A wristwatch buried by an adventurer in the ice at the North Pole three years ago has been found by a boy more than 3,000km (1,800 miles) to the south after it floated ashore near his home on the Faeroe Isles.

Niels Jakup Mortensen, 11, found the watch, in a small black box, near his home in Famijns, a village of 115 people on Suduroy, the Faeroes’ southernmost island, his mother, Anna Jacobsen, said.

It had been buried by Jørgen Amundsen during a trek to the North Pole in 2004. He produced 250 copies of a watch that he designed to withstand extreme conditions in the Arctic, and buried one in memory of his ancestor, Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian polar explorer.

The remaining 249 watches have been put up for sale for an average of 70,000 kroner (£6,400), but the explorer has said that Niels could keep the watch that was brought to him by the polar ice. ( AP)

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