Oak Island Treasure - the world's greatest treasure hunt - Home. Oak Island Mystery. One can only wonder what would have happened if young Daniel McGinnis had chosen to go exploring somewhere else on that fateful day in the summer of 1795. If he had, perhaps nobody else would have walked the woods on the eastern end of Oak Island for the next ten years. In that time, the clearing McGinnis found might have been reclaimed completely by the woods. In a forest, the thirteen foot-wide depression in the ground might never have been noticed. Thick, leafy branches might have obscured the old tackle block hanging from a branch directly over the pit. Without these markers, there would have been nothing to indicate that this was the work of man. But McGinnis did see the clearing and the depression and the tackle block. Undoubtedly, the three must have thought they were on the verge of discovering the treasure of Captain William Kidd.
The island McGinnis, Smith and Vaughan were on was one of 300 small isles in the Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada. Nineteenth Century Excavations. Treasure: Oak Island. Imagine yourself walking through the trees of a wooded island rumored to hide buried pirate treasure.
Suddenly you come across a depression in the ground. It's roughly circular and there's a tree standing above it with a branch that has been cut and appears to have been used as a pulley. Your imagination is fired and hope soars. You run off to get your friends and digging equipment. You and two friends return the next day, shovels in hand, ready to claim your prize. You begin again. Ten more feet and still nothing. Now you know there's something valuable here.
Now 20 feet below the surface you heave to again. Disappointed, you and your friends decide that you can't go any further alone. Now imagine that it's more than 200 years later. Oak Island. Oak Island is a 57-hectare (140-acre) island in Lunenburg County on the south shore of Nova Scotia, Canada.
The tree-covered island is one of about 360 small islands in Mahone Bay and rises to a maximum of 11 meters (36 feet) above sea level. Located 200 meters (660 feet) from shore and connected to the mainland by a modern causeway, the island is privately owned. Oak Island is noted as the location of the so-called Money Pit and the site of over 200 years of treasure hunting.[1] Repeated excavations have reported layers of apparently man-made artifacts as deep as 31 metres (102 ft), but ended in collapsed excavations and flooding.
Critics argue that there is no treasure and that the pit is a natural phenomenon, likely a sinkhole.[2] The history of the island and the ongoing search for treasure are the subject of the reality television program The Curse of Oak Island, which premiered on the History Channel on January 5, 2014.[3] History of the Money Pit[edit] Early accounts[edit] [edit]