Oak Island (Nova Scotia)

Oak Island
Waters	Mahone Bay
Geographical location	44 ° 30 '48 "  N , 64 ° 17' 43"  W Coordinates: 44 ° 30 '48 "  N , 64 ° 17' 43"  W.
length	1.5 km
width	1 km
surface	57 ha
Highest elevation	11  m
Residents	uninhabited
Location of Oak Island

Oak Island (German "Eicheninsel") is one of about 350 islands in Mahone Bay on the east coast of Nova Scotia in Canada . The island gained greater fame because of a treasure believed to be there, which has attracted numerous treasure hunters since the late eighteenth century.

geography

Aerial view of the excavation site in 1931

Oak Island has a total area of ​​0.57 km². The island is 1.3 kilometers long and about 600 meters wide. From the air, it is roughly the shape of a small elephant. The island takes its name from the large oak trees that once grew there. Oak Island was the only island in Mahone Bay with oak trees; today, however, these trees no longer grow there. The highest point on Oak Island is about 11 meters. The island has been linked to the mainland by a dam since 1965.

The next larger cities on the mainland are the city ​​of Lunenburg, founded by German immigrants in 1753, and Halifax in the northeast.

history

The area around Oak Island was first settled by Europeans in 1605 . Until then had Micmac - Indians lived as hunter-gatherers there.

The public first became aware of Oak Island in 1864. A story was printed in a newspaper that until then had only been spoken of. The story is reminiscent of fashionable pirate stories in the 19th century, but the names mentioned can be proven on the basis of land registers, John Smith actually owned a piece of land on the island.

McGinnis discovery

According to tradition, the 16-year-old woodcutter Daniel McGinnis came across a round, apparently artificially created depression in the ground while visiting the island in 1795. In a tree above the depression, he discovered rotted pieces of rope and a branch with strange notches. That was all the more surprising given that Oak Island was considered uninhabited. First, McGinnis returned to the mainland to get his two friends John Smith and Anthony Vaughan, with whose help he hoped to uncover the mystery.

The three young people started digging the pit. First they shoveled a layer of slate free. This was unusual since there was slate on the mainland but not on Oak Island itself. Digging the shaft became increasingly difficult for McGinnis and his friends afterwards, as it was in the middle of a hard layer of clay. Finally, at a depth of three meters, they encountered a layer of logs that were neatly laid and anchored in the side walls. However, the three found only soil beneath the tree trunks. They continued digging and found two more layers of logs at a depth of six and nine meters, but again only loam underneath. After that, they gave up further research, also because they could not dig deeper without additional tools.

The second attempt

According to the newspaper report, Daniel McGinnis made another attempt in 1804 to uncover the secret of the shaft. John Smith had meanwhile bought the property around the pit and built a house there. The three men were also able to win the Onslow Company as a donor, which provided them with the best technical means for the time.

During the subsequent excavations, they came across a layer of wooden trunks at a depth of twelve meters that had been sealed with a kind of putty . They also discovered bundles of rotten coconut fibers deep down , which they believe could not have come from Canada. Such fibers were used to cushion fragile cargo on ships. Therefore, McGinnis and friends assumed that there might be pirate treasure buried on Oak Island. Inspired by this assumption, they kept digging and came across another layer of logs every three meters. Eventually they reached a depth of 30 meters. There they met a large slab of slate smeared with clay, which was clearly different from other stones previously discovered. It measured about 60 × 30 × 5 cm. It is said to have been scratched with strange characters that no one could decipher. The men took these markings as clues to the hidden treasure, but could not prove it. John Smith later built the plate into his chimney wall, but from where it disappeared during a later renovation.

The men continued digging, but encountered resistance after two meters. As it was already dark, the decision was made to continue the excavations the next day. But when they returned to the shaft the next morning, it was suddenly filled with water up to the 18-meter mark. At first the men suspected that they had stumbled upon a spring and only needed to skim off the water, but even with a specially designed pump the water level could not be lowered. A second shaft was hurriedly dug to relieve the pressure, but this was also flooded without the level in the first shaft falling. The Onslow Company ran out of money and the search was stopped.

