The Bridges

Postcards came from Saskatchewan.

The lady's grandfather was a member of the Veteran's Guard in WWII and escorted prisoner's of war from Eastern Canada to the mountain areas in British Columbia.

Our guess is he stopped in Nipigon and purchased these photos as a memento.

The first streamline train to cross the bridge.
Note only the railway bridge existed so this is before 1937.

These are the two bridges spanning the Nipigon River,
dated September 1937.

E.C. Everette was the photographer ,
 and likely the seller from his store on Front Street.

Both these photos show the small dock that is up-stream from the bridges. This dock was where the tram cars and supplies were loaded on barges to go up the Nipigon River( circa 1905 to 1910) to Alexander Landing , then off-loaded to the Tramway line that went on to South Bay on Lake Nipigon. From South Bay the Tramway cars and supplies were barged across almost 90 miles of Lake Nipigon to Ombabika Bay and the Little Jackfish River mouth. There a short Tramline went north to the construction site of the Northern Transcontinental Railway.

In later years pulpwood was dumped into the Nipigon River from Canadian National (CN) flatcars.

This particular stretch of CN line (from Long Lac to Thunder Bay) was removed in 2010 - almost one hundred years from the time it was built under the Canadian Pacific Bridge (CPR).

NIPIGON : THE NAME AS AN ARTIFACT

We are going to consider the word NIPIGON to be an artifact as it was made up by man for the use of man. We are rather fortunate that people who write histories use the current name of our town, river and lake. If they didn't... take a look at what they could use when referring to us.

• 1660 Father Francois Du Creox used Lac Alembegyeci
• 1678 -79 Jolliet put Alimibegong on the map
• 1680 the French word was Alimibeg
• 1682 Franquelin used Alemenigon
• 1682-97 Hennepin called it Lake St. Joseph
• 1684 Duluth came close with the word Alemipigon
• 1685 Jaillot added a few letters and came up with Alemenipigon
• 1688 Franquelin changed his word to Alepimigon
• 1688 an unknown namer came up with Alemipiogaki
• 1690 La Hontan called it the Lemipissaki River
• 1690 La Hontan used Nemipigon likely for the lake
• 1696 Jaillot stuck with his Alemenipigon
• 1700 Guillaume de l'Isle used Alemipigon
• 1703 Guillaume de l'Isle used Jaillot's word Alemenipigon
• 1703 La Hontan came up with his old  name Nemipigon
• 1703 La Hontan changed the river to St. Laurens River
• 1722 Guillaume de l'Isle uses Nepigon
• 1729 A conge uses the name Nepigon with a French e. A conge is like a fur trade licence.
• 1746 d'Anville reuses Alemipigon and Alemipissaki
• 1756 Mitchell uses Nepigon
• 1756 The French call it Ste Anne
• 1777 Gefferys is the first to use Nipigon but he also keeps the Alempissaki name
• 1778 John Long, writes of his travels on the Nipegon River
• 1778 Carver calls it Alemenipigon
• 1817 Someone uses Ste. Anne
• 1824 James Wyld calls it Lake Ste. Anne
• 1827 Someone else uses Lake Ste. Anne
• 1854 Arrowsmith uses Ste. Anne
• 1872 Berton uses Nepigon
• other ways persisted with assorted ee's and i interchanged until
• 1909 Nipigon is declared THE spelling

IT'S A DATE

Some Interesting dates in Nipigon's past
compiled by L.M. Buzz Lein and scattered in the margins of the Souvenir Edition of our Nipigon Historical Museum Welcome Brochure newspaper in 1982.

