FENN: Well, I started collecting things in 1982 when I had cancer and I thought I was going to die. TFENN: And it’s not buried in an outhouse. I’ve given that as a clu3.
EEDS: That’s good.
FENN: Yeah, some people were very happy to get that answer.
EEDS: Yeah. You said the, kinda the motivation was, you got sick. Did you think this was it? You were going to be checking out?
FENN: Well, my doctor gave me a 20% chance of living three years. I mean look at the odds. One in five is not very good. But I told myself, that has to sink, it takes a couple of weeks for that to soak in. But then I told myself if I’m going who says I can’t take it with me? Sure I can take it with me, and that’s when I got the treasure chest. That’s when I started filling it up with wonderful things, you know if I’m going to go, I’m just going to take it with me and to heck with what everybody else thinks. The trouble is, I got well and ruined the story.
EEDS: Yeah. You ruined the whole thing. Um, but, that was kind of the motivation, uh, for wanting to do that, and then how long ago… The latest book that you’ve published is three years old? Two years old? Three years old.
FENN: Something like that, yes. It’s called Too Far to Walk.
EEDS: RIght.
FENN: It’s kind of a continuation of my Thrill of the Chase book.
EEDS: What was the thrill of the chase?
FENN: Why would you ask me what is the thrill of the chase? You know that more than anybody in the world.
EEDS: I’m just sitting here. I’m hoping people are listening in their cars at work or at home. They want to hear it from you.
FENN: Well, if you haven’t been consumed by something in your life, I think you deserve another term, and the thrill of the chase personifies that to me.
EEDS: Keep living. Always be chasing.
FENN: Sure. Everybody needs to collect something. I might be the world’s greatest collector. I collected bottle tops. I collected string.
EEDS: Tin foil?
FENN: You know, I could have done that, but I don’t think I ever collected tin foil. That’s something that could have been on my agenda if I’d thought about it.
EEDS: One of the things that seems to surprise you when you have talked to the press, or done little videos about this entire treasure chest and about your life, and it’s been a you know, a life worthy of books and lots being written about it, you seemed a little bit surprised at the people that have invaded your privacy. Were you not expecting that? I mean, here’s a man, a Santa Fe New Mexican who lives out, you know, you live out in the open. You're not behind a giant wall or a compound, you live out in the open. You’re just a man who goes around and does his own business. Were you a little bit surprised that people would be so brash?
FENN: No, I worked on this project a long time. I really think I thought about most things. Certainly the thought occurred to me that my life could be in danger by somebody kidnapping me. I’ve called 911 three times in my home. This one guy started wrestling with police officers and they handcuffed him and took him off to jail. But that’s a very small group of people, and the great preponderance of people looking for the treasure are good Americans. They’ll say Mr. Fenn, we know we’re not going to find the treasure but I just want to thank you for getting me and the kids off the couch and away from the game room and out to smell the sunshine. That’s important to me. This lady from, a writer from Austin called me on the phone, she said Mr. Fenn I read your book. That’s really a strange book she said. Who’s your audience for a book like that? I said, lady, my audience is every redneck in Texas that lost his job, has 12 kids, and a pickup truck. I said, that’s my audience. That’s who I hope finds my treasure. But, you know, Mr. Eeds, we have a problem in this country with our youth today, and I think none of us are doing enough to solve that problem. The teenagers of today are going to be our congressmen and senators twenty, twenty-five years from now - president of the United States, and I blame the churches and the schools, and I blame you, and I blame me, and I blame Mika, because we’re not doing enough to combat the problem. The greatest asset we have in this country is our youth.
EEDS: You think the problem is lack of activity or are you talking about lack of education? What is the problem, Forrest?
FENN: Well, I think it’s all of those things, but it’s something I feel is incumbent upon all of us to try to solve. In my small way, I’m doing a part. If everybody in this country, all the grown ups in this country, would do a little bit, it would make a big difference.
EEDS: How many people are now actively part of your plan. Your master plan, your effort. You know, if all of this is to improve our country and to improve all of us, the lot of us, how many people do you think are involved now? Buy your books or are looking for your treasure?
FENN: Well, I think, my guess is that 50,000 will come to Santa Fe this summer.
EEDS: This summer?
FENN: And just as many into Colorado and Wyoming and Montana. A lot of people think the treasure chest is in Montana around Hebgen Lake and the Gallatin National Forest that was very important to me when I was a kid. And I’ve said that in my books, and they see that as a hint to where the treasure is.
EEDS: So 50,000 people you think this summer, but you’re not going to release any more clues?
FENN: I’m not going to release any more clues.
EEDS: What will you do to stoke the fires?
FENN: What would I do to what?
EEDS: What will you do to create more buzz, create more activity to keep people interested or get more people into it?
FENN: Well you know, it’s out of my hands now really. When I hid that treasure chest, there was nobody around. And I was walking back to my car and I looked around and I started laughing. And I said out loud, Forrest Fenn did you really do that? And I started laughing. I thought it was the most atrocious thing that I’d ever done. But, in the back of my mind, I told myself that if I’m sorry tomorrow, I can go back and get the treasure chest. But the more I thought about it, I said, no I’m not going to do it. And I told myself it’s out of my hands now. I’m an interested bystander at this point. But I get between 100 and 120 emails every day from people that, most of them know where the treasure chest is. They just want me to confirm it. This one lady says, you know Mr. Fenn, I’m coming out there in my pickup truck but it’s not a very good truck anymore. If my truck breaks, will you pick me up and take me the rest of the way to the treasure?
EEDS: No problem, right?
FENN: No problem.
EEDS: What, of course the value has got to fluctuate as the price of gold goes up and down. Average day, what’s the treasure worth inside the treasure chest?
FENN: You know, I’ve thought of that don’t really know. A lot of the coins have numismatic value, beyond the price of gold and
EEDS: Sure, historic value
FENN: and that fluctuates every day. There are so many little things that I really don’t know what they’re worth. Those two little ancient Chinese jade figures, I think I gave $12,000 each for those things and the Sinu and Tairona necklace that has fetishes made out of quartz crystal and carnelian and semi-precious stones, uh, it’s 2,000 years old and the last thing I put in that bracelet was a little bracelet that has 22 little turquoise disc beads in it that Richard Weatherall found the first time he went into Mesa - the day he discovered Mesa Verde. Climbed down the cliffs, and walked into Mesa Verde and picked up these 22 little beads.
