You may have noticed that as part of the overhaul on the Wonder Bound page a new tab for "Ducks" has been added. It may also leave you wondering what the heck rubber duckies have to do with adventuring and exploring.
The short answer is "It's a Jeep thing." The longer answer is that in 2020, a Jeep Owner in Ontario, Canada began a trend of leaving rubber duckies on fellow Jeeps as a random act of kindness. As the pandemic carried on through that year into 2021, and more people work looking to the outdoors and the wild spaces of the world, in the US and Canada more and more Jeep owner's started to join the trend of ducking fellow Jeeps.
Here the Jeep and a variety of its models are the quintessential outdoors, off-road, overland, and explorer vehicle. As new models of Jeep Wranglers were released and the same pandemic-driven migration to the outdoors grew a fandom started to grow around the Jeep and their owners and Ducking as a way to spread happiness in the world has become a core of that fandom culture.
Now I am by no means a Jeep fanboy. I bought the 1998 Jeep Cherokee, also called an XJ, named Knight in '09. I was the 3rd owner and the only reason it was my "dream car" was because something about that boxy body drew me two it. Aside from that and knowing that lots of hikers or outdoorsy types drove XJs nothing really excited me about it. I lovingly refer to the Jeep Fandom as The Cult of Jeep, which has sprung up around the more modern Jeeps as always caught me a little strange. That said, I am never one to avoid random acts of kindness towards others.
From cheering on a gumby in the gym to send a climb to acts of trail magic while out on a hike, one of the biggest things I love about the outdoor community is this holdover of the hippy era of giving back to the world more than it's given you. Jeep Ducking, or Duck Duck Jeep is just another one of these ways to give back. So while the Cult of Jeep may be something that makes me cringe from time to time, Ducking is part of that culture I'm 100% on board with.
Wonder Bound's duck page is where you can see the current ducks in my collection, and look up ones out there in the community. As the Wonder Bound ducks spread throughout the community, and I get emails back from their various owners about the adventures they have taken their ducks on, I will update the page so you all can see them make the rounds. So make sure to check out the Duck page regularly for those updates, and if you are a fellow Jeep owner, keep a lookout, you never know when one of the Wonder Bound ducks might pop up on your Jeep OllllO
Watch an interview with Allison Parliament (aka the Mother Ducker) the creator of Duck Duck Jeep in the video bellow.
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