• 1655 Nipigon District leased to the Company of 100 Associates, Chief Clerk Claude Dupuy
• 1667 Claude Allouez, Jesuit missionary, ascends the Nipigon River en route to Lake Nipigon. Celebrated the first mass ever in the area.
• 1678 Sieur Dulhut went up the Nipigon River as far as Lake Nipigon. Left his brother behind with a small crew to set up posts on Lake Nipigon.
• 1680 De La Crois is manager of these French set up posts.
• 1684 Sieur de Greysolen setting up posts on Lake Nipigon. One post at the confluence of the Albany River and the Kenogami.
• 1685 Fort Outoubis built at the north end of Lake Nipigon.
• 1721 Sieur Deschaillons, commandant at Nipigon , moved to the head of the lakes to take over the Kaministikwia post.
• 1724 Sieur de Vercheres, a relative of Madeleine, in command at Nipigon and Kaministikwia.
• 1727 Sieur de la Verendrye spends two years in the Nipigon area, principally rebuilding the posts originally set up.
• 1736 Monsieur de la Valtrie stationed on Lake Nipigon, presumably in the employ of La Verendrye.
• 1742 Fort la Maune was commanded by Nicholas Roch de Ramsay.
• 1751 Nicholas Joseph de Noyelles, Sieur de Fleurimont, replaced La Verendrye. Here to 1749 Pierre Francois Raimbault was the last of the French commandants in the Nipigon District under the French regime. The year before the district reported 80 to 100 packs of pelts.
• 1758 The Nipigon District was leased for 3000 livres.
• 1756 Seven Years War raging in Europe. Louis Menard and his crew of voyageurs and Indians ascended the Nipigon River; crossed Lake Nipigon and went on up to the Albany River.
• 1767 Marcont and La Carpe were given trading concessions on Lake Nipigon.
• 1775 HBCo (Hudson's Bay Company) builds Fort Nipigon on Lake Nipigon, north, probably at the mouth of the Ombabika River. The HBCo came down from the Albany.
• 1776-1779 Formative years leading to the establishment of the NWCo (Northwest Company)
• 1776 John Long made the first of two trips into the Nipigon Area to a trading area west of Lake Nipigon and in the vicinity of Sturgeon Lake.
• 1784 NWCo sends Edward Umfreyville up the Nipigon River and across Lake Nipigon en route to Lake Winnipeg on an exploratory mission to check the usefulness of this particular route. Venance St. Germaine, Jean Roy, Dubay, and Raymond were the names of some of the crew.
• John Duncan Cameron came to the Nipigon country as a clerk for Angus Shaw, an independent trader. Only 56 packs of fur produced this year.
• 1795 Fort Duncan built by the NWCo on Lake Nipigon in the vicinity of the lake and the Wabinosh River. Named for Duncan Cameron mentioned above who is now in charge of the Nipigon District for the NWCo. Only 24 bundles of fine furs were produced this year in this district.
• 1797 Cameron reports that snowshoes had to be used until the end of May. The ice did not go out of Lake Nipigon until June 24 of this year. (Normally this lake is clear of ice in the south by May 15; and all clear by May 25)
• 1798 Nipigon House (HBCo) An Indian brought in a whole moose which he divided up among the HBCo, NWCo and the XYCo.
• 1802 Richard Duncan Fraser ascends the Nipigon River along with Duncan Cameron en route to his post at Fort Duncan on Lake Nipigon.
• 1807 Daniel W. Harmon of the NWCo arrives at Fort Duncan on Lake Nipigon. He was here to recover his health and because Dr. John McLoughlin was also here.
• 1808 Daniel Harmon en route to Lakehead, "Came to an Island in Lake Nipigon where we intend to pass a few days in fishing for trout which are here in plenty."
• 1821 Hudson's Bay Company and the Northwest Company amalgamate, with the HBCo becoming surviving company.
• 1852 Missionary priest who has snowshoed in to Nipigon House on Lake Nipigon from Port Arthur is bitterly critical of all the dogs in the area. Henri De la Ronde is the man in charge for the HBCo.
• 1859 Red Rock Trading Post has its first inauspicious beginnings near the present dock area of Nipigon. Originally, it was Supposed to be a look-out post to keep free traders from going up to Lake Nipigon.
