we had put up a corral-type fence in the pit area, this didn’t mean a thing to some of these people. They climbed over or crawled under to march up to the shack, peer in through the window, thump on the door, and demand to know what we were doing. Down at the beach kids were shoveling sand, trying to fill in the excavations that the men had spent all week digging out. Grownups were dropping big stones down the pits and climbing all over the equipment, both at the beach and on the hill. It was bedlam. They milled and stampeded around like a herd of elephants. There hadn’t been so much activity on Oak Island for over twenty years.
We found ourselves very busy those weekends, running back and forth between the beach and the top of the hill, trying to keep an eye on things. Often we were waylaid by groups who would want to know all about the history of the place. One Sunday, crossing the clearing on my way to prepare a meal, I was stopped by a group who asked me a series of questions about the place. I gave them all the information I could; they thanked me and left. Before I had chance to move on, another group stepped up with more questions. I answered them also, and what I didn’t know, I made up. They left and more people stepped forward. I looked around while talking to this group and then it dawned on me that people were “lined up” to the right in large and small groups … All waiting to ask questions, as if I were a tourist guide from some information bureau.
We had left an area around the pits open so that people could come up close to look. Sitting inside the shack, we often had no alternative but to hear their comments.
Some said that the treasure was at the other end of the island. A few swore that the treasure was gone, because it had been brought up over fifty years ago by a poor family on the mainland who had suddenly become wealthy. And some were positive that we were searching on the wrong island.
I was tidying up the boys’ cabin early one Saturday morning, when I heard a boat come in to the dock. Presently three men came and stood under the apple tree outside the cabin. I heard them discussing the story of Oak Island, and particularly the number of shafts that had been dug in an attempt to locate the treasure.
“Now I ask you,” said one, “what stupid *—* would dig a hole 100 feet deep to bury his treasure?”
Thoughtful pause, then, “Yeah, but what about these other stupid *—*s that keep digging to find it?”
Another pause, then, “Well, come on, let’s go and look at them.”
I wasn’t quite sure whether they were referring to the pits or to us.
To “get away from it all” and to spend some time with people his own age, Bob Jr. went ashore every Friday and Saturday night. Because of the shoals and huge boulders around the island, and the late hour he would be coming home, he didn’t use the motorboat. Instead, he walked the length of the island to where we kept a skiff, then rowed across the narrow gap to the mainland. This gap is about 300 feet across at low tide. After dragging the skiff up above the high tide line, he had close to a half-mile walk to where we kept the car. Coming home was the same procedure in reverse. It took him about forty minutes to make the trip either way. When coming home during the summer, if the weather was calm and clear, he often rowed around the island, bringing the skiff to our cove. Ricky then had the use of it until the next weekend.
Bob taught Ricky how to handle the skiff and it was the boy’s pride and joy to be able to take the skiff out and row it around in the cove. Sometimes he took one of us along to show off his seamanship.
Opposite Smith’s Cove, roughly half a mile away, is an island known as Frog Island. Ricky and I sometimes rowed over to pick the wild raspberries that grew in profusion on this island. On the way we stopped every now and then to look down into the clear water. It seemed that there was always something fascinating to see. Different kinds of fish of all different sizes swam below. Once we saw dozens of jellyfish, from the size of golf balls to dinner plates. Delicate looking things in all the varying shades of pink or mauve. With their long tentacles hanging down like streamers, they looked like so many tiny, gaily coloured umbrellas. We watched them pump themselves along, shooting in all directions.
One late afternoon, when all was peaceful and quiet around the island, Rick and his Dad decided to row over to Frog Island. They took turns at the oars, pausing occasionally to look down into the water. About halfway across and during a resting spell, they saw a dark brown shape surface not much more than a hundred feet off. It looked right at them, then, without a ripple, slid from view. It was a seal.
We often saw porpoise sporting on the surface of the water, either on their way in from or out to the Atlantic. It wasn’t unusual to see cranes resting on our shore, standing still and stiff on one leg, looking more like a piece of stone sculpture than a live bird. We saw them in flight, their long necks doubled back close to the body, legs out straight, and their huge wings slowly beating up and down.
This living close to nature was a never-ending source of fascination for Ricky and me. The song birds along the Atlantic coast are many and varied. We were able to study them with the aid of the coloured picture cards given away with the tea we used. Wild fowl, too, made their home on Oak Island, grouse, pheasant, partridge, and on the nearby swamp, black ducks nested.
A pair of beaver had built a lodge at the edge of the swamp, and often in the early evening we would see them cruising around, swimming up and down the waterways among the reeds. Near the bank where we stood to watch was quite an expanse of deep water, possibly eight hundred feet long and ranging, in a sawtooth pattern, from twenty-five to one hundred feet in width. Beyond this, the reeds and rushes grew thickly. The beaver house was at one end of the open water and back, near the reeds.
We saw them diving and swimming, towing newly cut branches to add to their house, and watched as they clambered up the banks to nibble at the new shoots of the bushes that grew at the water’s edge. We were always very quiet and still as we stood there, and as the days went by, the beaver seemed to pay less and less attention to us, often coming quite close to the bank where we were.
It became a pastime for us to pay a visit to the Beaver Pond, as we now called the marsh. One evening we watched as one of the beaver went into the lodge, to our surprise we heard a faint whimpering noise, it sounded like the whining of newly born pups, then almost at once it stopped. We kept close watch after that, and sure enough, a couple of weeks later we saw two baby beaver out in the pond with the big ones.
They were learning to swim. One was a natural. It would swim along for ten or twelve feet, paddle around in a tight circle to face the way it had come, dive down, surface, and repeat the whole procedure six or seven times; then home. The other one, however, didn’t want to swim. It went through the same routine except that it only swam a couple of feet, bobbed, instead of diving, did this two or three times, and then went in.
The mother must have noticed this, for one evening she followed the lazy one in and hauled it out again. We heard a soft whimper, a loud splash, then up popped Jr. swimming like mad with Mama right behind. For the next few nights Mama went along with her reluctant swimmer. She would allow it to climb upon her back, swim with it a few feet, then slowly sink down, rolling over at the same time, leaving Jr. frantically paddling around looking for Mama, who would surface a few feet away. The little one would head in her direction to start the whole business all over again. In no time at all, he was swimming the way a young beaver should.
We noticed that all the time the young ones were out, the other adult slowly patrolled back and forth between the swimmers and the bank. Sometimes he would wind things up by giving the water a resounding slap with his huge tail. In a flash, they would all be gone.
My household duties were practically negligible. Not having the proper cooking facilities, meals were very simple and easy to prepare. I kept dishwashing down to a minimum to save water. Not that water was scarce, but hauling it was hard work,