EEDS: Was he one of the guys that was on the cattle drive that found… You say discovered, discovered for White Men, was he one of the guys on the cattle drive who discovered by accident?
FENN: Well, Richard Weatherall discovered Mesa Verde. If my story is correct, he was sitting up on the bluff there in the trees, took a nap, and when he woke up, the sun, the shadows had changed and he looked across there was Mesa Verde. He was flabbergasted because he had never seen it before. He worked around that part of the country.
EEDS: One of my favorite places.
FENN: Well I won that little bracelet in a pool game with Byron Harvey, who was one of the heirs of Fred Harvey. And it has a good story, and it fit me perfectly, and I wanted something dear to me to be in that treas - I wanted part of me to be in that treasure chest. When I closed the lid for the last time, I told myself that some of me is in that treasure chest.
EEDS: Can you turn on Mika’s microphone? Mika what have you seen, you’re nodding. Have you seen - do you remember seeing some of the stuff that’s in the treasure chest?
MIKA: I remember when he was putting… I was quite young at the time, but I remember when he was putting it together. I remember the bracelet, and I have lots of friends that have gone out looking for it. I’ve always told them that if you find it, the only thing I want is that turquoise bracelet. You can keep the gold, and you can keep the jade.
EEDS: The bracelet we’re talking about from Mesa Verde.
MIKA: Yes. But I’d love to have that bracelet because of the sentimentality behind it for my grandfather.
EEDS: Right. Anything else in there? The jade figures - anything else in there you remember?
MIKA: Uh, there’s a bracelet that I remember vividly because it’s so unique. It’s a dragon bracelet right grandpa?
FENN: Mmm-hmm
MIKA: It’s made out of gold and it has its eyes are rubies I believe and it’s wrapped in diamonds. It’s just this extraordinary piece of jewelry that I remember quite vividly because it is so amazing.
EEDS: So if you weren’t here, I would still think he’s putting me on but -
MIKA: He’s not. I give you my personal word that he is entirely honest. He likes to embellish, but he’s an honest man.
EEDS: I love the idea that you won that in a pool tournament with Fred Harvey’s… FENN: Grandnephew. It was in a pool game in his house in Scottsdale.
EEDS: Have you been by to see the Harvey Girls exhibit at the History Museum? About the entire… You know, what an ag… what a monumental marketing discovery the size of southwest. People don’t know this story - Fred Harvey and the Harvey Girls. It was huge.
FENN: I have not seen that exhibit but I plan to. I knew one of the famous Harvey Girls. She lived up on Canyon Road in Santa Fe. She had called me on the phone and said, Forrest come on up here let’s celebrate with some libations. That was the word she liked to use. I’d go up there. She’d drink vodka and I’d drink coffee… I’m sticking to that story.
EEDS: Yeah. I bet you are. Can we talk about your book? We’ll take another time out here. Another quick break. Come back, talk about the new book - a Russian…
FENN: Leon Gaspard
EEDS: Announcement going to come out very, very soon and you say you’ve got some kind of ground-breaking publishing technology that you’re going to use.
FENN: That’s right. Everybody better sit down when I start talking about it.
EEDS: This is cool. Forrest Fenn is not only a collector and treasure hider, but he’s also cutting edge publisher. Who knew? Forty-seven minutes after ten. We’ll be right back. KVSF 101.5 the Voice of Santa Fe.
EEDS: Fifty-one minutes after ten o’clock. Our guest in the studio is Forrest Fenn and his granddaughter Mika. So, Forrest, uh, new book coming out. You said within the next 30 days the topic is:
FENN: Well we hope to print within the next 30 days.
EEDS: What’s it about?
FENN: It’s a biography of Leon Gaspard - the great Russian-American painter. He was born in 1862 and died in 1964. One of the famous uhh
EEDS: Wow! 102 years old!
FENN: Did I say that?
EEDS: 1862 to 1964
FENN: Well, you know, I may have stretched that a little bit one way or the other.
EEDS: Alright, so it’s fiction?
FENN: He was a painter. He joined the French Army in World War 1. He was a pil - he was sitting in an airplane and he was shot down, and he jumped out of the airplane and he went into a mud puddle and it’s a wonderful story. Took him a long time to recover. But when he got married, he married an American woman, and his uncle gave him three horses. So Leon Gaspard got on his horse with his wife Evelyn, and for two years, they rode across Mongolia and Afghanistan and those countries on their honeymoon. That’ll clean out your sinuses a little bit. That’s the kind of person he was. In my book, we think we are breaking new ground and, you can tell me if I’m wrong, but on two places in my book there’s a link that you type the link into Google and you get a video of Leon Gaspard riding on his horse in Taos. We’re talking about 1920. Another link you can click on, you hear Leon Gaspard’s actual voice telling a story. We have nine paintings illustrated in the book that are 20 inches wide. When’s the last time you saw a 20’ inch wide spread in a book?
MIKA: I don’t think I ever have. Until 30 days from now
EEDS: Alright, so Leon became, he lived in Taos. Was he part, I mean, was he well-known, established painter, part of the Taos arts scene?
FENN: Well, he didn’t belong to the Taos society of artists, but he and Nicolai Fechin are both Russian-American. They were arguably among the two best artists that ever lived in Taos. But, yeah, they spoke Russian together. They played chess. Leon Gaspard made really great borscht and invited Russian friends over for dinner. There was high society in those days in the teens and 1920s.
EEDS: Okay, but this was, you didn’t know either of them?
FENN: No. I didn’t come on the scene then.
EEDS: Until ‘72?
FENN: But I wrote a book about Nicolai Fechin and he was born within a year of Leon Gaspard, and they were very close friends. Gaspard paintings that I was selling in my gallery in Santa Fe in 1976 and 1977 for $7,500 are $1.5 million today. I mean the appreciation on those things - and the same thing is true for Niocolai Fechin. If you have any money sticking in a tin can buried in your backyard, you’d better go buy a Nicolai Fechin painting or a Leon Gaspard.
