by Cheyenne Schoen |
For some, the thrill of striking gold in a mine and sunken ships full of treasure chests are things only portrayed in Hollywood films. For sophomores Gregory Smith and Andrew Cousins and junior Henry Hark, however, treasure exists in the real world, and they’re determined to find it.
The trio are co-treasurers of the new UP Treasure Hunting Club, which is awaiting approval from ASUP.
“We heard about this treasure that an eccentric millionaire hid in the Rocky Mountains on NPR, called the Forrest Fenn treasure, and that’s what originally inspired us to go out and find some hidden treasure,” Hark said.
According to an article published last summer by CBS News, the Fenn Treasure is worth anywhere from one million to several millions of dollars and consists of gold coins, jewelry and hundreds of gold nuggets. Fenn, a wealthy art dealer and writer, drove through the Rockies and buried the treasure, afterwards publishing a memoir that revealed clues hinting at the treasure’s whereabouts. Since then, thousands of determined treasure hunters have scoured the Rockies looking for it.
Hark said he hopes that by spring of 2018 the club will have enough funding to do a trip down to New Mexico to hunt for the multi-million dollar treasure themselves.
But while the Fenn treasure is certainly a long-term goal, the group plans to start hunting locally first.
“Here in Oregon, we’re talking things from pirate gold to Spanish shipwrecks, lots of abandoned silver and gold mines,” Smith said. “There are lots of stories about robbers who would go rob a train and then go bury it nearby and they would get hanged before they could uncover it.”
Cousins looks forward to building up the club’s events. He said they will start off small, with documentary viewings, “National Treasure” viewings and metal detection on the Oregon coast. They also plan to incorporate geocaching into their events, an outdoor activity that utilizes GPS to find hidden containers. After getting established, they plan to bring in professional treasure hunters to come and speak about their experiences looking for loot.
While it sounds like all fun and games, Smith assures others that it will require hard work.
“I feel like people see this kind of stuff on TV, but they don’t know that it is actually real,” Smith said. “A lot of treasure hunting is research, narrowing down what happened and where the treasure could be, to recover lost artifacts.”
“It’s elements of history, science, excitement and some danger,” Cousins added.
Even if they don’t strike gold, the trio hopes the club will provide something just as valuable.
“You go out looking for some treasures, and maybe you find the most important treasure of all,” Hark said. “Friendship.”
Cheyenne is a reporter at The Beacon. She can be reached at schoen17@up.edu.
