It has become a tradition on cruise ships for passengers to bring small ducks to hide around the ship for others to find and either take home as souvenirs or re-hide for someone else to find. In preparation for a cruise along the Alaskan inside passage, I decided it would be fun to repaint a flock of rubber ducks to represent various North American duck species, making sure to include many species associated with Alaska. These ducks were painted in Missouri in April 2026, then took a train with me from Saint Louis to Chicago, where I joined a few others for an RV road trip up to Alaska to start the cruise and ‘release the ducks into the wild’ to continue their adventures.
If you have found one of these ducks, please add a post with the form below indicating where you found it, and if you like add an image (or a few) showing further adventures of that duck with your travels, or just a selfie of the duck with your group. Then you can either choose to keep it as a souvenir, or send it on its way to continue further adventures.
(Note: if you choose to re-hide the duck please follow standard cruise duck hiding guidelines and any rules your cruise has – for instance do not hide in shops, on outdoor railings, or in pool areas)
The page for each individual duck has a blog of travel updates for each duck as they get added. (Note that your posts will not show up immediately as each post will require approval to go live to ensure no spam or objectionable material)
I also started each duck out with a few travel updates from their initial migration north to Alaska.
Found a Duck?
Note: during the trip up to Alaska I attempted to repair some loose QR code labels by applying Elmer’s Glue, but I was unaware that Elmer’s Glue will reactivate if gotten wet. You may want to avoid placing the ducks in water or they may get sticky.