Oak Island, I{ova Scotia

The Pit &The Perplexitie sArticle by

TI n the summer of L795, Danie l

I M"Gin.tis, a Nova Scotia farmboy, stumbled onto an unusual ovaldepression in the sandy soil of Oak

Virginia MoreII with photography by

believed to be tainted pirate booty.Oak Island had long been regarded ashaunted, a home to flitting spirits andto a ghostly hound with fiery coals for

Eric Hayes

ing the land beside the shaft and toldhis tale to everyone he met. Finally,seven years later, a group of wealthyNova Scotia businessmen decided to

back his venture. They re-cruited a large work force andreopened the shaft.

Island. The depression waswithin the shade of a tall oaktree in a small clearing. Onelimb of the tree bore the dis-tinct marks of a rope-and-tackle hoisting device, and16-year-old McGinnis had asudden vision: that limb hadbeen used to lower somethinginto the depths of Oak Island- something of great value,something which had to behidden. Here, he was certain,lay buried treasure.

He returned to the islandthe next day with two friendsand three shovels. They set towork digging out the loose soilin the depression. Two feetdown, they made their firstdiscovery - a layer of flag-stones which were not na-tive to Oak Island and whichseemed to have been shaoedby man, then carefully fiitedtogether. Beneath this sealwas an elaborately engineeredshaft about 12 feet across,-shored up with oak logs andclay. Then, at a depth of 10feet, they encountered a sol-idly constructed oak platform.They pried up these logs, butunderneath, the shaft contin-

"That's just for the tourists," says treasure hunter DanielBlanhenship of his museum sign. "Hrates didn't haveanything to do with what's here, It's too big . . , it toohyears to build this."

Immediately, the old pat-tern began anew: oak plat-forms carefully embedded atl0-foot intervals. They alsofound layers of charcoal at 40feet; a claylike putty substanceat 50; dark fibres from coco-nut husks at 60; and moreof the putty at 70. The shaftseemed endless. Then, 90 feetbelow the surface, they un-covered a large, f lat stone in-scribed with two rows of char-acters that looked Iike hiero-glyphics. They began to getexcited. Perhaps the stonecarried a warning or a mes-sage of what to do next, orperhaps it explained what laybelow. The d iggers neverfound out, although they cameclose.

Unable to decipher the in-scription, they removed therock and continued digging,reaching a depth of 98 feet bynightfall, Before retiring, theyjammed their crowbars downinto the increasingly soggysoil. They did this each night,but this time, they hit some-

ued. They uncovered another oakplatform 10 feet farther down, and athird at 30 feet. At this point, the triodecided they needed more help.

The local fishermen and farmers,however, were not interested in anyschemes for recovering what they

eyes. At night, there were strange, tiring which felt l ike solid metal andunsettling lights that had twice lured which seemed to be bounded by thefishermen to their deaths. If the is- sides of the pit.landalsoharbouredatreasure, they Inhisbook TheOahIslandMystery,felt it would be better to let it l ie. But Reginald V. Harris, a descendant ofMcGinnis could not forget his vision. one of the investors in this treasureHe moved to the island, began farm- company, wrote: "This circumstance

put them all in good spirits, and dur'ine the evening, a good deal of discus-siJn arose as to who should have thelargest share of the treasure. But theirsrelt expectations were shattered, foriext morning, theY found 60 feet ofwater in the Pit!"

The treasure, or whatever was atthe bottom of the shaft, had been ef'fectively sealed off by the flooding,and no amount of bailing would re-duce the water level. Strangely, thewater was salty and rose and fell withthe tide. It was a baffling mystery, andthe companY disbanded in frus'tration.

McGinnis also quit digging, but hedid not leave the island, located 36miles southwest of Halifax' He set-tled down to faiming again and heldtieht to his vision' Something, hekiew. had been buried on Oak Is-land. But who had gone to all thistrouble and whY?

inety years before DanielMcGinnis's discovery, Cap-

tain William Kidd, sentenced to behanged for acts of piracy and murder,penned a last urgent plea to the Brit-ish House of Commons. In exchangefor his life, he promised to lead a shipto an island where he had buried'goods and treasure to the value ofone hundred thousand Pounds." He

felt certain that this treasure would so

imnress the Crown that he would bepaidoned. But the Crown refused his

bffer. Nine days later, Captain Kiddwas hanged by the neck at Inndon'sExecution Dock, and in accordancewith Admiralty Law, his bodY wastied to a post and Ieft until the tide had

ebbed and flowed over it three times.No one has ever found CaPtain Kidd's

At a depth of 98 feet, Oah Island's first treasure seekers encountered an object that

felt tihi solid metal,' but their efforts to recover the booty broke ancient seals on an

intricate series of tunnels, permLanently flooding the Money Pit, seen in foreground'

treasure.But Captain the only

,reT?lfifffiEulous golden cities ofthe New World, none surpassed theiewel-encrusted Incan city of Tum'bez.Pizarro first saw it in 1527. Butwhen he and his conquistadores re-turned four years later to claim itsriches, they found the citY in ruins

and the treasure of Tumbez gone.The crown jewels of France, the ,

entire thousand-year-old treasure of Ithe Abbey of the Cathedral of Saint IAndrew, the solid 300-ton golden Ichain that once encircled the Incan Icity square in Cuzco, the Holy Grail Iani Ailantis have all vanished with- |out a trace.

In 1@ 45 years after the initial ef'forts to recover whatever was buriedon Oak Island, another treasure com-pany decided to attemPt it' Using a

brimitive drill, they bored a narrow^hole down through the 60 feet of

mud and water until theY hit thatsame 98-foot level. At 100 feet, theystruck oak again, then continued todrill down through what one workerdescribed as sounding like "loosemetal or coin," then more oak andmore metal. TheY were certain thatthev had penetrated a treasure cham'beiand imagined a weightY stack of

three treasure chests, set one on topof the other and all resting on anothersolid-oak platform. But the drill bitfailed to bring up any tangible evi-dence of wealth from the shaft theYdubbed the Money Pit.