The Truro Company

For almost 40 years, no one cared about Oak Island. In 1849, the newly founded Truro Company, named after the city of Truro , wanted to discover the riddle. Anthony Vaughan, the only one of McGinnis friends still alive, was their advisor. The Truro Company arrived on the island with the most modern equipment for the time. The shaft was initially free of water, but when the workers cleared the rubble from a depth of 26 meters, it rose again. New attempts to empty the shaft failed. A newly developed spoon bit then brought metal and wood splinters to the surface in addition to coconut fibers. After 32 meters, the drill hit the wood again, which had already been drilled 40 years earlier. When a worker fell into the water in an accident, it was discovered that the water was salty and rose and fell with the tides . The Truro Company then examined the stony east coast of the island and noticed that water seeped out across the entire width of the beach, just above the ebb mark. Upon closer inspection of the beach, the workers exposed a five centimeter thick layer of coconut fiber, under which there was another layer of stones. It was found that apparently the entire stretch of coast had been created artificially. Under the stone layer in the shallow water, five box-shaped channels with a slight gradient led towards the bank. This fan-like system ended in a main channel. It was assumed that this main channel led in the direction of the shaft. When the canal was then opened by the bores, the seawater was able to flood the shaft. The water level in the artificial chimney rose and fell with the tides.

It has been suggested that these canals could be built with the help of a catch dam . After the canals were built, the dam was removed again. The wooden layers of the shaft, sealed with putty, acted like a vacuum seal so that no water could penetrate into the excavated shaft. The presumed treasure would have been protected from the penetrating water of the canals, as the pressure of the air cushion would have been too great.

The Truro Company also built a dam on the same site, but it was washed away by the Atlantic after it was completed . As there was no money for a new dam, the decision was made to tunnel under the shaft. In this way it was hoped to get the secret. However, there was an explosion in the pit and the alleged cavity and its contents continued to sink into mud and water. Eventually the Truro Company lacked further funds and the search was given up.

More expeditions

In 1861 the Oak Island Association tried their luck. However, when a boiler exploded, the treasure hunt was the first to die. In 1864, the Oak Island Association had to give up because it ran out of funds. In the second half of the 19th century, two other expeditions tried in vain to solve the mystery of the shaft. 20 more pits and more tunnels were dug, but without new knowledge. As the second death occurred shortly afterwards during the excavations, people soon spoke of the "Curse of Oak Island".

Frederick Blair's attempt

In 1897, Frederick Blair came on the scene. He wanted to divert the seawater flow with dynamite , but he was unable to stop the flow. However, he was able to reduce the water pressure so much that the shaft could be emptied to a depth of 30 meters. It was at this depth that Blair's workers set up a platform from which to continue drilling. At a depth of 36 meters they encountered wood again and then iron. From a depth of 47 meters, the drill brought a cement-like substance and traces of mercury to the surface. Chemical tests found that the cement was made by humans, but this is now in doubt. At a depth of 52 meters, the drill hit iron again and got stuck. One notable find was a piece of goat skin stuck to the drill. After careful examinations by experts in Boston , the letter V or the letters V and W could be deciphered on the scrap of goat skin, written in Chinese ink and a quill pen . Today, however, the fragment is lost, as is John Smith's slate.

Frederick Blair had the theory that another source of water would keep flooding the shaft. To back up this conjecture, he poured red paint into the pit in 1898 and waited for the tides to wash the paint into the sea. Indeed, the dye surfaced, but not where Blair would have guessed, as the color reappeared on the other side of the island. He assumed that another flood channel led into the shaft below the first. Since Oak Island was now criss-crossed by numerous shafts, there was no clear evidence for this theory. In 1913 Blair, whose most important work equipment had been confiscated in 1899 due to insolvency, finally also gave up.

The later US President Franklin D. Roosevelt also came to the island in 1909 with a group of treasure hunters, but again without any notable results.

Mel Chappell's visits

After the First World War, Mel Chappell came to Oak Island and drove the 21st shaft into the earth. He too was unsuccessful and had to give up in 1931, financially ruined. Chappell thought the Incas had been to Oak Island. In 1950 he returned to Oak Island and began leasing mining rights.

Gilbert Heddens and Edwin Hamilton's discoveries

In 1936 Gilbert Hedden succeeded in draining the shaft to a depth of 50 meters. However, he couldn't find anything special. In 1939 his workers discovered a stone with an incised Masonic mark on the island . On the beach they are said to have found a triangle made of stones, which pointed to the original shaft. Today it is believed that these signs have nothing to do with the mystery of Oak Island. Hedden continued drilling, but had to give up in 1939 due to lack of money.