EEDS: Art is still a good investment?
FENN: Art is a great investment.
EEDS: Who are, uh, that school, the famous Taos artists society, who are some of the your famous uh…
FENN: My favorites?
EEDS: Yeah. A painter - if you saw one up on Canyon Road today, you would go man, I gotta figure out how to go get that.
FENN: Well, Victor Higgins of course is one of my favorites, but Gaspard, and Fechin, and Earnest Bloomenschein. I wrote two books about Joseph Henry Sharp, I bought his estate. He was a good painter. He wasn’t one of the best, but he was probably fourth or fifth on that list. It’s extraordinary that so many great painters would move to a little town like Taos. You know, Bloomenschein and Burt Phillips were in Taos for the first time in September 1888.
EEDS: Some kind of accident. The wagon broke down.
FENN: Excuse, 1898. And Burt Phillips stayed. He was the first one to really stay in Taos. They became fixtures up there and they had trouble selling their paintings and Victor Higgins used to meet the bus with paintings. When somebody stepped off the bus, he’d try to sell them a painting. You know, $200 would buy the best thing he had. That painting today is $1,000,000.
EEDS: You talk about how we need to help our children. Children in the United States are under a lot of pressure and probably, like you said, they’re the future. Um, efforts in Santa Fe, really wonderful programs like art week, that try to take the art into schools. You believe in those and the value of them?
FENN: I certainly do. The more we
EEDS: Have you done it with your children, grandchildren?
FENN: Sure, let’s get our kids involved in something. We’re sitting on the couch too much. We’re playing with our little hand machines too much.
EEDS: Video games.
FENN: Mika’s guilty of that, aren’t you Mika?
MIKA: I am, unfortunately. I put it away when I come to your house though.
FENN: Well if you get out in the sunshine it serves a lot of things. First of all, you can lose some weight if you need to do that, you can observe nature, you can… the smells are good and the hikes are good and we need to get out of the house more.
EEDS: Alright this new book, you hope to come out in 30 days, how will it come out? Will it come out online, will it be in print, will it be in bookstores? Collected Works? What are you going to do?
FENN: All of that.
EEDS: Do you do e-books?
FENN: No, I don’t do e-books. Primarily, my books are picture books, so it’s hard for e-books to come out, but, the Collected Works Bookstore in Santa Fe handles all my books. They’ll have it and we’ll sell it online and ship it
EEDS: Let us know when it’s done and we’ll put it on Santa Fe dot com and however we can help spread the word.
FENN: Do you have any money? Can you afford to buy one?
EEDS: I don’t have thirty cents on me. Dina’s got money though. Dina’s got all the money in this studio.
FENN: Okay.
EEDS: Hey I really - it’s been a blast. I hope that, you know, you didn’t mind that hour went really fast. You’re a pleasure to talk to.
FENN: Well, thank you, sir. That’s nice Mr. Eeds, I appreciate that.
EEDS: Have a great weekend, and um, come back any time you want. Bring him back Mika, will you?
MIKA: I’ll do my best.
EEDS: When the book comes out
MIKA: I’m the driver, so I’ll get him here.
EEDS: Yeah, I bet. And you’re still looking for anybody that has a 1935 Plymouth
FENN: Two door Plymouth, sure.
EEDS: Doesn’t have to be the deluxe. Just has to be the standard.
FENN: It has to be drivable.
EEDS: Has to be - has to run.
FENN: I have to show it off around Santa Fe.
EEDS: You know, it doesn’t have to run right now, but a little battery, a little air in the tires, you know, fixable. Email Forrest. Go to his website. Which is, once again old santa fe...
FENN: trading co
EEDS: trading co dot com. Right. They can find you through that. If you can find a ‘35 Plymouth, send him some good pictures, and make a good deal, right?
FENN: That’s right.
EEDS: Like you said, you never haggled for anything, you always overpaid.
FENN: If somebody can find me a 1935 Plymouth, I’ll buy them a hot dog. They can have mustard, relish, whatever they want.
EEDS: Thanks for coming by, Forrest. Mika, thanks for driving.
MIKA: Thank you.
EEDS: Alright, have a great weekend. Coming up next Julie Goldberg show. It is coming up on eleven o’clock. We’ll see you Monday morning, bright and early seven o’clock. By the way, great show on Monday. We’ll have the owner of the Violet Crown theater, also Al Dusare, you know Al? The guy who used to own Maria’s?
FENN: sure.
EEDS: He’ll be here.
FENN: I know Al.
EEDS: He’s a pain in the butt, that guy. As well as Ray Sandoval. Will make a big announcement on Monday as well. Be back Monday. Have a great weekend everybody. KVSF 101.5 the Voice of Santa Fe.
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9565 12/22/2014 MPR News
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Link: Click Here
A Beautiful World - Extended Interview
HEATHER MCELHATTON: I’m Heather McElhatton and this is A Beautiful World, bringing you inspirational stories from around the globe.
FORREST FENN: A reporter asked me, “Mr. Fenn, who is your audience?” And I said, “My audience is every redneck that is married, has 12 kids, lost his job, has a pickup truck, and has a sleeping bag. That’s my audience.” And I hope that’s the guy that finds my treasure chest.
MCELHATTON: Adventure, exploration, and intrigue. The thrill of the hunt. Those are the reasons that millionaire Forrest Fenn gave for why he buried a treasure chest in the Sierra Madres filled with gold and treasure valued in the millions. It all started when Forrest was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was told his condition was terminal.
FENN: My doctor gave me a 20% chance of living three years.
MCELHATTON: He realized that even though he had spent his entire life hunting for treasure, he wouldn’t be able to take a single coin with him when he died.
FENN: You know, when I thought I was going to die of cancer, I told myself I’ve had it - I’ve had such a good life. I’m 83 years old now, and it’s been so much fun for me chasing antiques and looking in trunks in an old antique shop. And I told myself, why don’t I give somebody else the same opportunity that I’ve had.