• 1863 Steamboats are now running on Lake Superior on a regular basis. Red Rock is one of the ports of call. Goods are now being brought to Red Rock from Sault Ste Marie and Port Arthur on a scheduled basis. This changes the distribution pattern and makes cheaper the delivery and goods cost.
• 1866 Surveyor Herrick makes a survey of the Nipigon River from Lake Superior to the Lake itself. For the first time , Lake Nipigon has a surveyed locations.
• 1866 Robert Bell made a survey in the Nipigon Area between 1863-1866. First time Lake Nipigon actually surveyed. Charles De la Ronde was in charge of Red Rock House, Mr. Robert Crawford was in charge of Nipigon House. Mr Henry De la Ronde was in charge of Poplar Lodge. Peter McKeller was in the survey party.
• 1867 The Dominion of Canada became a political entity. Sir John A. MacDonald the first Prime Minister.
• FROM CONFEDERATION ONWARD
• 1872 Surveyors for the yet unbuilt C.P.R. railway start swarming into the Nipigon area looking for good routes. One trial line ran back into the bush up the gully behind the Mission Church on Lake Helen.
• 1872 Thunder Bay (using the modern name for Port Arthur) chosen over Nipigon as the site for the Lake Superior terminal of the C.P.R. Great consternation among the speculators who had bought up Nipigon land - including Donald Smith, later Lord Strathconna of the C.P. R.
• 1873 Alexander Walpole Roland in the Nipigon area seemingly looking for copper in the Nipigon Bay area. He spent much time at Red Rock.
• 1874 Township of Nipigon laid out by surveyor A.B. Scott.
• 1874 Earl and Countess of Dufferin spent 3 - 4 days in Nipigon, fishing and camping on the Nipigon River. Camped at Alexander Falls among other places.
• 1881 Thomas Reynolds is a clerk at Red Rock and later moved to Long Lake. He wrote a book about trapping under the pseudonym of Martin Hunter. Worthwhile reading for people who like to kill things.
• 1885 A Colonist road built by the government for several miles north of the town of Nipigon towards South Bay. Never completed. M. Dwyer, road superintendent.
• 1885 Soldiers en route to scene of Riel Rebellion de-train at Nipigon and march across the ice to the station at Red Rock (the real Red Rock not the HBCo store at Nipigon)  where they again embark to continue their journey.
• 1885 Anglican settlement on McIntyre Bay (Grand Bay then) folds up as the attraction of a railroad proves too alluring and the settlers move south.
• 1885 C.P.R. railway around the north shore of Lake Superior becomes a reality. At this time it is still several years away from 60 MPH speeds.
• 1885 Marble and granite quarries being exploited in Nipigon Bay.
• 1892 H.B.Co builds a winter road from Nipigon to Orient Bay on Lake Nipigon. To facilitate freighting of goods to Nipigon House. Hauled in winter by teams and picked up in the spring by boats from Nipigon House.
• 1895 Propaganda being assimilated for the production of a booklet to extol the virtues of the yet un-built Thunder Bay, Nipigon and St. Joe Railway. To go to Lake Joseph on the Albany River from Thunder Bay by a route that looks suspiciously like the Spruce River Road of 1981. The third reading of the bill for the construction of this railway was in March 1899 but nothing seems to have happened.
• 1894 Lord and Lady Aberdeen spend Sunday September 23, 1894 aboard their railway car in Nipigon. They mention Taylors, the hotel people; the McKirdys and Alex Matheson, Hudson's Bay Co. manager.
• 1901 Capt. Knobel of Port Arthur ascends the Nipigon River to Lake Nipigon and then up the Blackwater River. Accompanied by, among others, Robert Flaherty of Nanook of the North fame.
• 1905 Hudson's Bay Co. , Revillon Bros. and Wm. McKirdy all have businesses on Front Street. Red Rock is now only a warehouse for the HBCo and gradually being phased out. Dr. Herman Bryan, just out of medical school at the University of Toronto arrives in Nipigon to take over the job as attending physician for the workers who are surveying the North Transcontinental railway line across the north end of Lake Nipigon. The engineering office of the Division E of the North Transcontinental railway is constructed in Nipigon to become , in 1981, part of the Nipigon Museum Building.
• 1906 First permanent Catholic Church built in Nipigon

