The Curse of Oak Island: Ancient Structure UNVEILED Under the Swamp (Season 11)

-GARY: Hey, Billy.
-RICK: Hey, Billy.
BILLY:
Hey, guys.
I’m ready to kick some
swamp butt again, mate.
Find some good finds.

NARRATOR:
Rick Lagina, metal detection
expert Gary Drayton
and Billy Gerhardt
are searching for clues
at the southern border of
the mysterious
triangle-shaped swamp.
I figure it’s like
old home week, right?
We came back home
’cause we never finished this.
Not quite. We were close.
In a way, we know what
we’re looking for.
We’re definitely looking
for more pieces of
-what we found earlier.
-Yep.
-Yep.
-BILLY: We found
wood from ships.
-GARY: Yep.
-For that reason alone,
it’s worth looking at.

DOUG:
Is that a piece
of cut wood there?
BILLY:
Is that cut wood or not?
I’ll go get it.

NARRATOR:
In recent years…
-Oh, look at that.
-…the team has found
a number of ship-related
artifacts in the swamp…

SCOTT:
That’s beautiful, actually.
…that have been
dated to between
the 15th and 18th centuries.
Here’s another piece of it.
-Look at that.
-BILLY: Look at that.

NARRATOR:
However, in 2020,
they unearthed
a piece of ship’s railing
right near the southern border
that was carbon-dated to
as early as the 8th century.

BILLY:
We’re off the end
of the road, right?
Man, would it be
something nice if we found
something that really
told us who was here
-and when they were here.
-I hope so.
-GARY: All right, mate.
-RICK: All right.

NARRATOR:
Now, in light of
Dr. Doug Symons’
incredible theory about
the medieval Viking culture
potentially being connected to
the Oak Island mystery,
they are eager to see
what other possible clues
they may uncover
in this area.
This is new stuff here.

GARY:
Whew. Smells like treasure.
Whoa. Whoa, whoa,
whoa, whoa, whoa.

GARY:
What did you see, Rick?
RICK:
Wood.
Is that anything?

GARY:
Good eye, Rick.
Is it cut?
RICK:
Yeah.

GARY:
Looks like it’s got
a hole in it, Rick.
There’s no metals in there.
But it’s definitely shaped.
Think so?

GARY:
Yep. And it looks like
it could come off a boat.
We found something, Bill.
Check this out.
It’s an interesting
piece of wood.
Any ideas?
Uh…
Well, I’ll tell you
what it looks like to me.
See how it curves up?
-Yeah.
-When you have a wooden boat,
you put little runners on
that were used along the shore.
Like the keel of a boat.
Yeah, so, say you had
a big boat here
and you were bringing
your little one to shore,
they’d put these little ribs on
because they would wear
rather than wear
the bottom of your boat out.
We would call them runners.

GARY:
Yeah.
-Maybe it hit the rocks…
-Yeah, exactly.
-Right there.
-…and got broke off.
Good insight, Billy.
I’ll be putting that in the bag.

NARRATOR:
Is it possible
that the Oak Island team
has found more evidence of
a sailing vessel in the swamp?
If so, just how old could it be?
And who were the visitors
that left it here?

RICK:
I need to go back.
I got to check on a few things
for the Money Pit drilling.
So, keep digging, keep after it,
-and I’ll try to get back
as soon as I can.
-Yep.
-Okay?
-GARY: Okay, mate.
-See you later.
-All right, thank you.
I believe that this
is a very old mystery.
We have dates from 700 AD
with the ship’s railing.
We have the 1200 dates
in the swamp.
So, there are strong suggestions
that there was activity
very early on. But to what end?
That’s what makes this
so interesting.

-Hey, Gary.
-Hey, Steve.
-How’re you doing?
-Good. Perfect timing, mate.
Billy’s just repositioned.
We’re digging. You never know
what’s gonna come out.
-STEVE: That’s true.
What’s happening, Billy?
Just got a little wood here,
and I–
What kind of wood?
Somebody’s dug down
in the swamp, and there–
We got a bunch of horizontal
and vertical boards.
There’s a wall of a…
shaft, retaining wall,
something.
Maybe it’s what Fred probed.

