Lake Ontario Sunken Treasure

Some secret, some not

A Chronicles reader asks about buried treasure stories on Lake Ontario: I know of a few and included an imaginary tale of one in my book “Twinkle Toes and the Riddle of the Lake” that centered on Main Duck Island. There was also a rumor (almost certainly false) of a pay chest aboard the “HMS Ontario” that sank on Halloween night in 1780. A quick Google search also provides information on several treasure hordes on or near the Rideau Canal including a a keg of silver coins, lost overboard during a “pirate” attack on the canal somewhere north of Kingston.

Perhaps the Main Duck story ( see below) has a thread of truth in it. This incident concerned a French warship that was driven ashore in 1760. And in my research for a sequel to the novel “Widow Maker” I found various historic acts of piracy, smuggling, and salvage of high value cargo on the all the Lakes. Timber piracy was widespread during the later 1800s on Lakes Huron and Michigan. “Roaring Dan” Seavey, described by Wikipedia as a human trafficker, smuggler, poacher and timber pirate, inspired a fictional ‘mooncusser’ in my current work in progress. I haven’t found any reference to his concealment of a buried hoard, but he was a good candidate for such an action.

There are various tales of black walnut logs being raised from wrecks off Prince Edward County and elsewhere. One story on Jim Kennard’s shipwreck website, describes a salvage job on Lake Erie in 1980. The schooner was loaded with walnut and white oak harvested from virgin timber in the 1850s. She was headed for Montreal when she went down in 1858. ( Unlike pine and other softwoods, recently harvested hardwood logs do not float.) Part of the cargo that was salvaged included 16 Black Walnut Timbers up to 52 feet long and 18 inches square. They were almost perfectly preserved by cold deep waters.

Lake Ontario without doubt does offer treasure. It’s in the form of memories of sunsets over the water, amazing vistas of shoreline and sky, golden perch and silvery minnows swimming in depths, and soaring eagles in the skies overhead. Has any reader out there found a good ‘treasure’ while beach combing or exploring the depths? Want to share your story? Send it in!

Here’s the tale from “ Twinkle Toes and the Riddle of the Lake” a voyage of three cats aboard the good little ship Ariel back in the 1990s. ( for sale at Etsy https://www.etsy.com/shop/lakeontarioitems?ref=l2-shopheader-name )

When Twink explores Main Duck Island she learns from Sid the dockmaster that people have periodically searched for gold on the island to no avail….

Sid the dockmaster, Twink’s guide to ‘enlightenment’ at Main Duck.

Twinkle Toes asked Sid “Have you ever heard anything about buried treasure on the island?”

“Yes. Pearl sssays that ssstory has been around for a long time. She sssaid a hundred years ago a man found a big boulder with writing carved on it.”

“Did he find the gold?”

“He found trouble. Bad trouble. Very sssad.”

“What happened?”

“Here's how I remember Pearl telling it:”

Once there was a fisherman who spent his summers on Main Duck. In that time there was a settlement of tiny camps and cabins here that the fisher folk stayed in during the warm season. They worked hard, rowing and sailing many miles every day, pulling their nets, setting and hauling seines from the beach, and laying and bringing up their trot lines from deep water. They pulled beautiful silver fish from the water and salted and dried them. Then they took their catch ashore to the mainland and exchanged them for silver coins.

But one fisherman was lazy. He didn't want to row hours a day and haul fish up out of the lake. He didn't want to help the others pull the long heavy seine nets onto the beach. He had seen the French graves and the boulder with the carving on it, and he decided to find the chest of gold. He dug in front of the boulder in the thin soil and soon hit rock. He dug behind it and hit more rock. He dug a circle all around it and found nothing. He was certain the gold lay right beneath his feet. I'll find it tomorrow he thought. While the other boats went off to set their nets, his skiff stayed ashore and he dug and dug in the hard thin dirt. His hands grew blistered and his back ached more than it ever had when fishing. But he knew the gold was there.

When the other fishermen asked him to help clean the fish and salt and dry the catch on racks in the sun, he turned his back on them and went off alone with his pick ax and shovel. He peered into cracks and holes under the great slabs of limestone that form our island. He pried and pounded and broke the very rock. At night he dreamed of gold coins glittering in the darkness of a cave. The next day he searched and pried and pounded anew, crawling through the thickets of brush and thorns and tearing at the rocks with his bare hands until he bled upon the earth.

One day a vision told him seek the gold in the graves. He went to where the shipwrecked men were buried, and he dug up their bones. There was no gold. Grave after grave he ripped open with his shovel and pry bar and pick ax. The dead laughed. Then they cursed him for his greed.

And so he went mad. He walked to his skiff pulled up on the stone shore. He shoved it off and rowed away. He was never seen again.”

Twink said “That fisherman was about as smart as all those people feeding casino slot machines hoping to hit the jackpot.”

Sid nodded. “There is treasure here, to be sure, but not gold coins. It's the treasure Richard sssings about-meadows filled with wild flowers, flocks of free flying wild birds, and shining ssschools of silver minnows. Digging and ripping and destroying the land for treasure- it can only end badly.” said Sid with a sigh.

Below Twinkle Toes and company listen to the wise old turtle Pearl after a dangerous trek across the island.

“Riddle of the Lake” includes an appendix of nonfiction articles some of which may appear here in the Chronicles in the near future.