Wednesday 6 June 2012

THOUGHT RELICS "PILE OF JUNK"

The News Chronicle
Port Arthur - Fort William - Westfort - Schreiber - Nipigon
October 19, 1938  page 1

From the "Fenwick Papers" Nipigon Museum Archives

Dodd Tells How Pieces Now in Museum Were Thrown Out at House-Cleaning Time

By Canadian Press

Toronto, October 19 - J.E. Dodd, Port Arthur mining man, who discovered ancient pieces of iron in Northwestern Ontario, said yesterday the implements, believed to be Viking relics, were once considered as "a pile of junk". Dodd said the relics, now in Royal Ontario Museum here, were re-discovered after house-cleaning.
"My wife thought they were a lot of junk," he related, "and she threw them out in the yard after they had been around the house for a while. It was only after a school teacher from Kingston became interested in them and said they might be Norse relics that I went and got them again."
'If anyone had offered me a couple of packages of cigarettes the day I found them i would have handed them over like a shot. I was fresh out of smokes that day."
Dodd's discovery of the implements has started a widespread controversy. Many believe they were left by a Norseman who died near Beardmore in the 11th century. Dodd suggested the national monument board of Canada ought to create a historic site at the place the discovery was made.
Fletcher Gill, his partner in the Beardmore mining claim accompanied Dodd to Toronto. Gill said he found a " relic" on the property and used it as a pick until it was lost.

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