Next, Edwin Hamilton visited the island in 1940 and stayed until 1946. When drilling, he found additional tunnels at a depth of 60 meters.

The Restall family

In 1960 the location of the original shaft could no longer be clearly defined because the whole area was too heavily dug up. The former artist Robert Restall, his wife Mildred and his two children tried their luck and moved into a hut near the shaft. On August 17, 1965, there was an accident when Robert Restall, his son and two workers lost consciousness in one of the shafts due to gas escaping and then drowned.

The Triton Alliance

In 1965 a dam was built to the mainland to make it easier to transport heavy equipment to the island. The geologist R. Dunfield had the uppermost rock layers removed in order to locate the earlier shafts. This created a 45 meter deep crater, which had to be filled in again a little later because it threatened to collapse.

In 1967 Dan Blankenship, a Florida building contractor , founded the Triton Alliance , a new treasure hunt consortium , with Canadian businessman Davis Tobias . Blankenship sold all of his property and moved to Oak Island, where he lived until his death on March 17, 2019.

Blankenship had drills to a depth of 60 meters, deeper than any other treasure hunter before. A cave was actually discovered in the island's rock base, in which remains of cement and wood came to light. The wood was dated to 1575, the cement should come from the 17th century. However, there is no evidence of this.

In 1971 a television camera was first lowered into a 72-meter-deep shaft called the 10X . But that did not bring any new knowledge, as the said shaft filled up again with water. The camera took pictures, but they turned out to be very blurred. Blankenship interpreted a lot in these images, for example, in his opinion, a well-preserved human body should be visible. But there was still no concrete evidence of a secret treasure. Blankenship wanted to know exactly and covered the shaft with metal so that a person could abseil down. He went down through the 68 cm narrow tube himself, but so much dust was thrown up that nothing could be seen. The shaft then collapsed while Blankenship was still in it. He could only be rescued with the help of a pulley system with the help of a pulley .

In 1978, the shaft was again enlarged to a diameter of 2.5 meters and covered to a depth of 27 meters with welded-together tubes from rail tank cars to stabilize it. The pit was then lined with a reinforced concrete layer down to a depth of 55 meters. Later Blankenship ran out of money too, so that he could not extend the remaining 17 meters.

Triton versus Fred Nolan

Unbeknownst to the Triton Alliance, surveyor Fred Nolan had acquired a piece of land on Oak Island. Nolan had his own theory and thought digging was a waste of time. He believed that Oak Island's secret was on its land. For many years he had mapped the entire island and concluded that there was a striking rock formation on Oak Island. In four places on the island there are striking blocks of granite weighing ten tons. If you connect the starting points of the monoliths, they form a cross 264 meters long and 108 meters wide. In the center of the cross was a huge sandstone . According to Nolan's interpretation, it had been worked on by human hands and looked like a skullcap. In what connection the sandstone should stand to the shaft, however, Nolan left open.

1983 began a legal battle between the Triton Alliance and Fred Nolan, in which the two parties fought over the right of way to the island. Blankenship denied Nolan the right to use the dam.

Personal disputes between Dan Blankenship and Fred Nolan dominated their relationship almost until Nolan's death in June 2016.

Big Dig

In 1987 they wanted to finally solve the mystery of the island. A 30-meter-wide shaft called Big Dig , which would include all of the old shafts, was planned. More than 28,000 cubic meters of earth would have to be excavated to complete this project, which was expected to cost $ 10 million. To finance this venture, Triton went public ; However, the stock market crash of 1987 thwarted this project. Since then, he has not been able to find the funds he needed.

The two opponents Blankenship and Nolan had been bitter enemies since the 1980s and refused to make any contact with each other. In 2016, they made public peace with each other in front of the television camera. Soon after, Nolan died; Blankenship continued to act as an advisor to the search until his death in 2019.

The Bedford Institute

In 1996, the Bedford Institute of Oceanography surveyed the seabed around the island with a research vessel and discovered an unusual four to eight meter deep excavation that leads from the island's beach towards the seabed. The researchers believe that this depression could not have been caused by erosion , but that it is artificial in nature. It was believed that it could be the eroded remains of a stone wall; However, this could not be proven. The institute wants to do further research.