MCELHATTON: Forrest Fenn is a treasure hunter by trade - a real life Indiana Jones.
FENN: It just so happened that about that time, Ralph Lauren, who is also a collector, was in my library with me and he wanted something that he would like to buy from me and I said, well I really don’t want to sell that. He said, “Well Forrest, you’ve got so many of these things, you can’t take them with you.” I said, “Ralph, if I can’t take it with me, then I’m not going to go.” And that night I started thinking about it. I said, “Who says I can’t take it with me. Why do I have to play by everybody else’s rules?”
MCELHATTON: Fenn says, he thought about it for a while, and then he went out and he bought a $25,000 treasure chest. Because if he was going out, he was going out his way.
FENN: I started over the years, I started filling it up with gold nuggets and gold coins and pre-Columbian gold. There’s ancient Chinese jade figures and some pre-Columbian gold Wa’kas from Central America. I ruined the story by getting well, Heather. But I told myself it was a good idea anyway, I’m just going to take this treasure chest out and hide it. And I wrote a book called The Thrill of the Chase, and in that book there’s a poem that has nine clues in it. If you can follow the clues in the poem, they will take you to the treasure chest. And if you can find the treasure chest, you can have it.
MCELHATTON: Fenn said it was an experience he had with his father, early on, that got him hooked on treasure hunting for life.
FENN: Well, you know, I made D’s and F’s in school. I think I graduated from high school because my father was one of the principals. I don’t think my father had many expectations from me, but the first artifact I found, I was looking in a plowed field with my father in Central Texas and I… We were arrowhead collectors. He was an arrowhead collector, and I wanted to be, but I’d never found one so, we were walking down through this, a friend’s plowed field and I found my first beautiful little arrowhead. A little orange thing, it dates probably 800 years old, and it was the thrill of my life. You know, when I saw that little arrowhead, I told myself, that that beautiful little thing, little beautiful thing had been laying there on that field for 800 years waiting for me to come along and pick it up. It started on me a lifetime of adventure and inspiration.
MCELHATTON: And during that lifetime, Fenn has done things his way - a policy he plans to continue.
FENN: I want to go out - I’d like to go out on my own terms. That’s what my father did. He had terminal cancer. They gave him six months to live, and 18 years later, uh, 18 months later, he was in great pain. He wouldn’t take any kind of pain pills, and he took his own life and I so respected him for doing that. I talked about that in my book, you know. Why do you have to do those kind of things under everybody else’s terms? I mean, I respected my father for doing that.
MCELHATTON: It was searching for treasure that brought Forrest Fenn and his father together. Which is something he also hopes to pass on to others.
FENN: We have trouble with our children today. We’re obese. We’re sitting on the couch watching TV or we’re down in the game room and one of my reasons was to do something to try to get these kids excited. Get them out in the mountains and in the fresh air and interested in nature. I think that’s so important today. We’ve gotten away from that. A fortunate byproduct of what this chase has done is I got an email from a man who had told me had not spoken to his brother for seventeen years. But when he read about the treasure, he called his brother on the phone and they’ve hooked up again and now they’re out looking for the treasure chest together.
MCELHATTON: So it gets people out of the house and it brings people together.
FENN: The treasure chase brought them together, and there are lots of families can hardly wait till school’s out so that mom and pop can get the three kids in the car and head out to the Rocky Mountains. You know, we’re reuniting families, we’re getting them off the couches, and away from our texting machines and we’re getting people out in the mountains to smell the sunshine. It’s very rewarding to me.
MCELHATTON: Fenn has received over 36,000 letters and emails from people hunting for his treasure, all unsuccessfully.
FENN: I don’t know whether anybody will ever find it or not. You know, the Rosetta Stone was buried for 2,000 years before it was found and I keep telling myself, “Don’t you know that guy is proud that made that Rosetta Stone?” There’s a thrill in discovery. There’s no doubt about that. I know exactly how gold miners feel, you know? They think the next shovel is going to be the mother lode.
MCELHATTON: I asked Fenn to describe what exactly he put inside the treasure chest. The one that’s waiting out there for someone to find it.
FENN: Heather, when somebody finds my treasure chest, and they’re sitting down with that thing on their lap, it weighs 42 pounds, and they open that lid, they’re just going to take a deep breath and start laughing. It is such an amazing site to see. And, uh, that’s what I’m hoping for. I don’t know when somebody’s going to find that thing. It could be this summer, it could be a thousand years from now. But I know they’re going to have an amazing feeling and their pulse rate is going to increase, I can guarantee that. When they open that lid and they look at what’s in that - you know there’s hundreds of gold nuggets. Two of them are larger than a chicken egg. There are 265 gold coins. Mostly Eagles - American Double Eagles, but there are hundreds of rubies and diamonds, and emeralds, and sapphires, and jade carved - ancient carved Chinese carved jade figures. And I think when they lift that lid and look at their hand is going to go to their mouth and they’re going to say, “Oh my God.” And I know that they’re going to start laughing if they don’t faint.
MCELHATTON: If you want to try looking for Fenn’s treasure yourself, your best bet is to start with his poem. Which Fenn says contains nine clues that will lead you to the treasure. Here’s the poem that Fenn wrote, read to you by MPR reporter Dan Olson.
DAN OLSON: (Reads poem)
MCELHATTON: Fenn has collected millions of dollars of treasure over his lifetime, and I asked him what some of his favorite treasure hunts were.
FENN: I was excavating with a friend out at our pueblo, and we were using trowels going down in this room that was occupied about 1325 and we got down near the floor, and we started finding medicines. I say medicines because they were concretions and arrowheads and painted rocks and crystals and several pieces of painted pottery. And then all of the sudden, with my trowel, I uncovered a prehistoric kachina dance mask, and there was another one beside it. But, you know, history said that the kachina culture didn’t exist in prehistoric times, but we had these things carbon-14 dated at the age of - they were made about 1325 A.D. So that was a thrill, and I got so excited that I decided this was too important for me to do by myself, so I called the state archeologist and they came out and excavated these two masks for me while I stood there and made notes. I was smiling from ear to ear the entire time. It was a real thrill for me.