Lars Oscar (L.O.) Larson

While working on the Northern Trans-continental Railway construction , 1909, Lars Oscar (known as L.O.) Larson suffered an accident in which he lost his leg. Unable to do construction work he moved to Port Arthur and started a restaurant in the Scandinavian Boarding House. It is believed that in later years he went back to Sweden.

The Nipigon Historical Museum has had a research request to see if we can find out anything more about this man and his life.

The BEARDMORE RELICS: HOAX OR HISTORY - HOW

How could the problem be solved?

A.D. Tushingham's The Beardmore Relics: Hoax or History , ROM  1966 is reprinted by permission of the ROM August 2011.

For many years the weapons held a place of honour in the Museum galleries. The official position was cautious, for there was no absolute proof in either direction. This did not prevent the weapons' being mentioned repeatedly in publications of all kinds (including textbooks) as evidence that the Norsemen had indeed penetrated the Upper Great Lakes region almost 1,000 years ago.

Many people felt the Museum was laying itself open to serious charges of dereliction of duty by continuing to display the objects, unless it could prove beyond doubts that they constituted valid evidence for the theories based upon them. As a result the ROM re-opened the case officially in November 1956. To obsolve itself from any suggestion of bias, and to make the new enquiry known publicly, it asked the Toronto Globe & Mail to assign an experienced reporter who would assess all the known data and seek new evidence. To this reporter, Robert L. Gowe, the Museum opened its files. The first of five articles by him appeared in the newspaper on November 23, 1956. Subsequently the controversy was reported by Maclean's Magazine in the issue of April 13, 1957.

By this time most of the people connected with the case were dead. Surprisingly, Gowe's enquiry still produced new facts - among them the most sensational statement since the discovery itself.  On the day that his first article was printed, the Museum received a telephone call from a man who said he had something he wished to tell about the Beardmore relics. The man turned out to be Walter Dodd, foster-son of James Edward Dodd, who had sworn in 1939 to the full correctness of his father's story. Walter Dodd came to the Museum and after long conversations which were tape-recorded, he made a new sworn statement dated November 28, 1956:

I, Walter Dodd, adopted son of the late James Edward Dodd, formerly of Port Arthur, Ontario, make oath and say:

That I was 12 or 13 years of age in 1930 or 1931 (the time of the reputed find). That my stepfather found in the basement of the house we then lived in, at 33 Machar Street, Port Arthur, some rusty metal pieces of metal.   I remember that there was a short bar that could be held in the hand, cigar-like in shape, a sword broken in two pieces, and an axe head much like a hatchet. I don't remember that there was anything else.

That one weekend I went with my stepfather from Port Arthur to Beardmore. We arrived in the middle of the night and spent the night in his cabin, and in the morning I went with him out to his claim. My stepfather has the iron pieces with him. He laid them on the ground at a spot where he had been blasting some time before, don't remember much about the spot, but should say that it was more like a hill than flat land or a hollow. I do not remember anything else that happened that day.

That we returned to Port Arthur without the weapons, and that later on - I do not remember how long after, but it may have been months, certainly not years later - my stepfather made a trip to the claim by himself and brought back the weapons, and upon his return told the story that he had found the weapons when blasting. I do not know whom he told it to, but the story was spread about in the papers. He kept the weapons wrapped in brown paper in his bedroom, and brought them out to show people when they came to visit. He did not know what they were, just said they were old swords he found while blasting. Hansen made a statement that got into the papers that the weapons belonged to him. I believe his story was that Bloch had given the weapons to Hansen and Hansen had left them in the basement at 33 Machar Street. It was some time after that I was forced to sign an affidavit saying that I had been present when my stepfather discovered the weapons at his claim near Beardmore. I signed the affidavit, and have since then seen it in a printed book. As to Eli Ragotte, I remember only that he boarded in my stepfather's house, that there was a dispute of some kind, and he moved away.

I have never been easy in my mind about having signed an affidavit intended to prove what I knew was not the truth, and I hereby declare that I have now come to the Royal Ontario Museum of my own free will to revoke the statements contained in the affidavit made earlier by me under pressure, and that the above statement is a true statement of the facts as I know them concerning the weapons known as the Beardmore find.

Does this settle the question once and for all?

Not necessarily. James Dodd's widow held the opinion that her foster son's second affidavit had been made - not from any love for the truth or a guilty conscience - but simply out of spite. He had disliked his adopted father, and had taken this method of revenge.

