BILL SMITH: OK, boys, we’re on the northeast side of Oderin Island. I know it’s been a bit of a walk, but we’re going to head up this way now. We’re coming up on the place that I’ve been really excited to show you guys.
NARRATOR: On Oderin Island, some 10 miles off the southern coast of Newfoundland, Canada, researcher Bill Smith has led Marty Lagina, Matty Blake, and diver Tony Sampson to a location rumored to contain millions in looted treasure connected to the 17th century English pirate Peter Easton.

MARTY LAGINA: Oh, wow. This is it?
BILL SMITH: This is it. Wow. I believe that this is the pond that hides Peter Easton’s treasure from 400 years ago.
MARTY LAGINA: Is there any doubt amongst, let’s say, conventional historians that Peter Easton was here on this island? That he had this as part of his dominion?
BILL SMITH: There’s a consensus amongst all– all parties that have been involved. The historical accounts have been handed down verbally. Here. The oral traditions plus the written accounts. And then with some of the finds in the local area, I’d say I’m 99% certain.
MATTY BLAKE: That’s certainty.
BILL SMITH: Yep. Conjecture is what’s in that pond.
MATTY BLAKE: Yep. Mr. Conjecture, get suited up.
TONY SAMPSON: Looks like I got another pond, doesn’t it?
MARTY LAGINA: Yeah.
TONY SAMPSON: The pond is exactly as I pictured it except that the island itself is way more rugged and barren. If this pond is actually lined with oak planks—well, for one thing, look around. There are no oak trees here. That would mean they were brought there specifically for some reason. I think if that particular legend is true, that this pond is lined with oak planks, I think we’re on to something.

NARRATOR: While Tony investigates the muddy shallow pond for signs of valuables, he will not only attempt to confirm that the feature’s bottom is lined with oak planks, but he’ll also look for evidence of possibly man-made flood tunnels that Bill believes are connected to a nearby natural spring.

BILL SMITH: So that anomaly will be coming down here somewhere, feeding in. It– Way over there. It stops abruptly at the bottom of the hill.
MATTY BLAKE: Got it.
BILL SMITH: Just it starts and stops at the same spot, which is really peculiar.
MATTY BLAKE: Interesting.
BILL SMITH: Yeah. There’s no way something should be there. There are so many legends about hiding things underwater and it appears to work.
TONY SAMPSON: Let’s do what we came here for.
GROUP: Let’s go. Let’s go.
TONY SAMPSON: I’m impatient. Mud diver.

TONY SAMPSON: I’ve heard so much about this pond from Bill. I’m so excited to get in this pond and actually prove or disprove that this might be a hidden location where Peter Easton might have stashed a treasure.
MARTY LAGINA: Another day in the muck.

NARRATOR: When diving in basically mud, that’s the usual challenge for Tony. You know, you’ve got water on top of a lot of muddy, silty nastiness. So, you know, it’s difficult. Tony’s up for it, though. And if anybody can figure it out, I think he can.
MATTY BLAKE: Go get ’em, buddy.
[music playing]

TONY SAMPSON: Once entering the pond, I realized that this is going to be a Braille dive. There’s zero visibility and I have my metal detector going from side to side. And I’m slowly moving forward.

MATTY BLAKE: So Tony’s probably touching bottom right now.
[music playing]

TONY SAMPSON: What I’m feeling on the bottom is silt. I can penetrate through up to my shoulder in this silt and I’m still not touching a hard bottom.
[music playing]
MATTY BLAKE: Is that a piece of wood? That looks like a piece of wood.
MARTY LAGINA: Yeah.
MATTY BLAKE: Another piece of wood. That was definitely wood.

TONY SAMPSON: So I’m feeling my way through the silt. I can feel timber planks, almost like they’ve been part of a box system. So it may be some sort of drainage system. So I don’t know what these artifacts are so I can’t wait to get something up to the surface and let the guys have a look at it.

MATTY BLAKE: He’s found something.
BILL SMITH: Yeah.
MATTY BLAKE: Look at that.
MARTY LAGINA: Well, look at that. Yeah, he’s got timber.
GROUP: Whoa.
BILL SMITH: Wow.
MARTY LAGINA: What on Earth is that?
MATTY BLAKE: I don’t know. That’s quite a collection.
TONY SAMPSON: Yeah. That’s quite– that’s quite a bit, eh?
MATTY BLAKE: Looks like planking to me. It stinks like the swamp, Marty, back on Oak Island.
MARTY LAGINA: Oh, good. Huh, that is definitely planking. Look at that. Look at that. Good job, mate.
TONY SAMPSON: We’re shutting off the air. There was timber on the bottom. Wow. So I don’t know if it’s oak, but.

MARTY LAGINA: And then this you can see has been worked.
MATTY BLAKE: Look at that. Yeah, that definitely has. You see, she’s cut on the end there as well.
BILL SMITH: Both ends, yeah. That’s beautiful.
MATTY BLAKE: Notice they’re notched out. They almost fit together like a puzzle.
TONY SAMPSON: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
MATTY BLAKE: Piece of a crate. Looks like a crate box.
TONY SAMPSON: That could be an old crate, yeah. Or it felt like it was in the mud, so maybe it was boxing something in. Ah.
MATTY BLAKE: Question is, do those grooves there in the end look fabricated or hand done?
BILL SMITH: I mean, what they used to do with the old fret and coping saws is that. Look at the beautiful French furniture that was done by hand, eh?
MATTY BLAKE: Who knows, buddy. Yeah.

NARRATOR: Although varying styles of joinery have existed in woodworking for thousands of years, the dovetail style, which Tony has just found an example of, was widely commonplace in Western Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Is it possible that the team has just recovered evidence of a legendary treasure that many believe Peter Easton buried in this area sometime around 1612?

TONY SAMPSON: I mean, you wanted an oak-lined pond. I don’t know if it’s oak, but it’s definitely lined in there.
MATTY BLAKE: How much of it is down there?
TONY SAMPSON: Oh, there’s still heaps.
BILL SMITH: It’s a start.
TONY SAMPSON: Yeah.

BILL SMITH: So I’m not an expert in wood, but when we look at the wood, there’s patterns of a cutting, there’s dovetailing. There’s so many questions that need to be answered.
Plan B is we’ll do some more magnetometer work with the drone. So we’re still optimistic. Good job, mate.
MATTY BLAKE: Good job, Tony.

MATTY BLAKE (on radio): Matty to LiDAR team. We’ve called the dive in the pond for now. So if you want to run the full scan on the pond, that’d be a great time right now. Over.

NARRATOR: Due to the lack of visibility and thick muck on the bottom of the pond, drone expert Jordan Bannister will now scan it with a magnetometer in order to look for signs of metal beneath the wood planking.
Once the scan is completed, it will then take several days to process the collected data.

MATTY BLAKE: If Peter Easton left any significant part of his treasure under that pond, under those planks, they could find it with this technology and give us a clear picture and a real GPS-located spot to dive on, which would be really cool.

GROUP: Great job, guys. Talk soon. Ah. Ah.
MARTY LAGINA: Oh, baby.
BILL SMITH: Perfect.