American devoted life to finding treasure on Nova Scotian island
HALIFAX — An American who became a famed Nova Scotia treasure hunter is being remembered by friends as a larger-thanlife figure. Dan Blankenship died on Sunday at 95.
He was a staple on The Curse of Oak Island, a reality TV series on the History channel that was set on the 57-hectare island on Nova Scotia’s south shore. His son David Blankenship said Tuesday the family hoped to have a memorial service on Thursday, likely in Martins Point, N.S.
Charles Barkhouse, an Oak Island historian and family friend, described Blankenship as a legend. “I mean, how often do you get to meet a treasure hunter?” Barkhouse said with a laugh. “In truth, he was much more than just a treasure hunter. He had a very full life.”
Blankenship was a U.S. Army veteran who had a successful contracting business in Miami, when he got hooked on the Oak Island mystery after reading a Reader’s Digest story in 1965, Barkhouse said. “He’s poured his blood, sweat and tears into that island trying to solve this mystery,” Barkhouse said.
The Oak Island legend began in 1795 when teenage boys began digging at the site, thinking they might find a pirate’s buried treasure. Theories on who might have buried treasure on the island range from Blackbeard the pirate to the Knights Templar.
Blankenship described in a 2010 interview how he became engrossed in the legend after reading the Reader’s Digest story.
“I handed the article over to my wife and said: ‘Read that,’ and so she read it and, in so many words, said: ‘So what?’ I said: ‘Well, No. 1, there’s treasure on Oak Island, and No. 2, I’m going to be instrumental in getting it.’ That was the beginning.”
Blankenship co-owned the island with a group of investors, including brothers Rick and Marty Lagina, who are carrying out the major work on site now. Their search for treasure has been featured during the reality TV show’s six seasons.
“Dan was known as a pillar of strength to those around him and we will be forever grateful for the time we had with him,” the show’s Los Angeles-based production company, Prometheus Entertainment, wrote in a tweet.
Previous digs at the so-called money pit site — a circular depression discovered by one of the boys in 1795 — uncovered a layer of stones below the surface and layers of logs every three metres, as well as layers of charcoal, putty and coconut fibres, to a depth of 27 metres.
Blankenship settled on the island in the 1970s, Barkhouse said. “All these treasure hunters even going back to the start — they want to be the ones to solve this thing,” Barkhouse said. “You have to have that belief, that passion that you are going to be the one to solve it, because if you don’t, then there is no point in even being there.”
He said Blankenship was a great storyteller with a strong presence. “At 95, when you shook his hand you knew you were shaking somebody’s hand,” Barkhouse said. “He had a grip on him like a steel vise.”
Rick Lohnes, who runs tours of Oak Island, said he first met Blankenship in the 1980s at the auto repair shop where Lohnes worked. “He used to come in and tell me stories, but he’d never go a complete story,” Lohnes said. “He’d always tell me I’d have to wait until the next time.
“To me, Dan is Oak Island. It is a real loss the knowledge that went with him.”