This expedition also revealed anelaborate underground drainage sys'tem connecting the MoneY Pit, viatwo flood tunnels, to the AtlanticOcean. Subsequent digging and prob-ing in Smith's Cove (500 feet east ofthe pit) uncovered a 145-foot man-madt beach lined with tons of coco'nut fibre, solidly packed eel grass andbeach rocks and containing five stonebox drains. The MoneY Pit, it seemed,was a carefully contrived traP: bYremoving the inscribed flagstone, theoriginal treasure hunters had unwit-tin[ly broken what was, in effect, ahydraulic seal.-Efforts

to circumvent the flood tun'nels proved futile' By 1860, eight sep'

is notKidd'smissi

#.t

d

\

ro4 arate shafts had been dug parallel tothe nit and countless lateral tunnelsexcivated in hopeless attempts toreach the treasure chamber. Then, in1861, as yet another treasure com-pany tunnelled into the muddy mo-rass, the Money Pit collapsed. What-ever lay in the treasure chamber dis-appeared into soupy oblivion some-where below Oak Island.

But the quest for untold riches didnot stop here. Over the next 120years, 10 weli-f inanced expeditionssought the treasure. They drilled holeafter hole into the island, desperatelyseeking a clue to what lay below. Oneturned up a few links of chain, an-other a tiny fragment of vellum parch-ment bearing two microscopicallysmall letters of the alphabet.

While McGinnis had been huppyto believe that the shaft was the workof pirates (the popular theory heldthat it had been dug by CaptainKidd), these later discoveries pro-duced a multitude of new interpreta-tions. The scrap of parchment led tospeculation that Oak Island reallyguarded Shakespeare's manuscriptsas penned by Francis Bacon. Otherssaw in the tunnels and mysterioustreasure chamber a vast undergroundholding room for a communal piratecache, a temporary repository formonies owed French troops prior tothe Acadian expulsion and the se-crets and treasures of a forgottencivilization..In spite of the negligible success in

retrieving anything of substancefrom the pit, every newly formedtreasure company approached therecovery project with swaggeringcomplacence. In 1863, the Oak Is-land Association announced that itwould strike the treasure "before thelapse of one month"; in 1866, the OakIsland El Dorado Company predictedthat in a few short months, theirequipment would produce "the hid-den treasure so long sought for"; in1909, the Old Gold Salvage andWrecking Company issued a pro-spectus boasting that "with modernmethods and machinery, the recov-ery of the treasure is easy, ridicu-lously easy." They expected thewhole operation to last "three or fourweeks."

The "modern machinery" of thislatter venture was something calledBowdoin's Air Lock Caisson - amysterious treasure detector inventedby Captain Henry L. Bowdoin. Hisenthusiastic prospectus, promising a

cache of "ten million dollars in trea-sure," even enticed young FranklinD. Roosevelt to purchase some of theshares. But Captain Bowdoin's dreamof a "quick recovery" ended abruptlyafter two fruitless months on theisland.

The Air Lock Caisson was only oneof hundreds of technological solu-tions applied to the Money Pit. Sensi-tive metal detectors, powerful hy-draulic drills, sophisticated drillingequipment, bulldozers and dynamiteblasts all failed to produce any trea-sure. There were also pathetic at-tempts by men bearing Captain Kiddtreasure maps and equipped withnothing more th.an pick and shovel.

The island was dowsed by psychics,analyzed by a Mineral Wave Raymachine and x-rayed from the air bya "treasure-smelling" device. Thisparticular instrument, its inventorreported, was too sensitive. When itsniffed out a vast hoard of gold in theisland's depths, it dashed itself tosmithereens.

Searchers walking the island's pe-rimeter turned up strange, elusiveclues: stones etched with crypticsymbols, one etched with what re-sembled a ship, stones shaped likehearts, several drilled rocks andstone markers, and mysterious equi.Iateral triangles made of beach stones

"I'm probably the only one who thinks the treasure is all the way down in the bed-roch, " says Blanhenship, who, with the help of reclusive Dan Henshee, above, hasbored a cement-walled tunnel more than 100 feet into the island.

that pointed toward the pit. :,:

Legends now surrounded the leg-end of Oak Island itself. It was saidthat the island was cursed and that noone would find the treasure unti lseven men had perished in its pursuitand all the island's red oak trees haddied.

Bv the end of 1982, six men haddied and all the red oaks were gone.

ou reach Oak Island today bya causeway that leads across

the water from the little white-shacktown of Martin's Point. Robert Dun-field, a treasure hunter in the 1960s,decided that his operation would pro-ceed more quickly if he could driveheavy equipment - such as bull-dozers, drill ing rigs, cranes andpumps - to the island, rather thanbarging it over. So in 1965, he builtthe causeway, and Oak Island ceasedto be an island.

I drove across the causeway to^meet with Daniel C. Blankenship, aI 581vear-old one-time rnultimilli,on-

6[e contractor from Miami who gaveup his business 18 years ago to solvethe mystery of Oak Island. Blanken-ship is a field manager for Triton AIli-ance Ltd., the Montreal-based firmfinancing the current treasure hunt.We met at Blankenship's privatelYowned Oak Island Museum, a small,pale yeilow building housing a sadcollection of the island's treasure-hunting artifacts and letters fromvarious museums and scientific firmsverifying their authenticity. in frontof the museum, a Z0-foot-high ply-wood figure of a grinning one-eyedpirate salutes visitors, and a skull-and-crossbones pirate flag snaps inthe wind.

"That's just for the tourists," ex-plained Blankenship as we headedacross the island to the Money Pit. "Itdon't mean nothing. Nothing at ali.It's just the popular image. But piratesdidn't have anything to do withwhat's here, if you ask me. It was toobig, too time-consuming a project. Ittook years to build this."

' Blankenship is a big man, his framemuscled and weathered from yearsof hard work and cold Atlantic win-

, ters. His hands are thick and broad,I and he sliced the air with them to, make a point, shrugged his big shoul-. ders and shook his head slowly over, the idea of someone as insignificant. as Captain Kidd planning the Moneyt Pit .

