Oak Island - The Solution?

What ever happened to the search for the Money Pit? Wasn’t that the whole point of the show? To find the treasure that was supposed to be hidden at the bottom of the pit? Now we have them mucking about in the swamp (pun intended) trying to prove that it was manmade and that there is some sort of ship buried in the mud there.

Yes, we know that Smith’s Cove probably was created artificially and that the structures uncovered had nothing to do with the alleged flood system built to

The Money Pit, decades ago.

protect the treasure. Clearly this was a repair facility constructed in a location that was convenient in the New World. In the eighteenth century there just wasn’t the infrastructure that was needed. By the time the boys got to Oak Island in 1795 and invented the tale of a Money Pit, the east coast of the United States and Canada had built the port facilities that made Oak Island obsolete and unimportant. It was abandoned for the better facilities in a less hostile environment that sailors who’d spent months at sea would appreciate.

Remember back in the first season when they were looking for the original Money Pit? Remember Borehole 10X which supposedly revealed a long dead body, a tool or two, and a box that might hold some of the treasure? We saw, repeatedly, a video that seemed to show these things, but then a diver managed to get to the bottom of the Borehole and found… nothing. Some debris that had fallen into it from the surface, but nothing to indicate any sort of treasure. We aren’t treated to those videos any more because the dive had given us the answers about what was at the bottom of the borehole.

They continued their search to find the original Money Pit, even with the distractions of a Roman sword found in the ocean near the island that turned out to be a modern replica, the idea that the Knights Templar had somehow gotten to the New World before those in Europe knew about it so they could hide a treasure, and all the things found on the surface that suggested that people had used the island for decades before the boys began digging. But the point is that they found nothing to indicate a treasure buried deep on the island.

We keep hearing about the box drains that somehow supplied the booby traps with water that thwarted those boys when they dug too deep. But the real problem is that divers, who got down deep enough reported a current tugging at them. That indicates that the problem wasn’t a drain system, but an opening to the ocean that allowed the water in. Remember, it was reported that the depth of water in the Money Pit rose and fell with the tide. That wouldn’t have happened with a drain system created to booby trap the Money Pit.

So now we get to this season and the effort seems to be to find some sort of evidence in the swamp area. They are trying to find evidence that it is man-made. I think they have that right. The swamp is man-made. I think it worked something like a dry dock for wooden ship repair. I think the site was abandoned as better facilities farther south were built.

I have been interested in the mystery of Oak Island for fifty years. I have been interested in it since I first learned about it. I was fascinated with the story. And who isn’t captivated by a tale of pirate treasure? But we have the answer. The Laginas have done everything humanly possible to get to the bottom of the myth and I believe they have succeeded. They have proved the British were there decades before the Money Pit was “discovered.” The have found evidence of maritime activity associated with the island. They have opened up some very interesting historical avenues and, ironically, they have shown there is no treasure there.

I have followed stories of lost gold, of lost mines, of lost treasures for decades. Very few of them are true but most of them have a great historic tradition with lots of people trying to find them. But, most of them are just that. Stories. Oak Island was just one such story. We have a solid solution to it, thanks in no small part to the Laginas, but it is time to move on.