Nova Scotia's Oak Island said to be repository for millions in silver and gold left by Spaniards in mid-16th century
By Harold Merton
A dedicated treasure hunter believes he has solved the mystery of buried treasure on Oak Island, a 32 hectare island near Halifax, Nova Scotia.
dollars in silver and gold left behind by marauding Spaniards in the
mid-16th century. He has spent the last 38 years searching the island and only recently has said in an interview "I've never spoken publicly before because I did not want to have put this much work into the project and then end up being wrong!"
"I have been able to confirm all my suspicions and now I can say
definitively who did it, how they did it and where they did it".
He was 42 when he gave up a Miami-based contracting business and brought his family to the province's South Shore so he could work on the mystery that has eluded searchers for more than 165 years.
The stories about Oak Island are well known around the world.
It is said that three boys from the area came across a depression in the
ground near an old tree when they were out exploring in1795. They dug in the ground in hopes of finding treasure but hit a wooden platform several feet below the surface.
They lifted the platform and continued to dig only to find another
platform several feet below the first.Later efforts by a variety of searchers
(reportedly including John Wayne and U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt),
turned up items like parchment, coconut husks and bits of chain from the
site that was dubbed "the money pit".
All were apparently defeated in their search efforts by an intricate
system of what appears to be flood tunnels designed to protect whatever
it was at the bottom of the pit.
Mr. Blankenship (now 80 years old) who almost died in 1971 when a steel
reinforced shaft buckled nearly trapping him more than 45 meters below
the
surface, has not yet recovered anything of value but now feels that a
fortune in treasure could be brought to the surface in less than a year.
When he began his search as a director of field work for a
treasure-hunting syndicate headed by a Montreal businessman, Blankenship
concentrated his search at the famous money pit site but his interest
in other parts of the island grew over the years. He says he has long
suspected that there were tunnels deep beneath the ground on the island
but had no proof until he found evidence of three, metre-wide holes he
thinks were once used as air shafts for the tunnels.
He now dismisses the money pit location as an elaborate decoy and feels
the bulk of the treasure is located in a series of tunnels running deep
beneath one end of the island. Blankenship found the location of the shafts
based on measurements taken from the positions of a series of strangely
shaped multi-ton stones that were first discovered by treasure-hunter
Fred Nolan of Bedford, Nova Scotia.
These rocks formed the shape of a large cross that Mr. Blankenship believes
is the key to the mystery. A discovery in 2003 by a Norwegian exploration
party also revealed stone icons, further supporting Mr. Blankenship's
theories. His major problem is that he does not possess a treasure trove
licence giving him the legal right to pursue his search.
All exploration in Nova Scotia requires a licence from the province and
all licences for searches in the area expired in July of 2003, said a
spokesman for the province's registrar of mineral and petroleum titles.
Under the Treasure Trove Act the province is entitled to 10% of the find
or the equivalent value in cash.
Three other individuals have also applied to the government for the
special five-year permits to allow them to search for treasure that may
have been there for hundreds of years. The final result may be very rewarding
in several ways.
Photos courtesy Nova Scotia Travel