"No way. No way. I've found too

t0'

(a'50'

60',fa'80'lo'

?/aiftr,n.,vt lop? J

, r t 6 t

'{I'x *a a,i/ *,,.rutlg"

frii/a*.rul lo*ti";rii-i'J*'* -",4i4 J* I rfl'?t$'i,tt,cul {g"

!8',t0+'lll '

ll5't7t'

y*t,/e{/."n d/ I*-7rtu/i"f"ghk'&*f\ l"tEt x /!1&b

52 ot $ "lr{au.m.-r} :'i:J

l 3 t ' ' ;&iJp

J,nc/?ff;;,? 1 Ctuy iikA

d**r*a

/*

axt

IS,

[ ,

many things here - things I haven'ttold others, and I'm not telling you.But they were busy here a long time,that much I can say. ' l

He turned the pickup down aweedy, rocky lane bordered byspruce and spindly birch trees andpulled to a stop at the bottom of agrassy hill. A yellow sign with blackrolling script marks the site of theMoney Pit - now just a sunken,crumbling, weed-covered hole, withrotten skeletal timbers poking out ofthe ground. A two-foot-high rough-hewn fence and warning signs keepout the tourists. We walked up the

hill to the pit, the sky slate blue, theocean dark and bruised, Iapping atthe rocks behind us. Blankenshiptalked about Triton Ailiance's currentoperations, about the shaft they aresinking 200 yards above lhe originalni t .

"You can't work the Money Pitany more," said Blankenship. "Theground's way too unstable. Some-thing iike 40 shafts were put downaround here, and the ground won'thold any more. We've had some engi-neers out to check the ground -they've got a new way, they say, tostabilize ground like this."

.Y.!y'i;"_,Pcafa(toa/t, aft( an*tgza I i

t,,i,:,....

Jl ,fitt'rF

. ,&,

3a'

l5a' iy*,Jn ltJolf,gntbr 8'\:

l5g'J'

tn,

Now just a sunhen, crumbling weed-covered hole damaged by 40 attemPts to sinha worhable shaft, the upper portion of the Money Pif was once an elaborate seriesof platforms, air spaces and tunnels.

He turned and swept his handsover the land around the pit, explain-ing what the engineers had told himthey couid do. A breeze came off thewater and rustled the small birchtrees higher on the hil l , and I felt sadand lost and weary all at once.

And then there was a sudden hol-low whump, whump, whump soundcoming from the earth behind us.Blankenship stopped his explanationand cocked his head toward the pit.The sound faded, then came again,louder, faster - whump, whumP,whump. In an instant, BlankenshiPleaped over the low fence anddropped to his knees at the edge ofthe pit. He leaned down toward it,but the whumping came more slowly,farther away, then stopped. He kneltawhile longer, l istening carefully,then got up with a sigh and easedhimself over the fence.

"Must be the wind in the shaft," hesaid. "That's it - the wind in theshaft."

TI t is not just the wind that keepsI Blankenship on Oak Is land. I t is

other things -^ the pieces of oldchina, brass and steel chain his drillbrought up from one shaft, the curi-ous leather boot and corroded Mexi-can scissors he dug up on a beach andthe warned remnants of a wharf anda sunken stone wall he found alongthe shore. There is the handful ofcement and soft unoxidized metal herecoverecl trom Ib5 teet clown. t 'rag-

! ---T-iT-- : i r.t .

mentary out tanglole evlqence tnalsomeone was busy on Oak Islandlong ago. And there is also the float-ing severed hand.

The hand appeared in August 1971when Blankenship and his crew low-ered an underwater television cam-era into the 27-inch-wide shaft theyhad dug northeast of the Money Pit.The camera dropped slowly downthe water-filled shaft and eventuallycame to rest in a limestone chamber230 feet down, deep within the bed'rock of the island. Blankenship sat ina shack next to the shaft watching aclosed-circuit television screen andwaiting for the camera's eye to pro-vide a first glimpse of what Iaybelow.

It was'the hand - a human handsevered at the wrist and floatingabove what appeared to be a treasurechest. Blankenship gave a shout, halfhorror, half surprise, then cailed hisworkmen in one at a time to verifY

Tracing legends that link one of his ancestors to the Oak Island Money Pit,Pentz relates a tale ripe with royal intrigue and the African slqve trade'

dEarI

f "

what he was looking at on the screen.They all agreed: it was a hand. Oneeven said that he could see the "damnbones sticking out."

"I saw a hand down there," saidBlankenship. "I know it was a hand.I don't need proof from anybody. Noway, no way it was anything otherthan a human hand."

Gazing at the misty image on thetelevision screen, Blankenship andhis crew also saw what looked likethree treasure chests - one with ahuman figure slumped against it -

several large wooden beams and apickaxe. Blankenship photographedthe screen, and these photos are nowdisplayed in his museum. Grey and

, grainy, with arrows pointing to the -/lhand and to the treasure chests, they/f

f f are reminiscent of photos of unidentiJ I

fied flying objects: all promise and t/possibi l i ty, but not proof.

Blankenship's glimpse into theisland's interior prompted him to goone step further. He donned divingsuit and helmet and was lowered bycable 230 feet into the very chamberin which the television camera hadrevealed the severed hand. But visi-bility was poor, and he found nothingworth bringing to the surface.

"You can't hardly see your hand infront of your face because of all thesilt and mud that's stirred up," he ex-plained. "The chamber is really big,and I wanted to explore around in it.But you don't dare move awaY fromthe shaft; it 's just too dangerous."

Blankenship and his crew madeseveral dives over the next few years,all of them inconciusive. Then, in

1976, even this small window intothe island's mystery was closed.

"I was working down in the shaft,"Blankenship recalled. "We were us-ing this sonar equipment to searchfor tunnels, cavities, that type ofthing. So I was down at the 145-footlevel when I heard the shaft start togo. Thinking about it sti l l gives methe jitters. All that rock and mud fall-ing in. I could hear it about me, crash-ing down. And I was shouting,'Bringme upl Bring me upl Out! Out! Outl ' "

The shaft continued to collapse,crumpiing about him like a thin egg-

shell. But Blankenship was lucky andgot out with seconds to spare.