The Center Road Ventures Company

In 2006 Alan Kostrzewa, Craig Tester and the brothers Rick and Marty Lagina bought the shares from David Tobias. The four men from Michigan (USA) now owned the half of Oak Island on which the existing shaft is located. Together with Dan Blankenship, excavation work should begin in the summer of 2006. Since the new team did not have a TTL (Treasure Trove License), no excavations were possible at that time. The TTL guarantees the finder of the treasure the right to be able to keep 90 percent of a possible find. Two TTL cannot be issued for the same piece of land. At that time, a former partner Dan Blankenships owned this TTL and refused to have it canceled. So the company had to wait for the TTL to expire in 2008.

Reality TV show The Curse of Oak Island

On January 5, 2014, the History Channel (USA) started a reality TV show The Curse of Oak Island about a group of treasure hunters. These were led by the two brothers Rick and Marty Lagina, who bought the majority stake in Oak Island in 2006. In the final episode of season one, the treasure hunt team found a 17th century Spanish coin. This find sparked a new debate about an earlier origin of the plant. In the final episode of the second season, a sonar device was lowered through a shaft 10X drilled by Dan Blankenship in the 1970s, more than 70 meters below the surface, into an underground chamber. The sonar revealed that the chamber was rectangular in shape and had two medium-sized, rectangular objects on the ground. They also identified two alleged tunnel entrances, one of which could lead to the money pit . The show ran through January 2020 in the US in season 7.

The myth

Over the centuries, many speculations and opinions have arisen as to what might be buried on Oak Island if something were actually to be found there. Most of these theories fail because the first report describes a clearing that is still visible and traces of human activities, which suggests that the complex was built around 1700.

The best known of these explanatory theories, which contradict the traditional circumstances of discovery, are:

• a treasure of the privateer Francis Drake
• the lost manuscripts of Sir Francis Bacon , proving that Bacon is the author of the works generally attributed to William Shakespeare
• the treasure of the Templars
• a treasure of Tumbes

The following theories are consistent with the possible time the system was built:

• the war chest of the British in the War of Independence
• the treasure of Louisbourg
• Captain Kidd's treasure

Myths about treasures buried there

Captain Kidd's treasure

The earliest legend that Captain Kidd's treasure is on Oak Island was represented by Daniel McInnis.

The privateer William Kidd plundered numerous ships from the Caribbean to South Africa and had also robbed settlements in Nova Scotia. In 1699 the pirate was arrested and taken to England . To save his life, he wanted to tell the British Admiralty where he was hiding his treasures. England, however, did not enter into this trade and hung Kidd. A small part of the booty was later found off the coast of North America, the rest, however, remained lost. Oak Island would have been an ideal hideaway, as the usual shipping routes were not far from the island.

Francis Drake's Treasure

Another early guess as to what the secret might be was Francis Drake's treasure. The English admiral had initially captured the Spanish silver fleet . Before he fought against the Spanish Armada , Drake is said to have sailed to Nova Scotia with a company of slaves . He may have hidden some of his riches on Oak Island. However, his logbooks from this time have disappeared.

The British War Chest

During the Revolutionary War in 1778 there was a British fort in Halifax, northeast of Oak Island . The commander-in-chief for North America wanted to flee to this fort with the war chest because there was a risk that rebels could conquer the main base in New York . The English pioneers, together with mining experts from Cornwall , had already built a long tunnel and a well more than 50 meters deep. They probably had the knowledge to build the intricate shafts on Oak Island. If the British actually built the shafts, they would remain unused, as the war chest ultimately remained in New York.

The manuscripts of Francis Bacon

The basis for this legend is the alleged papyrus fragment on which the letters V and i stood. Bacon also wrote about preserving manuscripts with mercury. Traces of this element were actually found in the shaft.

See also: William Shakespeare authorship

The treasure of Louisbourg

The French founded the Louisbourg settlement in Nova Scotia to assert themselves against the British in the early 18th century. The settlement soon became one of the largest ports in North America. In 1758 the English besieged the city. Before Louisbourg surrendered, three ships were able to break through the British naval blockade. Edwin Hamilton believed that these ships sailed to Oak Island. The island could have been reached in just two days.