MCELHATTON: Over his long career searching for treasure, Forrest Fenn says that he has picked up much more than just artifacts. He’s picked up lessons for life.
FENN: Well, you know, in Libya, that’s the Sahara desert. The north end of the Sahara desert on the Mediterranean. I would get a jeep on the weekends and drive out into the desert where the great tank battles were fought in World War II. I could drive along past them, a burned out tank and there’s a German helmet lying on the ground there and, bullets and hand grenades laying around. And when you walk through that battlefield and look closely, you can find arrowheads that were, I don’t know how old they were, 2,000 - 2,500 years old. What we were looking at was wars on top of wars. It really brings history into context. And solidifies my belief that we need to learn to leave people alone. Why are we fighting all of the time? Some of those experiences are very graphic to me and made a lasting impression.
MCELHATTON: And all these lessons, led to some advice he’d like to give everybody.
FENN: My advice to everybody today is this: If you’re not happy in your marriage, and you’re not happy in your job, slam the door and walk away. It’s so much fun to start over again. You know, I’ve never been divorced, but I’ve done a lot of things. One of my rules when I was a kid was that I didn’t want to do anything for more than 15 years. And my reason is that there is so many good things to do, and not very many 15’s. I had to go to school for - high school, I had to graduate. I was in the air force for 20 years, so I’ve violated some of my rules, but I think it’s good advice. I don’t care how good you are in your job, and how much you enjoy it, after 15 years, you should go do something else. I see doctors and lawyers that are 85 years old and still going to the office every day with a coat and tie on and it just makes me shake my head. As I get older, I keep reminding myself that the most important thing in life, really, when you boil everything down, is contentment. If you’re contented, then everything else is full and in life, and you have to have a beautiful world if you’re contented. And I think that everybody alive today should use that word as their goal. If you can eventually end up being contented, then I don’t know what’s better than that.
MCELHATTON: If you want to find out more about Forrest Fenn and his treasure, you can go to MPR.org/abeautifulworld. Or pick up a copy of his book Too Far to Walk, which details his amazing life, and gives more clues as to where the treasure might be. I’m Heather McElhatton and this is A Beautiful World from American Public Media. I can’t thank you enough for talking with us. Is there anything else you want to add before I let you go?
FENN: Well, you know, I love your voice on the radio, is there, are you sure you’re spoken for, Heather? (laughter) I thank you for the call, and it’s been a pleasure to speak with you. You’re a sweetheart.
ID # Date Source
9572 8/8/2013 EIS Radio
Quote
Link: Click Here
Everything is Stories - 003 As I Have Gone Alone in There
FORREST FENN: Well, when I was nine years old, I found my first arrowhead with my father. He was an arrowhead collector, and so was my football coach in high school. So we did all that together. Most of the arrowheads you find out in the countryside are broken in half in two. And people say, “Oh that’s broken. That’s terrible.” But to me, that means a lot to me. That means that the projector was on the end of an arrow. It penetrated the body of a deer maybe. Hit a bone and broke right in front of where it was hafted. So to me, that thing has a history that a whole arrowhead doesn’t have. I think it’s the wonderment of being out there, of seeing nature, and visualizing what used to be. The Rosetta Stone was buried for 2,000 years before somebody found it, and I said in my book, “Don’t you know that guy is proud? The guy that carved that thing.”
Well it was 1988 when I acquired the treasure chest and started filling it up with thing. I paid $25,000 for the treasure chest, and I started filling it up with 265 gold coins. Most of them are American Eagles and some Double Eagles, mostly Double Eagles. My goal never changed. My goal was to take that treasure chest out in a very special place and put it there. I’ve never said that I buried it, but I never said that I didn’t bury it. I just don’t want to give that as a clue. And, let people go looking for it. If you can find the treasure chest, and open that lid for the first time, it’s going to be the most wonderful thing that you ever saw.
I crafted a poem that’s in my book. It has nine clues in it, and I changed that poem over a 15 year period. People read that poem and it’s there, “He sat down and wrote that poem in 15 minutes.” It took me 15 years. The poem is not so much written as it is an architectural plan. It’s been crafted. It reads very simple. Here, hand me that book.
(recites poem)
I dare you to go get it. If you can find it, you can have it. And nobody knows where it is but me. If a train runs over me this afternoon, it will go to my grave with me.
My name is Forrest Fenn. We’re in my home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I’ve lived in it since 1988 and I think it will be my last abode. The Santa Fe trail runs about 50 feet from my library window and I have an old 1880 Army ammunition wagon sitting right in the middle of the Santa Fe trail. It goes right through my pond. I’m very happy where I am. Santa Fe is a wonderful place to live. I’ll be 83 in two weeks. I’m going out at the top of my game. Some people are collectors and some people are not. My wife is not a collector, but I collected everything. I used to collect match folders and beer steins. I don’t know what it is, but if you have an old photograph of your mother, what makes you like that photograph? Antiques - there’s the mystery of it. The unknown that plays on your mind. The mystery of who they were and who made it and what they did. You can conjure back anything you want to about that.
It’s the thrill of discovery - the thrill of the chase. On we go / the virtue lies / in the journey / not the prize. And I believe that.
MARK HOWARD: There’s a lot of people that really enjoy the idea of a treasure, you know? Just like I enjoy the idea of it. From my perspective, of course, I’m a goldsmith and having 20 pounds of gold to work with, that’s my palette. That’s what I enjoy and that’s what I do, so that would be extreme freedom for me from $1300 an ounce gold, you know, which is what I have to pay today. My name is Mark Howard. We’re here in Santa Fe, New Mexico, or outside thereof, and this is my house, and as far as the treasure goes, I’m going to probably look again although the past two times, because it’s whipped me, I said to my wife, “You know, maybe I shouldn’t go again.” And it only takes me a couple of weeks to say, “No, I think I gotta go again.” I like the treasure hunt. It’s like when we were kids. Like Treasure Island and all those stories you read when you were a kid, and you thought, “God, I’d just love to go out and do something like that.” And this kind of fed into that, and I said, okay. I was, what, 57? I’m going to be 60. If I’m going to do this kind of thing, I’d better do it now. There’s some historical points in there, historical artifacts in there. All those interest me too. I really love the antique stuff. One of the things I really want is that damn box. I really want that box, because this is from like 1150 A.D.
