Leave a Note for the New Year

Story and photo By Carin Hall

“I want to remember to journal. I want to remember to be still in between the chaos of living.” -Sidney Nykanen

On the far north end of Wrightsville Beach, a simple mailbox invites the passersby to “leave a note.” Over two decades later, it’s evolved into an iconic vessel for thousands of notes, shells, and thingamabobs. 

Its story began in 2003 with Bernie and Sidney Nykanen, longtime beach lovers who were inspired by a similar mailbox they had seen on Bird Island near Shallotte. When a major storm reshaped the shoreline at Wrightsville Beach, the couple saw an opportunity to create something meaningful in the newly formed landscape.

Bernie, with help from his grandson, built the mailbox by hand, fashioning it from copper and setting it between wide wooden steps made from storm-washed lumber. Inside, the Nykanens placed pens and blank notebooks, asking only that visitors leave a note. To reach it, beachgoers had to walk nearly 20 minutes from the nearest access point—that was intentional. The walk itself became part of the experience, a quiet transition from the noise of daily life into reflection.

What followed over the next 11 years surprised even the Nykanens. The notebooks filled quickly—sometimes weekly—with words about love, grief, gratitude and change. Visitors wrote about weddings and engagements, pregnancies and breakups, parenting frustrations and personal losses. Some came back year after year, adding new entries as their lives evolved. Families shared the journals together, and children who once scribbled their thoughts returned as adults with stories of their own.

As word spread, the mailbox became woven into the fabric of Wrightsville Beach. UNC Wilmington students adopted it as a quiet tradition. Vacationers sought it out deliberately. Articles were written. Conversations followed. What began as a modest gesture grew into something communal. 

The original mailbox and its journals have been preserved by the Wrightsville Beach Museum of History, where visitors now read the entries. Today, new mailboxes on the north end of the beach—maintained by UNC Wilmington student ambassadors—carry the tradition forward.

A beautiful interview of Sidney working on a drawing of the mailbox can be found on YouTube, produced by Ally Mace. “So, little did we know when it first started that it was going to be a part of the community,” Sidney says. “And now the [Wrightsville Beach] museum has it. They have stories about it. They have the books. And people sit and read them and say, ‘I could do this. I want to do this.’ I think it's a need that we weren't even awake to. 

You can reach the mailbox on the beach just north Access #2 and Shell Island Resort, although, longer walks of reflection are encouraged on your way.