Others have not been so fortunate.The first man to die on Oak Island

while searching for the treasure wasscalded to death when a steam boilerburst in 1861. A second man died in1897 when the rope hoisting him tothe top of the shaft slipped off its pul-ley, and he plummeted to his death.

In 1965, there were four moredeaths. Robert Restall, a motorcvcledaredevil turned treasure hunter,was overcome by fumes in a shaftthat he was attempting to pump dry.

,,;,,::l, :

,.i

He toppled into the shaft and appar-ently drowned. Three more men, in.cluding Restall 's eldest son, diedwhile trying to rescue him.

Restall's death opened the way forBlankenship to begin his treasure-hunting operation.

"I didn't just happen onto OakIsland," said Blankenship, narrowinghis eyes. "I was drawn to it, Therewas a story about the mystery inReader's Digest back in '65. I read that,and it got me to thinking that I couldsolve the problems they were having.Something told me I could do it. iNow, you figure how many million-of people must have read that- maybe 20,30 million? And outall those people, I was the onlywho showed uo here."

There was one obstacle in Blari''ken:ship's chosen path: Robert Restall,Restall had been living in a shack onthe island with his wife. two sons anda daughter since 1959, investing allofhis money and his time in an obses-sive search for the treasure. But hislife savings of $8,500 were barelyenough to live on, so Restall began to'sell shares in his venture to RobertDunfield, a high-pressure geologistfrom Los Angeles. Dunfield (whobuilt the causeway to the mainland)wanted to extricate the treasure fromthe island by force, wresting it outwith dynamite and bulldozers. ButRestall insisted that the answer lay inan understanding of the elaborateflood tunnels. He had spent most ofhis time mapping their cburse under.ground and felt that he was close tofiguring out how to plug them andthereby stop the flow of water intothe pit.

Then Blankenship read the Reader'sDrgesf article and showed up on OakIsland, eager to be part of the action.Restall, however, was not interestedin any more partners, and Blanken.ship left.

"That was on a Monday, and Res.tall died the next day," said Blanken.ship. He looked across the island tothe blue Atlantic and jammed his bighands in his pockets, then gave me aswift, keen look.

..t-l-t

I hat Blankenship - he's soI paranoid about that silly

treasure. He thinks he's the onlv onewho can solve the problem. He ieallydoes, you know," said Restal l 'swidow, Mildred.

After the accident, Mrs. Restall

moved to the town of Western Shore.only a mile from Oak Island, andtook a job a-s a receptionist to supporther young family. From the windowof her bungalow's front room, voucan see the dark band of ,p*.emarking Oak Island. She stayed nearthe island, not because ofany interestin the treasure but beciuse she"didn't know what to do, There I wasall alone with two children to raise.I had to get a job. All that t ime on theisland - six years - it was iust anescape from the real world.,;

. Like her husband, Mrs. Restall hadbeen. a motorcycle stunt racer, per_torming in circuses around the world:"Bob and Mildred and the Globe ofDeath." They gunned their motor-cycles in.tigh.t loops inside a giantsteel-mesh ball, 16 feet in diam-eter,t iming it so that they missed eachother by a split second. But the glam-our o.[ circus l ife paled after 20 years,and they retired to Hami.lton, Ontario,where Restall began working as acontractor. A restless man driven bychallenge and risk, Restall found hi!new life singularly boring. Then heread an account of Oak Island.

The mystery of the unknown trea-sure and the maze of tunnels seemedto offer all that his Iife was missins:a puzzle, adventure and wealti.Upon visit ing Oak Island, Restallsigned a contract with Mel Chappell,who then owned the Money pil, tobegin searching for the treasure. TheRestalls set up housekeeping on theisland in two old cabins, Isolated

time, but I 've always-believed that itwas taken long, long ago. I ,m surethey'l l f ind evidence thaI there wcs atreasure - not ordinary gold bullionand definitely not Captain Kidd,s.,,

pioneers seeking their El Dorado."That was before the causewuri)

was built, and when the boat droppei Ius off and I stood on that beach ind Ilooked out to sea, I remember mv theart fell right to my boots,', said Mrj. iRestall. "Oak Island . . . after that. all Jhe ever taiked about was the search. fI watched my husband chanse over- jnight from someone who waJso loei_ ical to a man with an obsession. Mor""- Iing, noon and night, it was iust read, Iread, read, talk, talk, talk atout Oak IIsland and the treasure. Oh, I sot sick Iof i t . " )Mrs. Restall never shared her hufband's enthusiasm or his obsession.She did not even believe the treasurewas there: "It's quite possible thatthere was something there at one

F;iaf

I I3

IIII

I

j.:

An animated white-haired womanwith eves as blG-ffiThE-sea, Mrs.Restaillhow@ of her hus-band and her garbed in biack-leatheroutfits, sitting confidently astridetheirmotorcycles - ayoung, vibrantcouple, certain of their dreams. Shethen handed me an album that hereldest son had made of their quest forthe elusive treasure on Oak Island.It had a frontispiece that he hadsketched in white ink, showingMcGinnis's vision of a pirate lower-ing a treasure chest from the branchof the red oak. Inside were colourand black-and-white snapshots: theirhome, the pit, her smiling family sit-

ting on a fence, Mrs. Restall walkingon the beach, the manY shafts, herhusband pointing to stone markers,the strange stone triangle. Today, themarkers are in museums, and the tri-angle has vanished.

"Oh, everything was there then.The triangle was there and the 35-

and 75-foot pits. Between tides, withthe pumps going, You could walk in

the tunnels from the Money Pit to the

Cave-In Pit. But Dunfield destroyedeverything; he bulldozed it all into

the sea."She turned the Pages slowlY, rem-

iniscing: "lt was the prettiest island inthe world before Dunfield tore it up'But hardly a daY went bY when Ididn't wish I could get off it. I neverimagined it would haPPen the waY itdid.-And, of course, I have a real bit-terness about it. i wish we'd neverheard of Oak Island; now I wish itwould just go awqy. But I sfi/1 wantto know what's there, whY it wasmade, who did it. I don't care ifthere's a treasure there or not - justif they could solve the mYsterY, bedone with it. That at least would jus-tify Bob's faith in what he was doing."

here is something about OakIsland - its mazes of under'

ground tunnels, indecipherable stonemarkers and messages, mYsteriouscoconut fibres and elaborate shaft -

that bewitches PeoPle. It seems tostrike some deep, universal chord,Over the years, hundreds of PeoPlehave succumbed to the legend's lureas quickly and as stronglY as didRobert Restall.