FENN: The box is a beautiful cast bronze box that I’ve been told was 11th or 12th century. It’s 10 inches by 10 inches and 5 inches deep, and weighs 42 pounds. The gold is what makes it heavy. 265 gold coins, some pre-Columbian gold figures that are 1500 to 1800 years old. There’s a wonderful necklace in there made by Sinu and Tairona cultures with carved jade figures and carnelian and quartz crystals carved figures. It’s wonderful - 2000 years old. It’s… It’s worth looking for. I put a little bracelet in there that I won in a pool game with a guy. It’s the cheapest thing in there. It’s probably worth, well with all the notoriety it’s had now, it’s probably worth $750. It was worth $250 when I put it in the treasure chest. You can’t just go out and buy a bunch of gold nuggets. There are hundreds and hundreds of gold nuggets in that treasure chest. There’s a little jar of gold dust from Alaska. I couldn’t put a Porsche in the box, or I’d have done that. I was limited by so many cubic inches in that treasure chest.
HOWARD: He often says if it takes 2,000 years for someone to find it, that’s just fine by him. It’s not fine by me, but that’s okay. I think I’ve been out only maybe 20 times. Started here in Northern New Mexico, and at one point I went as far as Yellowstone. Then I went into Colorado, and I’m still kind of bouncing around looking for the treasure. Almost anybody that found it, with the exception of the people that are crazy, would probably let it go. I certainly would. My idea is to put Jim Weatherell’s bracelet on, and walk up to his house, you know, and knock on the door, and he’d know immediately. I wouldn’t have to say a thing; he wouldn’t have to say a thing. That way, he’d never have to say anything to anybody else either. That’s, uh, you know, that’s a daydream.
FENN: There’s something that I don’t know whether it’s in the treasure chest or not. It was a crazy idea. But, going about the question you asked earlier, “Did I want to know if someone had found the treasure chest?” So I said, “Yeah, I do.” One reason is so people won’t be spending all their money looking for something that isn’t there any more. So I put an IOU - I wrote out an IOU. “Take this IOU to my bank in Santa Fe, and collect $100,000.” I figured for $100,000, the guy that found the treasure chest would not want to keep it secret anymore. So now the IRS is getting in the act and everybody knows. But if someone finds it 1,000 years from now, my bank won’t be there, and there won’t be any money in the account even if they did, so, I think I took that IOU out. But I don’t remember whether I did or not. It’s in there in spirit.
There are two gold nuggets in that treasure chest that weigh more than a Troy pound apiece. I used to take them out and hand them to people that would almost drop them because they’re so heavy. I’d go on the Today show, you know, I’ve been on five times...
JANET SHAMLIAN: ...Talk you into, somehow, giving us another clue this morning....
FENN: Well I’m not going to put an X on the map for you.
And I think we’ll do it maybe another… and I give clues. The last clue I gave them was that it’s not in Utah or Idaho. But that’s not going to lead you to the treasure chest.
...The clue is that the treasure is higher than seven, uh, five thousand feet above sea level....
SHAMLIAN: ...The treasure is higher than 5,000 feet above sea level....
MICHAEL MCGARRITY: I think it’s in New Mexico. Now, the issue was: was it buried? We finally got Forrest to admit that no, it’s hidden. So, it’s quite possible it’s not buried, just simply hidden. My name’s Michael McGarrity, I’m a novelist. We’re in Cathedral Park, which is next to the Basilica a block from the famous Santa Fe Plaza. We like to get together once in awhile and have lunch and tell stories. Socializing is something that usually happens when someone throws a party, or there’s some special event to get folks together. This is the stuff that myths are made of, that legends are made of. And we’ve got our share of old mine treasures being hidden on the White Sands missile range. Vittorio Peak, or down in the Gila, now we’ve got the Forrest Fenn treasure.
FENN: There’ve been some people very close to the treasure chest. There have been people that have figured out the first couple of clues and walked right past the treasure chest. I think it’s there - I haven’t checked on it, but I’m 99.9% sure it’s there.
MCGARRITY: He has said publicly, that people have come within 500 feet of the treasure. Now, the question is: is that true? I mean that’s a great teaser, and I would have used it myself even if the person that got closest to it was five miles away. I still would have said that. If it’s found, and I asked him this question, if it’s found, how are you going to know its found? Now he’s convinced that he will be contacted, right? If I found a multi-million dollar treasure, I wouldn’t want the IRS to know about it, would you? No! I’d take it home and I’d sell one gold nugget at a time. He’s a character. What else can I say? He’s an interesting guy. He has a certain flamboyancey to him.
FENN: But I put other things in there too. I pulled a couple of hairs out of my head. Because somebody can do a DNA, they can do a carbon-14 test. You know, there’s another thing that I put in the chest that I’ve not told anybody about, and I’m saving it for the person that finds the treasure chest. In other words, this is not something that I put together in an afternoon. I spent a lot of time thinking about it.
MARY WOLF: My name is Mary Wolf. I’m the co-owner of the Collected Works Bookstore and Coffeehouse in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico. Forrest Fenn has been a loyal and constant customer of the bookstore since the bookstore opened in 1978. I got to know him best, probably, in 2010 when he came to the store to talk to Dorothy and myself about The Thrill of the Chase, the book that he was about to release and publish.
FENN: I wrote a book called The Thrill of the Chase and that’s the philosophy that permeates that book. You know, there’s a lady writer from Austin asked me, “Mr. Fenn, who’s your audience for this book?” I said, “My audience is every redneck in Texas with a pickup truck and 12 kids. He’s lost his job and has the thrill to go out and look for things.” I said, “That’s my audience.” Throw a bedroll in the back of your truck, get a six pack, and hit the road looking for a fortune! I mean, it’s the thrill of the chase. That’s what we’re talking about. Take your wife. Put all the kids in the back of the truck and head out!
