The Ring That Came Back on a Carrot
Janet Cockwill's diamond engagement ring, bought for $425 in 1969 and lost near Arrowwood, Alberta sometime in the 1970s, resurfaced in September 2025 when the couple's grandson pulled it from the family carrot patch. A carrot had grown straight through the band. The find, more than fifty years on, was confirmed by Global News and other outlets. It is also a real instance of a famously recurring garden coincidence — the same thing has happened in Sweden (2011) and elsewhere in Alberta (2017).
Janet Cockwill's diamond engagement ring, bought for $425 in 1969 and lost near Arrowwood, Alberta sometime in the 1970s, resurfaced in September 2025 when the couple's grandson pulled it from the family carrot patch. A carrot had grown straight through the band. The find, more than fifty years on, was confirmed by Global News and other outlets. It is also a real instance of a famously recurring garden coincidence — the same thing has happened in Sweden (2011) and elsewhere in Alberta (2017).
A fuller write-up of the documentation and analysis is in progress.
Sources
Tagged by proximity to the event. Primary sources are direct or contemporaneous; tertiary are downstream retellings.
- 1.Primarynews
Primary report with full detail: $425 ring bought 1969, married June 20 1970, lost in the 1970s, grandson found it in the carrot patch in Sept 2025, carrot grown through the band; direct quotes from Janet and Robert Cockwill.
- 2.Secondarynews
Independent corroboration of names (Janet and Robert Cockwill), Arrowwood location, the grandson as finder, and a missing span of over 50 years. Partially paywalled.
- 3.Secondarynews
Republication of the Global News wire confirming $425, 1969 purchase, June 20 1970 wedding, and the grandson's carrot-patch discovery.
- 4.Primarynews
"Sweden: Wedding ring 'found on carrot' after 16 years", BBC News, 2012
Documents the recurring trope: Lena Påhlsson lost her ring in 1995 and recovered it around a carrot in 2011 — 16 years later.
- 5.Secondaryinvestigation
"Long-Lost Wedding Ring Found Around Carrot", Snopes, 2012
Fact-check of the Swedish carrot-ring story (rated true), establishing the carrot-through-band coincidence as a genuine, recurring phenomenon.
- 6.Secondarynews
"Lost diamond engagement ring surfaces wrapped around garden carrot", CBC News, 2017
Earlier Alberta instance: Mary Grams lost her ring in 2004 near Armena; her daughter-in-law Colleen Daley found it grown through a carrot 13 years later, in 2017. Shows the trope has happened in Alberta before.