One final statement remains.  It was volunteered by Carey Marshman Brooks, a retired prospector, in Fort William on November 30, 1956. It too calls the Beardmore relics a deliberate hoax; but here again we meet the familiar confusion about the house address, for Brooks swore to events happening at Wilson Street which could have occurred only on Machar Avenue. His sworn statement reads in part:

I have been living in the District of Thunder Bay for over 30 years, during most of which time I was a resident of Beardmore, Ont.. I was well acquainted with the late James Edward Dodd, and prior to the year 1931, I one day visited him at his home on Wilson Street in the City of Port Arthur. At the time he mentioned to me that he had discovered some Norse Relics lying among some ashes in the basement of his house and that he believed they had been left in his house by a Norwegian who had rented a room in the house when it was in the possession of a previous tenant.  I did not ask to examine these Relics...Several months later, when it did come to my attention that Mr. Dodd was making statements to the effect that he had found Norse Relics on his "Middle Claim" at Beardmore, I mentioned to him that he had told me that he had found the said Relics in the basement of his house on Wilson Street, he replied "Oh well, they have been found at Beardmore now., and refused to discuss the matter further. The" Middle Claim" in which Mr. Dodd alleged he had found the Relics, was actually trenched and dynamited by myself and it was I who dug the trench in which Mr. Dodd claimed to have discovered the Relics. This work was done by me during the start of the depression period in 1930 and 1931, when I was hired for some time by Mr. Dodd. My own claim was adjacent to the said "Middle Claim" of Mr. Dodd. In my opinion, it would have been impossible for Mr. Dodd to discover any Relics on the said Claim without my knowledge. I did at no time see any evidence of the discovery, nor did I see  the rust marks of a piece of buried iron on a rock at the Claim, as later described by Dodd.

And that, at the time of writing,(1966?) is where the matter still stands.

The weapons unquestionably are genuine Norse relics of about A.D. 1000.

But did James Dodd really discover them, as he repeatedly said, under a tangled clump of birch roots on his isolated mining claim?

Dr. Currelly retired in 1946, still convinced that the story was true.  In his autobiography, written before the later disclosures, he dismissed criticism with the comment that "all the fuss in the newspapers came from the statements of a drunken brakeman and cellar owner of more than doubtful honesty."

In light of the affidavits sworn by Ragotte, Hansen, Walter Dodd and Brooks, few scholars today are prepared to accept James Dodd's version of the facts without further supporting evidence. Yet even those statements which brand the discovery as a hoax are themselves stained with discrepancy. Ragotte discredited his own testimony. In that of the others we meet confusion about houses and dates.  if it was a hoax, then apparently it could not have occurred before Dodd moved into 33 Machar Avenue in September 1931. But by that time both Jacob and Bohun had seen the weapons on his claim, according to their sworn statements allegedly supported by diary or staff records. Jacob's statement in particular about seeing the rust stains on the rock in 1930 demands special explanation. Nor are we any closer to understanding why Dodd should have carried out such a hoax. He made no direct moves to gain publicity or profit thereby, and it was only through the intervention of a Kingston school teacher, O.C. Elliott, that the Museum learned of the find at all.

The Last Analysis

In the last analysis, it is impossible to explain all the discrepancies satisfactorily. The statements containing them were, in most cases, made at least five years after the event. Moreover, the prolific writing of Hjalmar Holand had persuaded many people in the Canadian and U.S. mid-west that their area had indeed been visited by the Vikings long before Columbus sailed the Atlantic. Holand's theories aroused such strong feeling, particularly among persons of Norwegian descent, that Hansen was attacked form all sides for daring to undermine the evidence which appeared to support it. In this atmosphere of belief, and desire to believe, the tangled web of evidence surrounding Dodd's alleged discovery is very easy to understand.

At present the Beardmore relics lie in storage at the Royal Ontario Museum, in that particular limbo reserved for objects of uncertain history. The evidence for or against the story of their discovery is far too circumstantial to permit of dogmatism, but opinion leans strongly towards the view that it was a hoax. This does not deny the possibility that Norsemen did reach the central area of North America. Perhaps some day unequivocal evidence will be uncovered to support that theory. At present , there is none.


