Author: Ryan Metzler
Treasures
are depicted to children as being where the “X” is on the map. However, with the Oak Island Money Pit, there
is uncertainty where that “X” is, let alone how deep it is. It is believed to be on Oak Island in Nova Scotia, Canada in a pit that has yet to be dug to the bottom.
This treasure is believed to have been the work of a pirate. Not just any pirate, but the infamous
Blackbeard the Pirate.
Blackbeard
was known for his creative ways of inflicting terror on his audience as they
stood by and watched him be one of the most feared pirates on the sea. There was points in his reign that citizens
of towns and villages would awake to "a great Terror" (Butler). Blackbeard would rob, cheat and steal to make
a buck and that’s what made him not only feared but fearless. His conniving ways to obtain his money made
people search for “the world's longest and most expensive treasure hunt and one
of the world's deepest and most costly archaeological digs” (Nickell).
Blackbeard
became feared because of the way he ruled the ocean. Blackbeard would intrude on ships and
overtake them. He would rade and capture
ships by determining “a ship's nationality first. Then they raised that
country's flag on the pirate ship so they appeared
to be friendly” (Kirkpatrick). This
reign of fear “lasted two long years. Blackbeard and his crew of pirates
terrorized sailors on the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea from 1716 through
1718. They ambushed ships carrying passengers and cargo in the dim light of
dawn and dusk when the pirates' ship was hard to see” (Kirkpatrick). This shows Blackbeard’s creative mind. I believe a person or group of people who
needed to bury the Oak Island Money Pit would have to have an imagination of
the like and a strong emotional connection to understand how people would
react.
I
personally am not sure if this treasure truly exists. What I do think exists is the greed of the
digger. These people are desiring the
most prized possessions that any man would dream of discovering. However, every prize comes with a prize and
maybe the price of this treasure is to wait out the storm of the booby trap or
maybe the lives that it has cost or the money to excavate.
The more elusive
the treasure has proved, the more speculation it has engendered. Given the
“immense amount of labor” presumably required to construct the pit and the
accompanying “flooding tunnel” that served as a “booby trap,” presumption of a
pirates' hoard has begun to be supplanted by such imagined prizes as the French
crown jewels, Shakespeare's manuscripts, the “lost treasure" of the
Knights Templar, even the Holy Grail and the imagined secrets of the “lost
continent” of Atlantis (Nickell).
There are still many things that
have yet to be discovered in this world such as jewels, manuscripts and
secrets; but maybe the keeper of the past’s greatest secrets is in this money
pit…or maybe not. People’s greed will
surely never die, so why should the legend? “Oak Island, in Nova Scotia, is
famous for its Money Pit, a mystery that has endured two centuries, claimed six
lives and swallowed up millions in life savings” (Whipps). The search has just begun.
Works
Cited:
Butler, Lindley S.
"Blackbeard's Terror." American
Heritage 61.1 (2011): 29-37. Academic
Search Premier. Web. 11 Oct. 2012.. Web.
11 Oct. 2012
Kirkpatrick, Jennifer.
“Blackbeard Pirate Terror at Sea.” National Geographic. National
Geographic,.
Web. 10 October 2012
Nickell, Joe. “The Secrets of Oak Island.” Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Center for Inquiry
Affiliate, Jun.
2012. Web. 10 October 2012.
whanethewhip.
“Oak Island Money Pit Mystery.” Video. Youtube.
Youtube, 6 Jun. 2010. Web. 18 Oct. 2012.
Whipps, Heather. “For Sale:
Island with Mysterious Money Pit.” Live Science. Live Science, 7
Nov. 2005. Web. 10 October 2012.
Links for further research:
Mysteries
of Canada
Discusses
all of the mysteries in Canada.
Youtube
This
video analyzes the Money Pit and its booby traps.
The
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration
This site looks at perhaps the most
well-known excavator of the Oak Island Money Pit, Franklin
D. Roosevelt.
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