GARY:
So you think it could be
-potentially what Fred
was probing when he thought…
-Well…
-…he hit the wall?
-There’s-there’s potential
of that.

NARRATOR:
A possible wall
buried at the southern border
of the swamp?
While investigating this area
more than 30 years ago,
the late treasure hunter and
Oak Island landowner Fred Nolan
reportedly discovered
a wooden wall or dam.
A dam that Fred believed
represented evidence
that the swamp
was an artificial feature
that had been created
centuries ago
in order to hide something
of great value.
Is it possible
that the team has found
a section
of that same construct?
And if so, could it be related
to the potentially
1,250-year-old piece
of ship’s railing that the team
found nearby back in 2020?

I think
we’re onto something, mate.

BILLY:
I think we got
to get the guys here.
Looks like somebody was digging
down in the depths of the swamp.

STEVE:
You make a good point, Billy.
I mean,
it’s really close, I would say
feet off of the stone road.
-Yeah.
-So I think it could be really
important and maybe related
-to the stone road.
-For sure.
-GARY: Yeah.
Let’s get back to base,
tell the guys.
Good eyes, Billy.

…Rick Lagina has invited
geoscientist Dr. Ian Spooner
to inspect the feature.

IAN:
What interests me
is it’s down into the sediment.
I really want to see the context
of that and the sediment
around it.

RICK:
Yep.
We can see this red stuff here.
-RICK: Mm-hmm.
-That red stuff
is what’s underneath
-the stone road.
-Right.

NARRATOR:
Just to the west
lies the potentially
500-year-old stone road
or ship’s wharf,
a feature that may date
to roughly the same time period
as the wooden tunnel
below the Garden Shaft.

IAN:
If we start seeing
that red stuff within
and around that wood structure,
that will possibly place it
further back in time.
Yeah.

NARRATOR:
Is it possible that this feature
may be related
to the nearby stone road,
as Dr. Spooner is speculating?
And perhaps also
to the possible treasure tunnel
in the Money Pit area?
This was always the area
that I…
was really interested in.
In terms of trying
to find something
that connects the stone road
to something else.
-Right.
-We know it had to be used
for something else,
and they were going somewhere
and doing something.
-Mm-hmm.
-STEVE: Yeah.
If this is as old
as the stone road,
could this have been
some sort of a loading
and unloading platform?
That’s kind of interesting.

STEVE:
You tie something to it,
the cargo,
swing it off, unload,
load, unload, load.
-IAN: Sure.
They’d pull the big boat up.
-Yeah.
IAN:
They’d unload their goods.
-GARY/STEVE: Yeah.
-And they could have built
other structures as well.
Yeah.

RICK:
There’s precious little known
about the southeast corner
of the swamp.
I wish I understood
why we’re making
these discoveries in the swamp
that has endured
over two centuries.
I think there were activities
conducted here,
maybe not by the same persons
but maybe by a same group
or entity
over generations,
perhaps even centuries.
This wood here
is interesting, too,
because it’s round on the edges,
flat on the top.
That’s pretty old.
-Mm.
-I think the desire
on all parts is to dig
and expose the structure
in its entirety
so we can come to a real good
understanding of its purpose.
And hopefully
there’s an artifact or two
that might tell us
what its purpose was.
Somebody put a huge effort
into installing something,
and, uh… Like, we have to
be careful, is all I’m saying.

-RICK: Mm-hmm.
-Okay.
RICK: I think
that’s-that’s pretty cool.
-GARY: Yeah.
-Yep.
RICK:
Okay. For right now,
-let’s call it a day.
-IAN: Yeah.
-Okeydoke.
-Okay.
-All righty. Thank you.
-Yeah.
RICK:
All right. Good job.
-Thanks, Billy.
-BILLY: Yep!