A man gathering firewood in Alaska discovered a bottle with a handwritten message inside wishing the finder "happy sailing" more than 50 years after it was dropped into the sea by a Russian sailor.

"Sincere greetings! From the Russian Far East Fleet mother ship VRXF Sulak," it read. "We wish you good health and long years of life and happy sailing. 20 June 1969."

Tyler Ivanoff, a teacher's aide in Shishmaref, Alaska, spotted the bottle on the shore near his village, and pried off the plastic stopper with his teeth.

"It was still dry on the inside and still smelled like wine or whatever, old alcohol. The note was dry," he told the Nome Nugget newspaper.