This concludes the reprinting of A.D. Tushingham's "The Beardmore Relics: Hoax or History, 1966, ROM

The Replicas of the Beardmore relics can be seen in the Nipigon Historical Museum.
40 Front Street, Nipigon, Ontario

THE BEARDMORE RELICS: HOAX OR HISTORY - WHY

A.D. Tushingham's continuing story:
The Beardmore Relics: Hoax or History, 1966, is reprinted by permission of the R.O.M.
Why is there Still Doubt?

Little publicity attended the ROM's purchase of the weapons. Then on January 27, 1938, the Winnipeg Free Press carried an interview with Eli Ragotte, another CNR trainman. Ragotte claimed to have discovered the rusty sword as early as 1928 - in a pile of ashes in the basement of Dodd's Port Arthur home.
 In a formal statement the following day, Ragotte swore that:

Between the years 1929 and 1930, I lived in a house on Wilson Street, in the City of Port Arthur in the Province of Ontario, the number of which I have forgotten. The premises were owned by a Mr. J.M. Hansen, a Contractor of Port Arthur, and were rented to a Mr. James E. Dodds, who was my landlord.That Mr. Hansen told me that he had left various articles in and on the said premises which he had rented to Mr. Dodds. That sometime during the years 1928 and 1930, while assisting Mr. Dodds in cleaning up the premises on the said Wilson Street , I found an old rusty sword, in the basement. That about six weeks after finding the said sword Mr. Dodds told me that he had blasted it out of his Mineral Claim situated one mile East of Warnford, Ontario, which was known as the Middle Claim. That Mr. Dodds told me that he had not only found the said sword on the claim, but he had also found a shield and an axe. That i never saw the axe, but was shown a rusted piece of steel which Mr. Dodds told me was a shield...That the sword which I found in the basement of the premises on Wilson Street in the City of Port Arthur, is the same one which Mr. Dodds was showing around the City of Port Arthur, and claiming that he had blasted the same out of his Claim at Warnford, Ontario.

This statement contained at least one obvious and important error. The house on Wilson Street was not owned by Hansen, and Dodd never occupied any residence owned by Hansen before June 1931. Later Ragotte said the incident had occurred at 33 Machar Avenue, but still gave the date as 1929 or 1930. This discrepancy may be credited to confusion in Ragotte 's mind, arising from the fact that some years had passed and he had roomed with Dodd in both houses.

On January 29, the contractor Hansen entered the mystery in person. He too made a notarized statement. In it he swore that he had owned a set of Viking Relics, obtained from a Lieutenant Bloch in payment of a $25 debt; that he had stored the relics in the basement of 33 Machar Avenue ; that while Dodd was living there, he, Hansen, had discovered the relics missing; and that the relics answered in general to the description of those reportedly found by Dodd on his mining claim.

Jens Peter Blanchenberg Bloch (known in Port Arthur as Lieutenant Bloch or John Bloch) was the son of Andreas Bloch, a noted Norwegian painter and designer whose special interests were heraldry and military history. The elder Bloch knew a great deal about ancient weapons and costumes , including those of the Viking period. His son, after spending one year in a military academy in Norway, emigrated to Canada in 1923 and arrived in Port Arthur two years later. He was an educated man and had many friends among the people of Norwegian background there. In 1928 he worked for a time for Hansen. Later he moved to Winnipeg and finally to Vancouver, where he died on October 30, 1936, before the relics were purchased by the ROM.

Bloch did owe Hansen $35. How the debt was settled is unknown. Nor is it known definitely that Bloch ever owned a set of Viking weapons. His friends, including the local Norwegian vice-consul, C. Sorenson, testified that to their knowledge he did not. However, Norwegian law forbade the export of antiquities without a special permit, and it is possible that Bloch would never mention owning such objects to his countrymen - in particular the vice-consul. His widow, whom he married after leaving port Arthur, and he often talked of recovering them.

