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New England Antiquities Research Association

Oak Island Days

Rare opportunity to tour Oak Island

June 14, 2006

Oak Island is normally off limits to the public. However, once again this year, as it has for the past couple of years, the Oak Island Tourism Society has made special private arrangements for guided tours as part of its annual Oak Island Days. In addition to the tours, participants in Oak Island Days will have the opportunity to meet with researchers and authors who have been personally involved in various investigations on Oak Island, and view a number of actual artefacts that were recovered by this research. There will also be a number of formal presentations by guest speakers and several social events. The agenda is outlined below.

Friday, August 11

- Tour of Oak Island starting at 6 PM. Special guest tour guide D’Arcy O’Connor. Watch out for a surprise challenge along the way.

- After the tour, there will be a book launching of the comic thriller The Oak Island Code at the Black Pearl Bar and Grill in Western Shore starting at 9PM. Come and meet the authors and get an autographed copy, only $12!

Saturday, August 12

- Doors to the hall will be open at 10AM. Static displays, films, artefacts, photographs, maps and items of special interest will be on display.

- Guest speakers John Wonnacott and Les Macphie Saturday, August 12th at 12:30 PM.

Review of Historical and Archaeological Findings at Smith's Cove (1850 to 2006), Oak Island, NS.

- Guest speaker Lee Restall Lamb at 2 PM. Oak Island Obsession - The Restall Story

- Tour of Oak Island at 4PM.

- Pirate’s Brannigan at the Oak Island Resort, Spa and Convention Centre at 8 PM. Special guests, The Shantymen from Yarmouth Nova Scotia.

Sunday, August 13

- Doors to the hall will be open at 10AM. Static displays, films, artefacts, photographs and items of special interest will be on display.

- Guest speaker at 12:30 AM ?? (tentative and possible)

- Guest speaker Graham Harris at 2 PM. The Oak Island Treasure: The Case for Sir William Phips

- Tour of Oak Island at 4PM.

Guest Speakers

Les MacPhie and John Wonnacott will make a presentation on historical and recent findings at Smith's Cove with a view to defining the possible time and purpose of the original workings found in this area.

The geological setting of the Smith's Cove area will be presented including the effect of glacial ice sheets and long term sea level rise on subsurface conditions. A chronological review of Searcher's work and findings will be illustrated with sketches, photographs and aerial photos, with particular reference to the 1970 excavation by Triton. An evaluation will be made of Searcher's cofferdams at Smith's Cove by comparison of historical surveys and sketches to air photo evidence.

New and unpublished information will be presented on recovery of samples from the U shaped timber structure in 2003 - 2004 together with related radio carbon dating results, dendrochronology studies and wood species identification. Some of the recovered timber pieces will be on display and will show the connection of inclined support timbers to horizontal sill timbers made by an oak peg (trenail). Notches in the timbers are marked with Roman Numerals, cut into the timbers with hand saws. Characteristics of the U shaped timber structure exposed in the tidal zone at Smith's Cove in 1970 will be compared to historical timber frame structures with Roman numeral carpentry markings.

An engineering analysis of the Smith's Cove workings will be presented that includes a manpower estimate for the Depositor's work, the sequence of activities that may have been followed, and an estimate of the length of time that it may have taken for the depositors to have completed their work. The analysis will include a review of the evidence for a flood tunnel or tunnels, and the effort and time required to construct flood tunnels will be covered.

A summary will be made of possible time frames which are consistent with the evidence from investigations of the Smith's Cove workings.

Lee Restall Lamb, Saturday, August 12th at 2 PM.

On October 15, 1959, Bob Restall began his search for the treasure of Oak Island. Believing that careful attention to detail, ingenuity and diligence would solve the mystery of Oak Island, Bob and his wife, Mildred, and sons Bob Jr. and Ricky moved to Oak Island and lived there for nearly six years. While Mildred and Ricky enjoyed the pleasures of life on the island, Bob Restall and Bob Jr. sifted through clues, sunk countless holes and shafts, and drilled out from underground tunnels and down from the surface of the island searching for the treasure and for a way to stop the flood of seawater from Smith's Cove to the Money Pit. They seemed just days from success when their work came to a sudden and tragic end on August 17, 1965 with the death of four men.

During their time on the island, the Restalls released very few details of their work. It seemed the facts would never be known. But after Mildred Restall's death in August, 2003, the Restall's daughter, Lee Lamb, and her surviving brother, Rick, were astonished to find that all documentation from the Oak Island years * journals, letters, contracts, maps, sketches and hundreds of photographs * had been saved. Mildred's personal recollections of life on the island were also there.

With this information and Lee's own memories of eight weeks in 1961 and five months in 1962 when she, her husband and three children joined her father in his search on Oak Island, Lee has authored a biography, Oak Island Obsession * The Restall Story, which is scheduled for release by Dundurn Publishing in June, 2006.

Lee Lamb, now retired, is a graduate of McMaster University and the University of Toronto. She enjoyed careers in health services and teaching. Lee will join us in Explore Oak Island Days as a guest speaker. She has assembled a photographic slide show of the Restall years on Oak Island that includes pictures of their day-to-day life, the work in progress and island scenery. Her presentation begins on Saturday, August 12 at 2:00 p.m.

Graham Harris, Sunday, August 13th at 2 PM.

Graham Harris is a graduate in civil engineering from Imperial College, London University, one of the finest technical schools in the United Kingdom. After graduating in 1961 he became involved in tunnelling on a large dam project in West Africa, and helped rescue a shaft from imminent collapse. The circumstances of this near disaster prompted him to return to Imperial College for post-graduate studies in geotechnical engineering. Thereafter, he became involved in numerous mining and civil engineering projects, not only in Canada but elsewhere throughout the world. During 13 years residence in South Africa he was involved in several shaft-sinking and tunnelling operations, some in the deep level gold mines for which the country is noted. Underground failures proved a peculiar fascination.

A lengthy spell in the Dead Sea region of Israel resulted in an in-depth knowledge of its unique geology. This pioneered the thesis that the exploitation of bitumen (or asphalt) from the Dead Sea during the third millenium (3000 to 2000 years BC) was the backbone of trade with Ancient Egypt, a trade brought to an abrupt end by the destruction of the Biblical cities of Sodom and Gomorrah through earthquake induced landslide. The British Broadcasting Corporation used Graham's co-authored work as the basis to a scientific documentary which led to a reappraisal of Canaanite history by experts at the British Museum.

After it became apparent that the Money Pit on Oak Island had been subject to failure in the past, Graham and Les MacPhie combined their engineering talents to comb the vast literature on Oak Island for technical clues supporting this viewpoint. They found what they were looking for, and the outcome was Oak Island and its Lost Treasure. Of considerable interest was, naturally, 'whodunnit'. Sir William Phips, renowned for his spectacular treasure-seeking exploits, as well as his military attacks on early French Canada, appears to have played a central role.

A transcript of Graham's address today, in which he presents The Case for Sir William Phips has been published by Four East Publications of Tantallon, and copies are available at the desk. You may, therefore, pocket your pens and close your notebooks. It must be mentioned that all royalties from the sale of this small book will be donated to charity, and the Oak Island Tourism Society will be a major beneficiary.

For further information visit http://www.oakislandsociety.ca/

Note: Oak Island Tourism Society is a non-profit community-based organization devoted to the preservation of Oak Island as an important heritage site. http://www.oakislandsociety.ca/join.html

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Material reproduced here is for educational and research purposes only.

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