The Lunenburg Werewolf (13 page)

Mahone Bay (the body of water, not the town) reaches from New Harbour on the Aspotogan Peninsula in the west to the easternmost point of East Point Island. They say that there is an island in Mahone Bay for every day of the year. These islands come in every shape and size: there's Sheep Island, Rousse Island, Squid Island, Gifford Island, Goat Island, Spectacle Island, Big Tancook Island, Little Tancook Island, Klungemache Island, Crow Island, and many more. Some of the islands are so small that they have never been given names. Some of the islands even disappear with the ebb and the flow of the tide, like ghosts.

But if you are looking to find yourself some stories in these islands, then by far the most legendary of them all has got to be the legend of the mysterious Oak Island Money Pit.

The Beginning

The story begins in the 1600s, when legend tells us that a very old sailor lay on his deathbed and spoke of how he was part of a group of sailors that had helped the dreaded pirate Captain William Kidd bury a horde of treasure on a small island in the gut of Mahone Bay. Oak Island.

“We were told to dig until we reached the gates of hell and then to dig a little deeper,” the old sailor explained. “It took us most of the summer. Once we had finished, we sailed away. They took us to another island where they massacred us. Of them all, only I survived.”

The story sank away into the depths of legend until 1795, when Daniel McGinnis and his two young friends Anthony Vaughan and Jack Smith paddled out to Oak Island and discovered a strange hollowed depression at the foot of a large oak tree. Younger new-growth oaks sprouted up around the large oak. When the three boys looked a little closer, they were amazed to spot a strangely shaped scar on the belly of the largest overhanging oak limb.

“It looks as if something has been dragged across the bark,” Anthony said.

“It reminds me of the grooves the well-rope makes on our old well's windlass,” Jack observed. “Yes, sir, something has been roped around this oak limb for certain.”

“A horse?” Anthony asked.

“It'd have to be an awfully big horse to cut a groove like that in the bark,” Daniel pointed out. “I think something was lowered down right beneath this oak branch—like somebody was digging a well.”

“A well or a treasure pit,” said Anthony.

“All I see is dirt,” Jack said, scratching his head.

“Do you think it's a gold mine?” Anthony asked Daniel. “Buried here underneath this oak tree?”

“Maybe gold,” Daniel said. “Maybe a treasure.”

“It looks more like a dirt mine to me,” Jack pointed out.

So the three of them fetched shovels and a pickaxe and began to dig a hole that would eventually become known as the Oak Island Money Pit. Just less then a metre down into the pit, the diggers unearthed a layer of flagstone, laid out as carefully as if someone had been laying out a courtyard.

“I've never seen stone like this on the island before,” Jack said.

“Keep on digging,” Daniel ordered.

Three metres down into the Money Pit, the young men came across some oaken planks, old and stained, but laid out just as neatly as a dance floor.

“It has got to be a sign of buried treasure,” Daniel said.

The three of them pulled the boards up and were surprised to discover there was nothing underneath but more dirt.

“Keep digging,” Anthony said.

None of them needed to be told twice. Treasure fever had taken hold of them hard and fast.

Three metres further found more oak boards. They ripped these up just as quickly.

“There's no treasure here,” Anthony said. “No treasure chest either. As far as I can see there is nothing here but more dirt.”

“I knew it,” Jack said. “We've dug ourselves a dirt mine.”

“Keep on digging,” Anthony said.

So they kept on digging.

At nine metres they stopped.

“If we dig much farther, we aren't coming back unless we hit China,” Daniel said.

So they marked the spot as best they could and covered up their work with a layer of fallen branches.

Six years later, the boys came back to the island. They had been busy over those years—paying for the title to the island, forming a small company, and raising the necessary capital to fund further excavation. This time they were ready.

Six Years Later

In 1804, the boys finally resumed their digging. Every three metres brought them to another layer of oaken planks, followed by a layer of hardened putty and a layer of matted coconut fibre. Just before they reached thirty metres they found a large flat stone, nearly a metre across, with strange hieroglyphic-like engraving upon it. At the thirty-metre mark they found their tenth layer of planks.

“Another seven or eight metres,” Jack joked. “And we'll have enough planks to build us a barn to keep all this dirt in.”

“This has to be the last layer,” Anthony said. “The planks can't go any deeper than this.”

Daniel wasn't so certain.

But the boys never found out just how deep the oak planks were laid to, because the next morning when they awoke and lowered themselves down into the pit, they discovered that the pit had been flooded overnight with ten metres of pure salt water.

“I guess that puts us out of the dirt business,” Jack said. “We have gone and dug ourselves the world's deepest swimming hole.”

Only nobody laughed.

“You get any funnier,” Daniel said. “And I may just grab up a pocketful of rocks, jump in, and drown myself.”

All the boys could think of doing was to try and dig another hole. They sunk a second shaft directly beside the Money Pit. Just before the thirty-metre level they found what looked to be an impenetrable wooden box, buried in another few metres of mud.

“It has to be the treasure,” Jack swore.

“Maybe it is and maybe it isn't,” Daniel replied.

They never found out for sure. By the next morning the second tunnel had flooded up as well.

“We're beat,” Daniel said.

And beat they were.

The three boys had spent all their collective savings without anything more to show for it but a heap of ancient, weathered oaken boards and half a dozen handfuls of hardened shovel callous.

“Look at the bright side,” Anthony said. “Perhaps we can go into business, and advertise ourselves as three well-experienced well-diggers.”

Oddly enough, no one laughed.

Jack Smith Refuses to Quit

Over the years Jack Smith continued to buy up pieces of the island, and in 1805 he made another attempt to unearth the Money Pit. Only this time he wasn't digging for himself. Now he was working as a hired hand and consultant for the Onslow Company—a treasure-hunting expedition that had been professionally funded by several Nova Scotia shareholders willing to risk their investment for a chance at recovering a buried treasure.

Jack started by sinking a third shaft about four metres away from the Oak Island Money Pit. When Jack's new crew had reached a depth of thirty-three metres, they dug directly towards the Money Pit, planning to reach the wooden box where they believed the treasure was hidden. But they'd only dug about three more metres downwards before the third tunnel was likewise flooded out.

The years wore on and Jack Smith remained desperately confident that he would find his treasure. In 1849, he formed a third expedition that reopened the original Money Pit and dug even deeper with the aid of a powerful auger drill, such as was used in the mining of Cape Breton coal. The third expedition constructed a platform at the nine-metre mark of the Money Pit and drilled five separate holes, each to a depth of thirty-four metres.

At thirty metres the drill came up against what seemed to be an impenetrable wooden box. The barrier was almost two metres thick and constructed of solid spruce wood. They bored through a layer of clay, another layer of oak planks, and more coconut fibre before eventually coming up with their first real evidence of treasure: three small links from what looked to have been a gold chain or possibly an officer's gold epaulette, followed by fifty-six centimetres of solid metal.

“I knew it,” Jack said. “I knew we'd find gold here.”

They also discovered a strangely inscribed stone unlike any sort of stone that could be found in the area. In later years, the stone was examined by a Dalhousie University language professor, James Liechti. Professor Liechti used a variation of a very old and very simple substitution code and translated the inscription to read—“
FORTY FEET BELOW TWO MILLION POUNDS ARE BURIED
.”

Then it was discovered that there was a tunnel leading up to the dig site from a hitherto undiscovered man-made beach. It was this tunnel that was responsible for the flooding of all three shafts. Blocking the tunnel with clay and wooden stakes did not help at all, however. The shafts remained flooded with salt water. The water rose and receded with the tide, but it did not recede far enough to make any attempt at diving in and discovering the treasure worthwhile.