WOLF: The Thrill of the Chase has had a huge impact, obviously, on our business. Forrest is not tied to the bookstore in any way contractually; however, he gave us this book to sell. He paid for the first printing, and then gave us the book because he didn’t want anyone to say he was making any money from this store, which he hasn’t. We’ve paid for the last printing, and we’ll pay for the future printings. And we are already in the 5th printing coming up, so we’re going through the books. First of all he can well-afford to hide a treasure of that value, and what really drives him is to leave a lasting mark on a whole generation of people and recreate a love for adventure and a passion for discovery that he has in his own life. And I think it’s beautiful. I think it’s a beautiful story. He has an amazing story.
FENN: Well, I was born in Temple, Texas in the heart of Texas 60 miles north of Austin. My father was a school teacher. When I started first grade, he started in the school that I started first grade in. He was a math teacher, and the next year, they promoted him to be the principal. And then I went to a Junior High School, and he moved over there and he was my principal again. So I passed all those courses because my father was principal. I’m not sure for any other reason!
I remember the first time I saw TV in Temple, Texas there was a big truck out behind, on the city square behind the city hall. And they invited people to come into city hall and look at the television set that was being transmitted from a hundred feet away. It wasn’t a very good picture. And then, a couple of years later, color TV came along and boy, that’ll never work! And I remember riding back from Yellowstone to Temple, Texas with my football coach in 1946 when they dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.
HISTORIC VOICEOVER: When can we tell when the atomic bomb will explode?
FENN: And boy, that was the end. The beginning of the end. President Eisenhower told everybody to go out in their backyard and dig a bomb shelter and stock it with food for… and everybody did.
HISTORIC VOICEOVER: Always remember, the flash of an atomic bomb can come at any time no matter where you may be.
FENN: Every generation thinks that theirs will be the last. When the bow and arrow was invented, everybody said boy, the end is coming! And then when the Chinese invented gunpowder, that WAS the end.
MCGARRITY: Santa Fe’s a place that attracts unusual people. Forrest certainly qualifies in that regard. He’s a very unique guy. His record in the military is just an incredible one. You could call him a war hero. I mean he enlisted in the Air Force, I mean he can tell his own story.
FENN: I joined the military on the 6th of September 1950. The Korean War was brand new, and I was going to win the war! I started out as a private and I retired 20 years later as a major. The military in all their wisdom said that I had an aptitude for electronics, and I didn’t have the slightest idea what I was doing. But I went to an Advanced Radar Maintenance school for nine months in Biloxi, Mississippi, and I graduated but I still didn’t know what I was doing. I had a mean sergeant that didn’t like me and I didn’t like him so I went down to personnel and I said, “How can I get out of this place?” They gave me a bunch of forms to fill out and I could go to jump school, I could volunteer for submarine or I could go to pilot training. I said, “I’ll take the first one you can get for me,” and it was pilot training. So they put me in this little machine - it looked like a phone booth turned on its side. And it had a stick in it like an airplane has. It was on springs. If you turned the thing loose, it falls over and you crash. So the secret is to hold the airplane steady. And this guy said I was the best he ever saw doing that, I mean it was the simplest thing I’d ever been in. And I said, “If that’s all there is to it, I’ll take it!” So they accepted me into pilot training.
When you fly in fighter airplanes, the old saying is if the fighter pilot makes a mistake, he doesn’t have to worry about it. But when you get in that airplane all by yourself, it’s a whole different ballgame really. There’s nobody there but you. It’ll sober you up. I was in Vietnam for a year. I flew 328 combat missions. I was shot down twice, and took battle damage a few times. I lost some roommates. Getting shot down was routine. I didn’t get killed, but I had an airplane full of bullet holes, and it was totally destroyed. I did land the thing. I landed at a little airport that was used mostly for forward air controllers, little putt-putt airplanes and helicopters. I put the tail up on this F-100 I was flying and I engaged the barrier because I knew I wasn’t going to stop otherwise. But I pulled that thing the wrong way and I touched down at about 150 knots I guess and I stopped in less than 200 feet. I came away with the idea that we need to learn to leave other people alone. And I think we killed 10 civilians for every military person we killed because we’re dropping bombs and strafing, you don’t see the bodies laying there, but it’s a terrible thing. We need to stop doing that.
When I was 27 years old, no college, I was in a fighter squadron in Bitburg, Germany. They took me down to supply, and I checked out an atomic bomb. 61 megaton atomic bomb. I think the bomb at Hiroshima was something like 17,000 tons? Well this was 61 kilotons. I owned that thing. It had a crew chief like an airplane has a crew chief and it’s on a dolly. But the dolly couldn’t move one inch unless I was standing there supervising. I was all over Europe and South America and all over this country, and we had a gunner school outside of Tripoli, Libya - about 35 or 40 miles. On the weekends, I would get a jeep and go down to the Sahara Desert where the big tank battles were fought during World War Two. It’s just like they left that country, you know? You can see skeletons laying there and a German helmet and a burned out tank and bullets laying around. I can’t tell you how many times I would see a hand grenade laying on the ground there, with a flint projectile laying next to it that’s 1500, 2000, 3000 years old. You’d see wars laying on top of wars.
They grew me up in the Air Force. You get a haircut once a week, whether you like it or not, and I could see myself growing in the Air Force. They gave me so much authority, you know, I retired - you have to serve 20 years to get retired pay, but you have to retire at the end of the month so it cost me 24 extra days. I served 20 years and 24 days. And I got out the first minute I was eligible.
I had a wife and two daughters, two young daughters, and my retired pay was $800 a month. I could get by with that in 1970. We did alright but I wanted to do better than that, and I just wanted to go someplace where the world would stop and let me out. Santa Fe was the only place I knew where I could wear blue jeans, a short-sleeved shirt, and Hush Puppies, and make a living. One of my rules was that I didn’t want to do anything, where my best customer gave me $100 - talking about restaurant business, one hour Martinizing, I mean you go on and on and on. They’re labor intensive. Primary employee doesn’t show up - he’s drunk or something. I was a collector of Indian things and antiques and that sort of thing. So I wanted to deal in luxuries.
