Regional heritage museum in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, housing the Yarmouth Runic Stone, a 400-pound quartzite boulder bearing a 13-character inscription discovered in 1812. Visited by the Oak Island team after possible futhark markings were identified on a stone found near the Money Pit.
About This Site
The Yarmouth County Museum and Archives occupies a former church building in downtown Yarmouth, roughly 140 miles southwest of Oak Island. Its permanent collection includes the Yarmouth Runic Stone, a 400-pound quartzite slab measuring approximately 79 by 51 centimeters, discovered in 1812 by retired British Army surgeon Dr. Richard Fletcher in a salt marsh at the head of Yarmouth Harbour near the Tusket River.
The stone bears 13 or 14 characters on its naturally smooth face that have attracted scholarly debate for over two centuries. Olaf Strandwold, a Norwegian scholar, translated the characters as runic and read them as "Leif to Erik raises this monument." Henry Phillips Jr. offered an 1884 reading of "Hako's son addressed the men," linking it to Thorfinn Karlsefni's expedition of approximately 1007 A.D. Other interpretations have proposed Basque, Japanese, Hungarian, and Mycenaean Greek origins. Skeptics including Norway's leading runic expert Dr. Liestol and University of Toronto archaeologist A.D. Fraser have argued the markings are not genuine runes, and Fletcher's own descendants suggested he carved it as a practical joke.
The stone traveled internationally before World War I, exhibited in Oslo and stored in London at the Canadian Pacific Railway offices during the war. It returned to Yarmouth in 1918 and has been housed at the museum since the 1960s. Fanthorpe's "The Oak Island Mystery" connects the stone to the Glozel alphabet through researcher George Young, who proposed the characters may predate Viking runes entirely.
Connection to Oak Island
The Yarmouth County Museum visit was prompted by the discovery of the Tory Martin Stone near the Money Pit during Season 6. Gyroscope operator Tory Martin noticed a flat stone with raised ridges and linear carvings lying in the woods by the old well. Geologist Terry Matheson identified it as metamorphosed graywacke that appeared to have been worked. After Rob Hyslop and Ryan Levangie of Azimuth Consulting laser-scanned the stone, historian Doug Crowell identified the characters as possibly futhark, a runic language used by Germanic tribes and in Scandinavia dating back to the first century A.D.
Alex Lagina and Paul Troutman traveled 140 miles southwest to the museum to compare the Tory Martin Stone's markings with the Yarmouth Runic Stone firsthand. Museum director Nadine presented the stone alongside other regional artifacts suggesting pre-Columbian European contact with Nova Scotia. If the Tory Martin Stone's markings are indeed futhark, it would represent evidence of Norse or early Germanic presence on Oak Island itself, not just in the broader Nova Scotia region. The Yarmouth Stone, whatever its true origin, has served as the primary reference point for evaluating runic claims in the province for over two centuries.
Fieldwork Notes
Alex Lagina and researcher Paul Troutman visited during the summer of 2018 (Season 6). Museum director Nadine guided them through the collection, with the Yarmouth Runic Stone as the primary focus. The visit was filmed for Season 6, Episode 11 ("Wharfs and All").