During the 1950s, an 80-Year-oldretired salcsman living at the YMcA inGreat Falls, Montana, sent urgentletters to Chappell explaining that notonlv did he know what was buried

on the island, but he also had blue-prints of the treasure chambers. He.ilaimed that beneath the island layan inverted duplicate of the GreatPyramid of Egypt, which housedfabulous religious secrets that wouldsave the world from destruction. Thesalesman worked on his theoriesabout Oak Island until his death inMontana in 1960.

A retired sailor from San Diego,California, sent Reginald V. HarrisIengthy epistles explaining the pre-cise meaning of the stone triangle in

terms of the changing relationshipbetween true north and magneticnorth over the past 300 Years.

Another person wrote to saY thathe saw in a dream that the under-ground tunnels were laid out in thepattern of the nine nails of the Cruci-fixion.

Since 1968, an ex-machinist fromChicago has devoted his life to un-tangling a myriad of codes that heclaims pertain to the island. Using thestone triangle, inscribed symbois andsupposed pirate maps, he has created

Ne$IAIptne MeadowsThe Class-ic Design ExPanded.

A million tents ago,Eureka! created theworld's first self:sup-porting backpack tent.N o w , t h e A l p i n eMeadows expandson the classic design

design 's abi l i ty towithstand strongwindis almost legendarythe Alpine Meadowsexhibits even greaters t a b i l i t y . A i p i n eMeadows is a spa-

with dramatic results! A large-diameter center hoop increasesheadroom and volume for a sPa-cious feeling unexPected in sucha light tent. And, while the original

cious new tent whose mqior com-ponents and design features havealready been proved more thanthose of any other brand you couldchoose. Eureka! Tent

Eurcl<a!

r.!!*sl..: i- i-;r]::. ' :-.?],].] '6"?ry,.. jYj:1*".:..-..|::.-7y': '

seven separate maps of undergroundtreasure caches and embroideredeach map in vivid colours on sevenbed sheets.

Letters arrive for the current trea-sure seekers from all over the world- England, Japan, Spain, Bulgaria,Holland - each giving specific direc- It ions on how to find the treasure. In

'

1965, P.J. Mallon read an account ofOak Island in a newspaper in Belfast,Ireland, and immediately Penned aletter announcing that he had uncov-ered "vital information" about themystery. A part-time ornithologistand archaeologist, Mallon explainedthat he had studied both irish andEgyptian drainage systems and knewthat they were identical to those onOak Island. By deciphering the stonetriangle, he was certain that he couldlocate the three traps which floodedthe oit. Mallon arrived on the islandrn 1b72, saying that he would stakehis "life on being able to find thesetraps." He was escorted off the islandby police but returned undaunted in1980. Blankenship still ignored hisadvice, and Mallon finally left - butonly after swearing to the local pressthat he alone knew the solution.

In the little cluster of farming andfishing villages that surround OakIsland, the townspeoPle have theirown ideas about the mYsterY. ManYjust laugh and smile, not wanting tobe viewed as treasure-mad kooks.But behind the laughter and smirks,there is usually a story - someonethey knew who worked for one of thetreasure-hunting operations, an uncleor grandfather or long-lost friend.

t the Oak Island Inn, a wait-ress confided to me in hushed

' , i .

"J i : , i

tones that her grandmother knew aman who was very poor. He movedto an Oak Island farm and was notseen for a long while' Then one daY,he appeared in town dressed in toPhat,

-black coat and tails, sporting a

fancy eold watch. He now had moneYfor evErytfting, as well as a chest thathe always kept locked. He moved toher grandmother's rooming, hou-se,and it took four women to lug thatchest upstairs. Everyone naturallyassumed that he had found the trea-sure. One day, a strange ship droppedanchor in Mahone Bay.It set sail thatnight, apparentlY bearing awaY themin and his chest because he wasnever seen again' This is the most

nTi:I !: i f"r6:' i '1"1 f? - ' :r l:

A NO-HOLDS-BARRED REBUTIAL TO CREATIONISM

IN THE BEGINNING...A Scientist Shows Why the

Dr. Christopher McGowan

In this important contribution to the Creationversus Evolution debate, Dr. McGowan. arespected Canadian zoologist, meets the

Creationists head on. This movement disputes

the validity of evolution and supports a literal.

biblical interpretation of the origin of life on

earth. Using non-technical language and

numerous illustrations, the author systematically

demolishes the non-scientific arguments of the

Creationists with a wealth of documentaryevidence from the fossil record. As a defenseagainst the Creationist threat tointellectual freedom and scientifictruth, this controversial book will

attract a wide varietY ofreaders.

$18.95 c lothAvailable at bookstores

across Canada

M mu.rnillan of Canada

hidden cornersof the worldin comfortwith Maupintour.

ExoticPlaces!HIGH OUALITY. Escorted tours thatinc lude in -depth s igh tsee ing , bes tho te ls , most mea ls . en ter ta inment .l im i ted s ize . Comprehens ive , persona l ,t ime fo r your own adventures . Maup in-tour p lann ing assures you the bes t .Jo in us fo r an unexce l led exper ience!

CHINA/ORIENT. lntr iguing ! Mysterious !Shangha i , Suzhou, Be i j ing in Ch ina .Tokyo, Kyoto in Japan. Hong Kong,S ingapore . A la car te d in ing . 24 days .

GRAND ORIENT. A la car te d in ino andunhurried stays in the best pl ices.Tokyo, Kyoto, Manila, Taipei, Singa-pore , Bangkok , Hong Kong.24 days .

