In this video, we’re going to take a look at the developments that took place in Season
7, Episode 18 of ‘The Curse of Oak Island’. But before we do, I’d like give a shout-out
to my friend Justin, who runs the YouTube channel ‘Mountain Beast Mysteries’. Over
the past year and a half, ‘Mountain Beast Mysteries’ has produced three videos on
the wildman legends of Northern Canada which feature in the last third of my book ‘Legends
of the Nahanni Valley’. The channel’s latest video is on the legend of the Nuk-luk,
which some of you may remember from my documentary ‘Interview with a Cryptid Hunter’. If
you’d like to watch this video, please check out the link in the description.
Much of Season 7, Episode 18 of ‘The Curse of Oak Island’ takes place in the Oak Island
swamp, where the stones which make up the Paved Wharf, and which lie beneath the Eye
of the Swamp, are fully exposed. Near the beginning of the episode, we learn that the
lower sections of the vibracore samples which Dr. Ian Spooner and his graduate students
extracted from the Eye of the Swamp in Season 7, Episode 9, contain high concentrations
of mercury and lead, which Spooner takes as an indication of human activity. In a later
interview, Rick Lagina remarks that the presence of mercury in the swamp evokes Petter Amundsen’s
theory that Francis Bacon is the man behind the Oak Island mystery, and that the lost
manuscripts of William Shakespeare, written in Bacon’s hand and preserved in mercury,
lie buried beneath Oak Island. Although the show fails to mention it, Spooner’s disclosure
also brings to mind the lump of scrap lead which Gray Drayton discovered in Season 7,
Episode 16, on the beach of Oak Island’s Lot 18, which Dr. Chris McFarlane, in the
previous episode, revealed contains a significant quantity of mercury.
In this episode, the Oak Island team invites archaeologist Aaron Taylor to the island.
Taylor is a colleague of Dr. Spooner’s who teaches archaeology at St. Mary’s University
in Halifax, Nova Scotia. At the team’s request, Taylor examines some of the exposed stones
in the swamp and opines that they were not deposited by glaciers. When pressed by Marty
Lagina, he admits that he believes the stones were placed by man.
Following Aaron Taylor’s preliminary analysis, Dr. Spooner proffers his own theory that the
Eye of the Swamp constitutes the remains of a 300-year-old clay mine, considering the
significant quantities of blue clay which Jack Begley discovered at the site in Season
7, Episode 16. Taylor concurs with his theory and elaborates on it by suggesting that, if
the Eye of the Swamp is indeed the site of a clay mine, the Paved Wharf might have served
as a roadway by which clay could be transported from the mine to the beach, where it could
be loaded onto ships. Dr. Spooner is not the first to hypothesize
that Oak Island was once the site of a clay mine. Back in Season 3, Episode 6, miner John
O’Brien outlined his own theory that pre-Conquista Mayans discovered palygorskite clay on Oak
Island in around 800 A.D. Palygorskite is a rare type of clay arguably most famous for
being a key constituent of Maya blue, a bright blue pigment used by members of the Maya civilization.
Essentially a mixture of palygorskite and indigo dye, Maya blue was employed as a colorant
in ceramics, murals, sculptures, and illuminated codices, and was used to paint sacrificial
human victims during Mayan rituals. Mysteriously, palygorkite clay is not known to exist in
any substantial natural deposits in Mesoamerica. John O’Brien, who outlines his theory in
greater detail in his book ‘Oak Island Unearthed’, believes that the “blue clay” discovered
at depth on Oak Island over the years is, in fact, a rare form of naturally blue palygorskite
clay. He maintains that this substance, having a natural blue pigmentation, would have been
especially valuable to the Maya. O’Brien contents that Maya miners sank shafts on and
dug tunnels beneath Oak Island throughout the Middle Ages in search of this material.
He also believes that, during the Conquista of Hernan Cortes, members of the dying Aztec
Empire secreted their most valuable treasures out of Mexico and entombed them on Oak Island,
in the old Mayan mine shafts. I will describe this Mesoamerican theory of Oak Island in
greater detail in another video. Later in the episode, the treasure hunters
dig trenches around the known perimeter of the Paved Wharf in an effort to better define
the extent of the structure. The treasure hunters observe a rapid influx of water into
one of the trenches they dig and speculate as to the water’s sources, of which there
appear to be two. Jack Begley notes that some of the water appears to be issuing from a
cluster of rocks, which he suggests might be part of the Paved Area. The crew members
are soon joined by Craig Tester, who observes that some of the water appears to be flowing
into the trench from the direction of the beach, and suggests that they ought to try
to take samples of each apparent water source in order to determine whether they are fresh
or salty. Billy Gerhardt extracts some of the water with the bucket of his excavator,
the runoff from which Rick Lagina collects in a bottle and tastes. Rick declares that
the water tastes brackish- an indication that one of the water sources might be Smith’s
Cove. Near the end of the episode, Charles Barkhouse,
Doug Crowell, and Laird Niven meet with GPR experts Steve Watson and Don Johnston at Oak
Island’s Lot 25, where Samuel Ball’s home once stood. The narrator informs us that,
although the foundation of Ball’s cabin is a protected heritage site, and that treasure
hunters are precluded from excavating within 200 feet of the ruins, Laird Niven has secured
a special permit to allow Watson and Johnston to conduct a GPR scan of the area. The GPR
experts carry out this operation under Laird’s direction and discover two anomalies near
the foundations, one of which appears to be the remains of a buried wall and the other
lying 1.5 feet below the surface. When the GPR experts complete their survey, Laird Niven
states that he thinks they now have sufficient data to apply for an excavation permit from
the Nova Scotian government. At the very beginning of the episode, the
Lagina brothers and Dave Blankenship stand by as Irving Equipment Ltd. and ROC Equipment
deliver 8-foot-wide caissons, an oscillator, and a crane to Oak Island. The trio meets
with Vanessa Lucido, Jared Busby and Danny Smith, who inform them that they have brought
210 feet of caisson to Oak Island, and will be able to sink 202-foot-deep shafts. Throughout
the episode, the ROC Equipment crew prepares to sink a massive caisson in the Money Pit
area at a site dubbed ‘OC1’. While the oscillator is moved into position, Lucido
remarks that this custom-built piece of machinery weighs 110,000 pounds- nearly double the mass
of the oscillator used in prior seasons, which weighed 64,000 pounds. At the very end of
the episode, Rick Lagina, Dave Blankenship, and Dan Henskee drive to the Money Pit area,
where they find the oscillator in place and the rest of the crew in attendance. The treasure
hunters stand by while Dave and Dan start up the oscillator, initiating the sinking
of caisson OC1. Thanks for watching! If you enjoyed this video,
please click the ‘thumbs up’ button below. And if you’re interested, don’t forget
to check out Mountain Beast Mysteries’ video on the legend of the Nuk-luk, which you can
find by clicking the link in the description.