In regards to the column:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_441.html
Oak island is now for sale:
I wonder what the asking price will be? I remember seeing a television show on Oak Island years ago as a boy and finding the whole thing fascinating.
I note that Cecil’s response suggests that the stone tablet inscribed with the mysterious markings disappeared without its markings ever having been preserved. I’m not sure how that squares with the information on this site, which suggests that the markings were recorded and “translated” by a professor from Halifax University. Of course, the professor isn’t named, so it could all be a furphy.
Doesn’t this story bear a striking similarity to the Roswell incident story. Items with strange markings found, but no-one knows where they are today (or if they ever existed).
To make the connection complete, we need the government to announce that the items found at Oak Island were from an errant weather balloon.
The article say $7 million (but not whether $US or $Cdn).
To be willing to pay that much, a buyer would presumably need a plan to extract value from the buried treasure - either by finding it, or sucking money out of visitors who come because of it.
Take a look at this article in The Skeptical Inquirer. A lot of the goings-on at Oak Island may have been pranks pulled by mischievous Freemasons.