The Curse of Oak Island: Rick Finds Evidence The Swamp Was Man-Made (Season 5) | History

Holy moly, look at that!
At the northern point of the swamp, on property belonging to the family of Fred Nolan, Rick Lagina has just found a large wooden stake.
Does it look cold here? Tough to tell in a tie.
Like it’s been hacked, axe cut.
There’s a notion of also a wooden stake found in the swamp in 1969.

Oak Island landowner and treasure hunter Fred Nolan set out to drain the swamp after becoming convinced that the answers to the Oak Island mystery were located within it.
During his investigation, Fred was astonished to discover several uniform lines of wooden stakes, which were carbon dated to the 1500s.

A land surveyor by trade, it was Fred’s professional assessment that these stakes were evidence of centuries-old survey markers used to plot out the boundaries in a massive construction project.
This led Fred to the astonishing conclusion that Oak Island was once actually two islands, now officially joined together by means of the triangle-shaped swamp.

How many cuts are there?
Fred and Tom both told me there were four or five on every one.
One, two, three, four… yeah, five.
That’s exactly what they described.

Fred actually did show me one.
It certainly got the proper look to it.
It’s got the proper size diameter, and thus one could speculate — again, it’s speculation — that the swamp had been created.

Dan and Fred, they pulled one up together, cut the tip off, and traded Hawaiian, sending it off to be carbon dated.
The carbon date came back 1575, plus or minus 85 years.

Finding a certain stake is important because it corroborates.
Is this really a man-made activity that is associated with the swamp?
You know, these items like that may provide answers.

You think about one of the survey stakes.
Why don’t you come over and take a look?

Hey, that sounds great, we’re on it.
It’s a pretty big deal, right?
Yeah, that’s what he was looking for.

Alright, let’s see it. What you got?
Oh yeah, well that’s for real.
Hope that’s not a natural shape.

No, and remember how they said it was preserved?
Yeah, from the bottom.
Well, it’s definitely been in place a while because you can tell if you look at the preservation here and how much it’s decayed up there.

So you get a kind of sense of time with the top.
Oh yeah, this looks virgin, right?
But this looks old. Very much so.

I agree with you, it’s pretty cool.

Hey Rick, but okay, so I don’t get it.
Why aren’t you over the moon about this survey stake?
Why aren’t you doing a steak dance?

I don’t do steak dances.
I’m very interested in it.
To me, they look exactly right. Exactly right.

Yeah, I was impressed honestly because, to me, it looks identical to what he’s described, and my skepticism level diminishes.

For Rick, Marty, and the team, finding new evidence that the mysterious triangle-shaped swamp is man-made could soon lead to another major breakthrough.
It also means that the access they now have to Fred Nolan’s property could allow them to gather a host of even more important clues.