The Mendieta family flew to Victoria from Edmonton last weekend to pick up a keepsake box they didn’t know they had lost, only to leave with more treasures.
It started in April, when Brian Mendieta received an email from a self-described operational support RCMP officer named Brian Kerr with the subject line, in all caps: FOUND PROPERTY WEST SHORE RCMP DETACHMENT VICTORIA.
“I was like ‘this is a scam’ and I just disregarded it,” said Mendieta.
Kerr wrote in the email that a box had been “dropped off by a female complainant” and asked Mendieta to email him back.
“What box and how does this scammer know my middle name?” Mendieta recalled thinking.
As he continued reading, however, he saw the email included his badge number from when, as a 19-year-old Métis student, he was recruited with other Indigenous students to train at the RCMP depot in Regina and serve as a sort of auxiliary constable in Alberta in 2001.
Intrigued, Mendieta called Kerr. It turned out the “complainant” had moved from Alberta to the West Shore at the same time the Mendietas moved from Edmonton to Pemberton, in March 2020. (The family moved back to Edmonton in 2022.)
With their separate belongings loaded onto the same commercial moving truck, a box with the combined elementary and high school mementos of both Brian, 43, and his wife, Jennifer, 44, ended up in the other woman’s pile.
Unsure of what to do with the strangers’ box, with no return address, the woman stowed it for a few years before bringing it to the RCMP.
As Kerr sifted through the papers, he found a plaque with Mendieta’s name. A quick internet search brought up the fact Mendieta was running for school trustee in St. Albert, with a contact email.
“It’s a good news story, but it’s nothing on my part — I just tracked them down and got it to them,” said Kerr.
Jennifer said the two had no idea the box was missing before the email.
Kerr offered to mail the box to Edmonton, but by this time the two men had become “fast friends by text,” so the family opted for an adventure.
They booked flights for their first ever trip to Victoria on June 6, reserving a two-night stay at the Empress Hotel with daughters Elianna, 14, Adelaide, 11, and Claira, 9.
When the family arrived on Friday night, they got into a conversation with the valet about their mission. Others gathered as they tried to explain that they were at the Empress to pick up a box.
Suspense and intrigue built until Kerr pulled up with said box — a tattered, packing-tape-covered broken cardboard box.
“We were like ‘what the heck’,” said Elianna.
While the box’s appearance did not seem to warrant a $4,000 weekend, the contents — school notebooks that allowed the kids to compare Dad’s penmanship to Mom’s — were priceless.
The keepsake box contained Jennifer’s hat from Brownies, Mendieta’s high school grad photo with all his friends’ signatures, exercise books, drawings, photographs, old comics and other treasures.
On the outside of the box was unceremoniously written: “someone else’s keepsakes.”
Kerr said it could have been a nothing story about a misplaced box but the family made it unforgettable.
“We all had a good chuckle and I introduced him to my family,” said Kerr. “I think they would have had a good time at the Empress going through that box and I wished I had had more time to show them around and get to know them.”
As the family was about to set off for high tea at the Empress on Saturday afternoon, they recounted visiting the colourful floating homes on Fisherman’s Wharf, riding in the harbour water taxis, feeding sea lions and sea otters, and walking through Chinatown, the Inner Harbour and Government Street.
Claira named “staying in this hotel” as one of the highlights of the weekend.
The family agreed the whirlwind trip was “totally worth it.” On Sunday, when they packed the contents of the box into an extra suitcase they had brought for that purpose, they added new mementos.
“You just have to take chances and go with it sometimes,” said Jennifer.
“Right from the minute we landed and since we got here, it’s felt unreal,” said Mendieta, who is still laughing about the journey.
“To think we lost this box and to get it back the way we did is one of the most incredible things.”