Two private letters from Hansen are in the museum (ROM) files. In one, he described Dodd as (to put it politely) a man with a reputation for untruthfulness. In the other, mailed to Ragotte a few days after the Free Press interview appeared he wrote:

Thanking you for advising the Manitoba Free Press Re my relic there was 33 Machar Avenue...As you were speaking that the relics were among the clinkers I kinda remember that I was down at 33 Machar looking for my fishing tackles that I lost and Dodds went down the basement to look for them and i went down and you came also then I asked for my Norse relics  you remembers the bench they were standing left along the East wall in the basement and Dodds said he saw some old iron and junk that he threw amongst the clinkers that was left in the basement at the time and you went over and rooted amongst the ashes and found some of them and you remember also that I told Dodds to get them up and put oil on them as I had did which he promised. a I several calls to make that night and you both promised me to get them out for me...According to what I found out last night the relics was sold to the Royal Ontario Museum by Dodd? Of course the fishing tackle and rod that he claims you have I suppose are lost. You don't remember what became of the grine stone that was standing in the back. The frame was left but the stone and handle were gone... Thanking you again for the stand you are taking as I almost forgot it until I saw about these relics and you couldn't help me thinking that they must be mine.

Had Dodd simply purloined the relics from the basement on Machar Avenue and used them to "salt' his claim for a phony tale? According to Ragotte and Hansen, that appeared to be the case. Yet if they were telling the truth Dodd could not have obtained the objects until after he moved to 33 Machar avenue in September 1931. How then can we explain the affidavits which swear to seeing them in his possession a year earlier?

There matters stood briefly. and then, two months after starting the controversy, Ragotte swore an affidavit which said in effect, "I have just been joking!"  Still later, after seeing the actual relics in the Royal Ontario Museum both Ragotte and Hansen, on separate occasions said they were not the ones that had been in the Machar Avenue cellar.  Nevertheless, their earlier stories left a permanent cloud over the Beardmore relics.

The "HOW" will follow. 

The Beardmore Relics: Hoax or History WHO

WHO found these objects?

This gets you a short version of the story on Wikipedia site for the Beardmore relics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beardmore_Relics


The following continues the A.D. Tushingham's article : The Beardmore Relics: Hoax or History, ROM 1966... reprinted by permission, courtesy of the Royal Ontario Museum, August 31, 2011.

October 18, 1938
The News Chronicle

James Edward Dodd 

The case rests ultimately on the credibility of James Edward Dodd, of Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay), a trainman on the Canadian National Railway. Like many other people in that neighbourhood, Dodd used to spend his spare time prospecting for gold.  It was during one of these trips into the bush that he allegedly found the relics. When the Royal Ontario Museum bought his objects, on December 3, 1936, Dodd made a statement which may be summarized as follows.

He had been sampling an exposed, nearly vertical quartz vein on a claim near Beardmore on May 24, 1931.  Where the vein ran into the ground these stood a clump of birch, consisting of one old tree that had died and a group of young trees sprung from its roots. To save cutting through that tangled mass, Dodd decided to use dynamite. Roots and all were blown over by the blast, and about 3 and a half feet of overlay was dislodged, exposing rock.  On the rock lay some rusty pieces of iron. Dodd was after richer metal - and threw them to one side. There they lay, on the surface of the ground, until1933, when he carried them home to Port Arthur.

Word Spread

Eventually word of the find reached C.T. Currelly, director of the Royal Ontario Museum of Archaeology.  He invited Dodd to bring the weapons to the Museum. As Dr. Currelly described the meeting some years later:
"It was obvious to me that the weapons were a set, that is, that the axe and the sword were of the same date, which I judged to be about A.D. 1000. I asked Mr. Dodd if he had found anything else, as I knew that there should have been another piece.  He said yes, that lying over the bar of metal was something like a bowl that was rusted into little fragments. He had just shovelled them out. This bit of evidence was as it should have been, and since no one unacquainted with Viking things would have known of this iron boss that covered the hand on the Viking shield.  I felt, therefore, that there was no question that these things have been found as was described."

Checking the Story

Nevertheless, Dr. Currelly asked Professor T.F. McIlwraith of the University of Toronto, an Indian Archaeologist of much experience, to check the story.  McIlwraith visited the site of the alleged discovery with Dodd in September 1937.  In his official report afterwards he supported Dodd's description of the physical features of the find, although dynamiting and trenching carried out in the intervening years had made it impossible to check all details. He concluded, " I believe the facts to be substantially as reported by him."

