The Curse of Oak Island—Part II

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It is pretty clear that the Knights Templar, yes the Knights Templar, visited a little island in Mahone Bay off the shores of Nova Scotia. They weren’t there just once. There is evidence of occupation and works that span at least two centuries, and evidence of further works and visitation, that continued up to the 18th century.

I’m not going to go into the nuts and bolts of everything that has been discovered on Oak Island during the course of a show that is entering it’s 12th season. What I do want to focus on is “The Curse” that gives the show it’s name, and the over arching narrative that runs through the show.

On the surface this show is about two brothers hunting for a treasure, and it appears that this is what the younger of the two brothers, Marty Lagina, wants. He’s not really a “big picture” kinda guy. He’s the guy that wants to find something cool and put it in his collection, or, better yet, sell it for a lot of money.

But what this show is turning out to be is a rewriting of the story of the European colonization of the Americas, and at the heart of the story, is the role the Knights Templar played in that story. But the story of the colonization of the Americas isn’t an exclusively European story, the much bigger part of that story is what happened to the indigenous peoples of the Americas when the Europeans made contact, and began what became the greatest genocide in the history of humanity.

But this is not the story that Marty Lagina wants to tell. Somewhere between seasons 8 and 10 a discovery was made in “the swamp”, in the ruins of an old stone road, that upended the “search agenda” and seriously ruined Marty Lagina’s year.

It was one of the most significant discoveries on the Island during the course of the show, but every effort has been made to dismiss it, and relegate it to the back shelf. So much so that I can’t find a record online of precisely which episode the discovery was made. Even though it has thrown a shadow over the entire progress of the show since the day it was discovered and reported.

It was a fairly small fragment of Mi’Kmaq pottery that the archaeologist Laird Niven instantly recognized. It speaks to the heart of the story that is being uncovered on Oak Island, and it may well speak to the exact nature of “the curse”, if indeed such a curse exists.

The Curse of Oak Island—Part I

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“There is an island in the North Atlantic…” So begins the introduction to “The Curse of Oak Island”, a reality television show soon to enter it’s twelfth season. Ostensibly it is a reality show about two brothers looking for a treasure on an island in Nova Scotia’s largest bay.

It has all the hallmarks of a thoroughly disreputable reality television series. It is brought to us by the producers of “Ancient Aliens”, Prometheus Entertainment. It shares the same cheesy narration and writing style. It seems primed to be the punchline of many jokes.

I watched it for almost five seasons, assuming it was a show about two brothers, wasting their time and money looking for a treasure that didn’t exist. Every season it performed it’s little line dance, featuring a cornucopia of conspiracy theories and pseudo-academic rubbish.

Every episode the questions were some version of, “What will they find? Gold, jewels? Priceless relics?” And the answer was, “Of course not you barmy bottlenosed lemming!” “They’re going to find *NOTHING*, *NADA*, *BUPKIS*!” But I kept watching. It might have been the domain of the lunatic fringe, but it was entertaining.

The relationship between the brothers made it interesting. The somewhat sick attraction of what appeared to be a slow motion train wreck made it difficult to stop watching. When will they run out of money and/or motivation? When will the show get cancelled?

Then, season five, episode ten, but who’s counting? Something completely unexpected happened—something that quite literally turned my worldview upside down. Something that shattered my personal smugness and conceit. Something that made me aware, especially as I processed what I had seen, that most of the history I had been taught, was rubbish, and so many theories I assumed were for the ignorant and gullible, were quite possibly true.

Gary Drayton, a metal detection expert, with the help of Rick Lagina, found a little lead cross on the Smith’s Cove beach on Oak Island. A lead cross that would fit into the palm of your hand, that could only have been of medieval European origins.

In episodes that followed it was proven, quite conclusively, that this cross was from a mine in Southern France, that was only worked during the early Medieval period, in an area dominated by the Knights Templar. The cross exactly matched a carving of a cross from a prison in Dome France, where it was carved by Knights Templar where they were held after King Philip of France and Pope Clement V attempted to destroy their order.

And it wasn’t a one off, accidentally dropped their by someone else, at a later date. Other pieces of lead, decorative and otherwise, have been found at other locations on the island, that also originated from that same mine in southern France.