GRAND JAPAN. The "bu l le t t ra in " . ln -land Sea cruise. Tokyo, Kyoto, Hakone,Kobe, Beppu, H i rosh ima. 17 days .

GRAND PACIFIC CIRCLE. Deluxe. A lacarte dining. Time to absorb Tokyo, Tai-pe i , Hong Kong, Bangkok , S ingapore ,Sydney, Auckland, Fi j i ls les. 28 days.

SOUTH PACIFIC. 4 days in Tahit i , thenf ly to Austral ia for the cit ies and a 3-dayOutback adventure. New Zealand gla-c ie r f l i gh tsee ing . F i j i . 28 days .

AUSTRALIA. In-depth ! 4 days in Sydney,3 in the Outback. Melbourne, Canberra.The continent by rai l to Perth. 17 days.

NEW ZEALAND. Land of the Long WhiteCloud. Nor th l s land 's Auck land. Ro-to rua . South ls land 's Wanaka. Mi l fo rdSound, g lac ie r f l i gh tsee ing . 15 days .

MOROCCAN TREASURES. Peoo le andolaces out ol Arabian Niohts. ' Marra-kech, Casablanca, Rabat, Tangier, Fes,Meknes, kasbah country. 15 days.

ALEXANDER'S GREECE. Retrace Alex-ander's steps in northern Greece, cruisethe Aegean, A thens , Mt . O lympus,Ephesus in Turkey. 16 days.

GRAND lNDlA. The peop le , h is to ry , a r t ,culture. Bombay to Calcutta, Madras toDelhi. Mt. Everest f l ightseeing, TajMaha l by moon l igh t . 29 days .

Explore the

HIMALAYAN HIGHLIGHTS. Nor thernInd ia p lus Nepa l . Ta j Maha l by moon.l igh t . Kashmi r houseboats . 19 days .

INDIA HIGHLIGHTS. De lh i , Ca lcu t ta ,Varanas i , Ta j Maha l , Ja ipur , Uda ipur ,f l igh tsee Mt . Everes t . 17 days .

KENYA. For w i ld l i fe en thus ias ts andbirdwatchers. 7 famous game reserves,na t iona l parks . F l igh tse6 ing . 19 days .

'

EAST AFRICA. The best in game view-11g. Tanzania's Serengeti , NgorongoroCrater. Kenya's Treetops, Safari dlub,Samburu , Masa i Mara .21 days .

SOUTHERN AFRICA. Johannesburg ,Q.ape Town, Blue Train, Kruger Park,Z imbabwe 's V ic to r ia Fa l i s . 21 days .

MIDDLE EAST. 7 tours inc lud ino Eovot .Ni lecruise from Aswan to Caird, ts-rh'et,Jordan. Comprehensive. 14 to 22days.ICELAND/NORTH CAPE. Land of theMidn igh t Sun. Water fa l l s , geysers , vo l -canoes, lunar landscapes. Cru ise 300mi les nor th o f the Arc t i c C i rc le . 17 days .

SEND COUPON to Maupintour for bro-chures checked or ask yourTravel Agent.D China/Orient D SouthPacif ic tr AfricaD Morocco tr India/Nepal fl ScandinaviaD Egypt/MiddleEast tr Europe D GreeceD lceland D Australia/NewZealand

*[VI"p,[lnl[lf""o,!lrP.O. Box B0Z Lawrence, Kansas 66044.Telephone tol l-f ree 800-255-4266.

city

state/zip

s.@

v

popular local theory, but it is not theonly one.

Psurz *ear the end of a f inger ofIand known as First Penin-

sula l ies the tiny town'of Pentz. It isa good 20 miles from Oak Island, butEarl Pentz, a descendant of the town'sfounder, claims that the island euardshis family's secrets. A portly 6an inhis 50s, who shares his ancestralhome with his mother, Pentz has abushy grey beard and meticulousmanners. He is a painter, splashingcanvases with colourful, somewhatcrude renderings of the Nova Scotiacoastl ine. But during the last 10years, his painting has been sup-planted by fervid efforts to explain afamily legend about a great-greatuncle who lost his i i fe when he fellinto a pit on Oak Island. Peering overhis half-glasses, Pentz riffled throughfat f i ies containing correspondencewith genealogy experts in Denmarkand historians in England and Amer-ica, as well as copies of elaboratefamilial hierarchiei. He flashed eachdocumented piece of evidence andhurriedly related an incredible talelinking royal intrigue, the Africanslave trade and the lost manuscriptsof the Danish Countess of Ulfeldi toOak Island. The slaves, he says, wereforced to build the chambers on theisland and were kept there unti l theywere shipped south. Later, his great-great uncie stored three chests con-taining the countess's manuscripts inthe underground rooms but diedtrying to retrieve them. Pentz hopesto publish a book about his theory

On Second Peninsula, 7S-yearDavid Stevens - awooden-schoonerbuilder who enjoys an internationalreputation - shook his head at themention of Oak Island. "I met a manthere in the 1930s. He had a pickaxe,and he told me he'd invested all hislife savings to find the treasure. Hewas digging, and he looked a l itt leworried." Stevens paused a momentand then said sadly, "How many peo-ple have been bilked of their moneyfor that treasure in my grandpa'sdays, my daddy's days and in myown days? I think of Oak Island, andI think of that poor old man with hisp ick. I know he d ied a pauper."

ike the Restalls before them,Blankenshio and his wife live

on the island. Blankenship is aided in

his treasure hunt by Dan Henskee,_a40-vear-old recluse who liGi]fi'Efre

+A-+#Fr--fof Tl63I-all's old cabins. These threeare the island's only year-round in-habitants, and they rarely visit themainland. Few of the locals knowthem, and when Blankenship is men-tioned, they smile and shake theirheads: "Oh, is he getting ready to digagain?"

