while, the five stops on my car radio included all the frequencies of CBC Radio as I drove from Waterloo, through Toronto, Trenton and Kingston, to Ottawa and back.