Dodd's story was supported by John Drew Jacob, who at the time of discovery was overseer in the Beardmore District for the Ontario Fish and game Department. On December 9, 1936, he made a formal statement that he had visited the site soon after the weapons had been discovered and had seen there, imprinted in the rock, the rust stain left by the iron sword.

Six months later Jacob amplified his  original statement. He explained that he had heard through an acquaintance of Dodd's find, had seen the objects in Port Arthur, had checked in reference books and had then visited the site himself. In both these statements Jacob assumed the date of the discovery to be 1931, as Dodd had said.  Soon afterwards, however, he checked in his diary and found he had visited the site and seen the rust impression between June 17 and June 21, 1930.

Dodd, himself, apparently soon afterwards, independently revised his account to place the discovery in 1930 rather than 1931, and the earlier date is contained in a formal affidavit sworn by him on February 3, 1939. the same day, affidavits also were sworn by Walter Dodd, his foster-son ("I have read my father's affidavit, and can testify to its correctness"): by William Feltham, who said he had accompanied Dodd to the alleged discovery site about the end of May 1930 and had seen the objects resting 'on the banking of earth around the cabin"; and by Fletcher Gill, a railwayman and Dodd's partner of the mining claims. Gill was not on hand at the time of the discovery but said he had a letter from Dodd in the summer of 1931 about finding an "old Indian cemetery".

In his 1939 affidavit, Dodd also stated :
(1) that P.J. Bohun, CNR section man at nearby Dorion, had seen the relics at the cabin on the claim, and that (2) subsequently in May or June, 1930, he, Dodd, had taken them to his home at 296 Wilson Street in Port Arthur. Four days later Bohun made a sworn statement that he was foreman at Warnford, one mile from Dodd's camp, that he used to visit Dodd there, and that on "one of these visits - between the 15th of May and the 1st of July, 1931 - ( I take these dates from staff records, which show that I was stationed at Warnford between these dates) - I saw the handle part of the sword...  lying on the ground outside the left side (south side) of Dodd's camp.Three other Port Arthur residents made sworn statements supporting Dodd's statement that he had the relics in his home on Wilson Street; and a forth swore that Dodd had possession of the weapons before he moved from Wilson Street.

The matter of Dodd's residence became increasingly important as the story unfolded. During this period Dodd lived in three different houses in Port Arthur. The first was at 296 Wilson Street. On June 29, 1931, he moved to 37 Machar Avenue.  There his landlord was J.M. Hansen (we shall hear more of him) who lived next door at 33 Machar Avenue. After only a few months, on September 18, 1931, Hansen moved out of 33 Machar Avenue and Dodd moved in. He remained there until March 9, 1933, when he moved yet again to 74 South Algoma Street.

It is obvious that Dodd's statements and those which tend to support it in substance are full of discrepancies in detail, especially in the matter of dates. Dodd originally told Currelly in 1936 that he had discovered the weapons in 1931 and had left them on his mining claim until 1933. In his later statements he pushed the date back to 1930 and said he had taken them home to Wilson Street during May or June of the same year. Certainly, if he brought them to Wilson Street it must have been before the end of June 1931.

These discrepancies would in themselves raise doubts about the veracity of statements made by Dodd and some other witnesses. But in the absence of other evidence the story, with some misgivings, could be accepted.  There was no clear factual or testimonial evidence to disprove its essential features - that Dodd had found the Norse weapons while blasting on his mining claim and after some time had brought them to his home in Port Arthur where several people saw them.

Besides:

How else could Dodd have acquired genuine Norse relics? He apparently did not know what they were, and had made no effort to profit from their discovery.

Why would Dodd have spoken of a "dome of rust" if he had not actually seen it?

Why would  Jacob, a reputable man, well known to the Museum, have supported Dodd's claim so strongly before there was any newspaper publicity about it, if he had not actually seen the rust impression of the sword?  it is difficult to believe in collusion between him and Dodd.

By such reasoning, Currelly came to believe tha Dodd's story was in fact essentially true, and the Bearedmore Relics were proudly put on display in the Royal Ontario Museum.