A pall of paranoia hangs overBlankenship's treasure-hunting oper-ation, and it begins with the foldedcorner of a Iace curtain. During thesummer, Mrs. Blankenship tends themuseum, playing solitaire at a smalltable, l istening to radio soap operasand waiting for the tourists to arrive.But she also watches for unwantedcharacters, the curious people whoarrive with their strange theories, thesuspicious ones who might returnlate at night and slip away with thetreasure. The lace curtain is tacked tothe front window of the museum,and Mrs. Blankenship keeps one cor-ner artfully pulled back. From here,she can spy on anyone coming acrossthe causeway. Behind the lace cur-tain, she keeps a lonely, vigilantwatch.

lTfie Money Pit itself is guarded byf llengbee, who provides much of the$ technical support for the search andf who is reluctant to say anythingJ without Blankenship's approval.I Blankenship is equally coy, warily

skirting every question. But he didgive me a tour of the island and ex-nlained his current efforts at Bore-hole 10-X. This is the pit where hesaw the hand, the pit where his lifenearly ended. "People always ask me

V how I knew to dig here. Wel l , I can' t/ \ tel l them. I t just fel t r ight, somehow,

that's all."The ground surrounding the pit is

iittered with work equipment - oldrusted pipes and drums, cables, blackhoses, a cement mixer, tin buckets,the crumpled casing from the shaft.Weeds and tal l , pale clumps ofQueen Anne's lace poke up through#-the rust and metal, and water dripssteadily into the shaft. Borehole 10-Xnow seems little more than a wearyand worn dream gone bust.

Still, Blankenship persists in hissearch and is now lining the shaftwith a metal casing and a one-footwall of cement. Shoring up the wallsis a long, arduous process - it takesthree days to go down two feet - butBlankenship is slowly reaching bed"rock again. "It's down now over 100

feet. Just how far down, I'm not say-ing. I 'm probably the only one whothinks the treasure's all the waydown in the bedrock."

Blankenship continues in his ef-forts to reach the treasure because,he said, giving a determined smile: "Inever failed at anything before in mylife. This is a challenge. I've acceptedit. I've got to finish it. Of course, thereare times when I wish I'd never heardof Oak Island. If I 'd had any idea itwas going to take this much of mylife, that I 'd be l ike the rest of thosewho'd gotten involved before me, I'dnever have taken it on. No way. Noway. But it gets hold of you. You lookat the pieces, try to guess their logic,

have buried the treasure. But he hasfielded such questions a hundredtimes before and makes a game of it,dropping bits and pieces of clues asif the mystery were mine to unravel.He told me of an analysis of poilengrains that were found in the p i t : " l tshows that the pit had to have hap-pened before the 1600s. Now whomight have been around here then?"

"The Spanish?" I ventured."Right. And didn't they have some-

thing to hide? They had all that trea-sure to transport to Spain. Now whatif there were a storm or they wereblown off course? What would theydo? They'd store the treasure, that'swhat they'd do."

He paused, then asked, "What doyou make of that l i tt le pile of cementand metal in the museum?"

He had lost me, and I shrugged."I keep wondering about that and

wondering about that," he said. "It 'sjust a handful of material, but youlook at it closely and you'l l see it 's l i t-t le bits of metal f lattened over thecement. And that metal was unoxi-dized when we brought it up. Nowwhat do you make of that?"

"Maybe you should tell me . . . ""Well, obviously, whoever sealed

the vault or chamber took a Iot of pre-cautions. They had something veryvaluable to protect, and they didn'twant water or air leaking in."

He took a deep breath, shoved hishands in his pockets and leanedclose, conspiratorially: "You sawthose stakes over there in Fred

, 4 -Nolan's museum? Now Fred lwhoowns half of Oak Islandl and I don'tsee eye to eye on a lo t of th ings. ButI think he's got somethin' in thosestakes. Go ask him about them. Seewhat he has to say. He never shouli lhave moved those stakes; it waswrong of him to do that, and some-day I'm going to have to go to warwith him about that. But I don't thinkhe's ever taiked to anybody aboutthem before either. Go ask Fredabout his stakes."

f[ lankenship believes that manyIJ of his problems in solving themystery of Oak Island stem fromvital pieces of the puzzle that aremissing. What Dunfield bulldozedinto the sea continues to bother him.He is also convinced that Mrs. Restallis withholding some of tire charts her ,'husband drew of the underground itunnels. And he know$ for a fact that '

'nVhoever sealed

precautions. Theyhad sornething

verv valuable to

the charnbertook a lot of

protect . . :'

and there seems to be a pattern toeverything. You think you havesolved it. And then it turns out to bewrong. Wrong again."

Blankenshin has combed the islandfor every poisible clue and investi-gated countless theories. He has alsoread every piece of material evenvaguely connected with the island,called on geologists and psychics tolocate tunnels and even participatedonce in a type of sdance. "That wasa ioke - another waste of t ime," hesalo.

But the psvchics stil lfascinate him., , , -l1e alluoeo to tnem more tnan once.

Blankenshio is fuil of such intima-tions, suggestions, hints and clues.He cloaks himself in mystery, winksand grins and hints at incredible dis-coveries that he has made on theisland but is not free to divulee, Hereis a man who believes that he was

-iilu"Eieritable maze of man-made

tunnels leads to several treasurecaches.

One afternoon, as we stood outsidehis museum, I tried once more to pinBlankenship down on who rniglrt

.-t :$ $1gf{ffilqflffilfqSrytrr fl-&.Tf$trSq-?-iry qe$$r:'}.:4 " ; "'

foe and rivalrr8

he grinned in agreement. It was ahalf -embarrassed, mischievous grin,as if he had been caught short in agame of bluff poker. "Well, I guessDan blew the whistle on us - andI'm only telling you about it becauseI want it told right."

Nolan's name is not readily associ'ated with Oak Island because he isnot a permanent resident; yet he doeshave a summer home there and ownsthe point where the causeway tethersthe island to the mainland. Here, inhis own Oak Island museum, he dis-plays artifacts he has found. ButNolan's real business is land survey-ing, not treasure hunting, and hishome is well away from the island inthe town of Bedford, Nova Scotia, acomfortable suburb just outside ofHalifax. Perhaps it is this distancethat gives his theories about the is-land a plausible ring, perhaps it is justhis friendly low-key manner. Adark'haired man in his 50s, Nolan

__."'T'+ 'h -.* -.,a .*-7-"?

stretched tlacK ln a grey overstutteclchair and told his story while his wifeserved tea and cookies. A clockticked steadily in the dining room,

and foghorns sounded in the harbourbelow. The sorrows of Oak Islandseemed very far away.