The treasure of the Templars

In 1307 Philip the Fair of France began to smash the Knights Templar . It is believed by some treasure hunters that the Templars were able to bring their fortune to Scotland and sailed from there across the Atlantic, almost 200 years before Christopher Columbus . Several Templar ships that escaped in La Rochelle (France) in 1314 disappeared without a trace.

The Curse of Oak Island

A legend of the people around the island says that all oak trees have to be felled and seven people have to die before the island reveals its secret. This claim emerged shortly after the first deaths, but nothing can be substantiated. To date, six people have died trying to solve the puzzle.

Confirmed facts

All reports from before 1864 are oral and therefore uncertain. All artifacts that were found in the shaft before the 21st century are lost today, both the slate with the mysterious symbols and the paper fragment.

The connection with a treasure was only established by the discoverers of the shaft. Today nothing can be said about the meaning of possible original structures, as the extensive excavation work means that previously existing archaeologically relevant traces are irretrievably lost.

The date of the origin of the presumed original structures can be narrowed down by dating the finds. In the same way, activities of treasure hunters can be narrowed down in their dating.

There is a possibility that finds may have been placed on Oak Island that may obscure an actual history of the island. Dan Blankenship's photographs provide no evidence; the treasure of Oak Island is a myth to this day (2020) .

Natural explanation

As early as 1911, the engineer Captain Henry L. Bowdoin, who carried out many drillings on Oak Island, suspected that the artifacts found were not authentic and that the underground structures found could of course be explained. Due to the limestone underground, there are many caves and sinkholes in the region . Today skeptics assume that the supposedly artificial shaft is a karst structure filled with sediments.

Oak Island in Literature

The island was also the model for the novel Riptide by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child , in which state-of-the-art equipment tries to retrieve the treasure.

The island and the shaft system are also used in the novel Devilish Sog by Clive Cussler , but moved to Pine Island (Pacific County, Washington) . The story remains similar: Several generations of a family explore the shaft on Pine Island deeper and deeper until three brothers find a second cave. The title hero Juan Cabrillo also comes across the secret.

In the second part of the Apocalypsis by Mario Giordano , this island also plays an important role as a possible hiding place for the Templar Order.

literature

• Lionel Fanthorpe and Patricia Fanthorpe: The Oak Island Mystery: The Secret of the World's Greatest Treasure Hunt . ISBN 0-88882-170-0
• Steven Sora: The Lost Treasure of the Knights Templar: Solving the Oak Island Mystery . ISBN 0-89281-710-0
• D'Arcy O'Connor: The Secret Treasure of Oak Island: The Amazing True Story of a Centuries-Old Treasure Hunt . ISBN 1-59228-279-2
• Graham Harris and Les MacPhie: Oak Island and its Lost Treasure . ISBN 0-88780-492-6
• Johannes and Peter Fiebag: The Eternity Machine. ISBN 3-7844-2708-1
• Janusz Piekalkiewicz There is gold , Südwest Verlag 1971

Videos

• Money Pit of Oak Island (2001), A&E Entertainment
• Oak Island - Encounters with the Unexplained (2001), Grizzly Adams Production
• Terra X : From the Ayers Rock Death Trap to the Curse of Oak Island (1997)

Web links

Commons : Oak Island, Nova Scotia  - Collection of images, videos, and audio files

• Private Website by Jo Atherton Oak Iceland (English)
• Detailed documentation ( memento from March 17, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) in an episode of the ZDF series Terra X
• The mystery Oak Iceland (English)
• Critical analysis of the Oak Iceland Secret (English)
• Photos from Oak Island ( Memento from October 16, 2004 on the Internet Archive )
• Dan Blankenship: Oak Island's treasure hunter is dead

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Linnea Crowther: Dan Blankenship (1923 - 2019), treasure hunter starred on "The Curse of Oak Island". In: Legacy.com. Retrieved March 22, 2019 . 
2. ↑ Beverley Ware: Only development Oak Island buyers plan is search for pirate gold. In: Halifax Chronicle Herald. Retrieved June 12, 2016 . 
3. ^ History Channel: The Curse of Oak Island. Retrieved April 13, 2015 . 
4. ↑ old version of this article
5. ^ Joe Nickell: The Secrets of Oak Island. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on February 6, 2014 ; accessed on May 27, 2015 (English).