Like most people in Nova Scotia,Nolan heard about the mystery as achild. When he acquired a heavydrilling rig for his own business, heoffered the use of it to Chappell, whothen owned the treasure-huntingrights. But Chappell was not inter-ested.

"Chappell came across as beinghonest and straightforward, but hewas also sort of a fox, clever andshrewd," said Nolan. "And he onlywanted to work with people from faraway, like Oklahoma and England.The farther away they were, themore he seemed to like them. So I gota little suspicious after a while andwent to the registry offices in Halifaxand looked up the Crown Land rec-ords. And I couldn't believe it. Therewas a hole in his title; it stood out likea sore thumb, it was so obvious. Itwas hard to believe too, because itwas right inthe middle of the island."

Nolan located the owner of thisland and purchased the rights to it."Then Chappell and I really lockedhorns," he said with a laugh. Over thqyears, a feud developed between the

two, a feud that was passed on to Tri-ton Alliance and to Blankenship.There have been toe-to-toe arqu-ments, court cai{s {seliiedinNffit

.T -*rr*. ; i .="-- f ;#

tavour), tisticuffs and once, rumour'}raS it, dtu*n gr.i.,d.Itutiilf uffii-*- . - . ; " - i -* : . *+*. f€ter now, but Blankenship still insiststhat Nolan does not own any piece ofthe island and that anything Nolanuncovers legally belongs to Triton.

Nolan has discovered some verystrange clues - most significantly,60 old sDruce stakes. He keeos them

nffittffi"ffiffiT'€iilin one corner ofhis museum. The stakes are two ando ne -h alf 1 9 1.fu :pljiEfi i-=ffi,[", a56 gff6frr in'ches in diameter at the too andFr ri:f-f'!d.ry'--r,,,rhittled

down to a narrow two-inch

fe'g. HeJoui.i'ihffi pounded de?p-iilo? swampy aFea-on his part of the

r a - . a l , t d

islanff*"It took us three years to find them

all," he said.'They were that cleverlyhidden. They were hammered almostall the way into the ground, so thatjust the little round circles of the topwere showing. As I found each one,I marked its location on a chart of theisland. If you line these points up,they intersect in some curious ways."Nolan gave another grin but wouldsav no more. "Dan's upset because I

t

found them - he didn't - and hedoesn't have my charts. I keep thenlin a bank vault-." f *t lg*ex\-*\%Tafi:ilmii6d

otito the first stakeby aligning what he calls "two key'rock

markers" on the island. Theseproduced a l ine across the swamp,and he traced it carefully, probing theground every two inches with a steelrod. He turned up the stakes along

l".! this l ine. The stakes were carbonf dated to iust before the 1700s, "noi

O F " , * - - - . . _ " , . i > F . . . . r . ; . . i r - . .

too many years Delore tne lvloney rrtwas built," he said. "Blankenship willtell you that they're older, but they'renot. He wants them to date back tobefore 1600 because he thinks theSpanish built the pit. He has thatfirmly set in his mind."

' - Nolan's theory is based on the 1762' - ^ T . . ' f . , , "

' - , i . ' e : - \

bnusn atracK on r lSvj?n?bneglnnlngin 1511, Havana was used as a Span-ish st ronghold, and f leets of gal leons

', laden with gold and silver treasuresassembled in its harbour before sail-ing across the Atlantic. Then the Brit-ish naval force captured the city anddiverted this wealth and mill ions ofdollars in gold ransom monies fromHavana's nobility to Britain's coffers.But Nolan thinks that some of thetreasure was secretly shipped north

to Nova Scotia and stored on Oal<Island in the Money Pit and in severalother caches. "There are some otherthings tied in," he added. "Havana isnot the total picture. We've done a iotof research and have people in Spainchecking on things for us."

The stakes are not all that he hasfound. At some of the intersectingpoints on his chart, he has uncoveredholes "shaped in size to hold a chest."He thinks that some of the treasurehas been removed, but not all of it,and that a goodly portion still re-mains in the swamp.

"That entire swamp is man-made,just l ike the beach at Smith's Cove. Idon't know why yet, but with time,I think I wil l. It 's a continual thing.With any mystery, whatever it is, ifyou have the knowledge to unlock it,you wil l. That's the key to Oak Island- knowledge. I doubt if I'll ever solveit by myself; it wii l take a great num-ber of people to come up with thefinal answer. Peopie and coopera-tion - and we're a little short on thatright now." He laughed softly.

Two years ago, Nolan and Blank-enship tried working together, butthe old differences, the bitter feel-ings, were sti l l there, and they went

their separate ways. Nolan gave asheepish gr in as he recal led buvins

x-i.*; -'_?A-'ran ls lano nex t to uaK ls land anc l

d Y . r F ' { ' w T # + r ? * : m f f i-"i ir ivingDan Crazy" with his surveysthere. Now they are politely cordialwhenever they see each other butcarefuliy keep their distance. Nolantalked about wrongs committed onboth sides {"We blocked them andthey blocked us, but what did any-body gain? We all just got older") andabout the tragedy of the Restalls:

"One word accounts for all the sor-row, feuds and unhappiness of OakIsland: greed. Whoever owns that pitwants it all. The island has beennotorious for this for hundreds ofyears. Chappell always wanted 90per cent of whatever was found, hispredecessor 80 per cent. But thething of it is, you have to try to berational. That's the hardest part - it'sso easy to lose perspective becausethe place is l ike a magnet, the way itdraws and keeps you. But if any of usfound anything there, what wouldwe do? I mean what do vou reallvf ind? Is i t t rouble for the rest of yourlife, or is it the end of the rainbow?Do you dare to actually open the trea-sure box?" He turned his hands paimsun and shook his head. I

I I 9

?p" i