JD NOBLE: I’d known about him forever. He’s a local legend. He had an amazing gallery here in town and really brought it to the ultimate Santa Fe gallery. If you had to choose one of the major galleries, his gallery would have been the one. I’m JD Noble. I’m part owner of the Hatsmith of Santa Fe. I was looking for some photos of some old Indians that I knew… I knew Forrest had some photos of these old Indians from Taos. And so, I called him up one day and said, “Hey, I would like to have lunch with you and talk about these old Taos Indians.” So he says, “Yeah, yeah, I want to show you something.” We had lunch and he says, “Well, I don’t really have any photos that I can help you with, but I do have this…” And he unrolls this flyer for the new book on the treasure. And so man, I am hooked right away. So my trips are usually no more than two days. I’ll go in and camp out. If I can’t find it in two days, I come back, then I go out again.
FENN: When you’re dealing with luxuries, normally you’re dealing with better people. You’re dealing with people that can write a check that won’t bounce. I broke all the rules of custom. I would take anybody’s check for any amount of money. And normally, I wasn’t interested in looking at a Driver’s License. You know I go to New York today, and they won’t take my traveler’s check. Well, I took a check for $375,000 from a man one time and told him I didn’t want to see his driver’s license. He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe I’d take his check. Seventeen years in the business, I had two bad checks. The big one was for $600. And the guy that wrote me the check for $600 he did it deliberately thinking he was going to get by with it. Didn’t say anything to him. I didn’t call him, I didn’t write him a letter. But 30 days later I sued him for $600, attorney’s fees, interest on the note, and $25,000 punitive damages. He was calling my wife trying to get her to talk me into dropping my lawsuit. I finally settled with him. I think I got attorney’s fees $75, Interest on the note was $1.75 or so, and I said come into my gallery again, and I’ll take your check for any amount of money, but next time, it’s $1,000,000 punitive damage because you have a track record.
A guy came into my gallery years ago. He had a little tiny human skull, about the size of a big orange. He said, “This is Napoleon’s skull.” He said, “I want $1,000 for it.” I said, “That can’t be Napoleon's skull, it’s too small.” He said, “Oh, it was his skull when he was a kid.” So, you know, that’s what you have to put up with when you’re a trader. You know, I almost bought the skull! The story was too good to turn down! I ran my gallery for 17 years. My first two shows, I didn’t sell anything. Not even a book. And I finally decided, I had a little bit of money left, I’m going to spend my money on advertising. When that money’s gone, I’m going to slam the door, leave this town and go do something else. Probably flipping hamburgers someplace. I tell people to - if you have a daydream, then that’s where your aptitude is. Go do that.
HOWARD: I think what people need to know is, if they know Forrest Fenn, then they know that he’s a historian and ethnographer and archaeologist, anthropologist… I think part of it is, one of many parts of it is, like, looking to match wits with Forrest. He’s very intelligent. He’s very logical. He’s very creative. And he’s very crafty. I had many of the misconceptions that everybody else starts out with. Misconceptions by - you have a certain perspective, and when you read this book, it’s from your perspective that you look at whatever clues are there, and then try to find this treasure. But, you can’t look at it from your perspective. You have to divorce yourself from that and look at it from the perspective of Forrest Fenn. So first you have to know the man. You have to read the book, and then I read every book that he mentioned in the book. Including things I hadn’t read in years, like Catch-22 and The Great Gatsby. I looked at each one of them trying to say, “Okay, is there a clue in each one of these books as well?”
WOLF: If you know Forrest, then you know that, primarily, he’s an adventurer, and a great explorer of life, and a great collector of things. The thrill of the chase really sums up what his whole life has been about. It’s about pursuing the ‘hard to reach’, going places other people don’t go. Obtaining things that other people aren’t able to obtain. And doing it in a really loving and careful way. I think that the treasure is just indicative of how Forrest thinks, and he has one of the most amazing art collections in the United States. So he was going to leave a legacy behind anyway, but this speaks to his larger desire to leave a legacy for the world.
FENN: People think I did this for my legacy. When you’re dead, a legacy is not worth much to you when you’re dead. So that was never a consideration of mine, really. I don’t care if anybody remembers me after I’m gone. You don’t have to acknowledge me while I’m alive as far as I’m concerned.
MCGARRITY: I used that word with him - legacy. He kind of gave me this strange look like, you know it’s not about legacy, I’m just having fun. I said, “Oh now wait a minute, Forrest, come on, there’s a little bit of the legacy thing. Leaving something behind. This is of legendary proportion. That’s what legacy means. Let’s talk about it from that standpoint. Taking a beautiful antique bronze box and filling it with jewels and coins and gold and nuggets, and burying it, and writing a poem so people can go and find it. If that’s not about legacy, tell me what it is.”
FENN: I learned I had cancer in 1988. I had a small pain in my left groin, and it persisted for a number of months. So I was talking to a doctor at a party one day, and he says, “Well, you ought to go over and check it out.” The first time I knew I was in trouble, the nurse, they gave me some stuff to drink, and they were looking at my kidneys on this machine, and the nurse said, “Hey girls, come over here and look at this.” And I had a dead kidney and my doctor said, “Well, just because your kidney is not working is not reason enough to take it out, but since you have a pain, let’s take it out.” And I said, “What are the chances of it being cancer?” He said, “five percent.” A one hour operation turned into five and he gave me a 20% chance of living three years.
I was standing right here in my office with Ralph Lauren one time. He was a friend, and a client. And I had something that he wanted. I told him I didn’t want to sell it. He said, “You’ve got so many of them. You can’t take them with you.” And without thinking about it, I said to him, “Well, if I can’t take it with me, then I’m not going.” And that night I started thinking about it and I, you know, I had a 20% chance to live, that’s not too good. My father called me on the phone one night. He had pancreas cancer. They gave him six months to live. Eighteen months later, he called me on the phone and said that he was going to take 50 sleeping pills that night. I had an airplane. I said I would be there first thing in the morning. He said, “That’s too late.” And it was. And I respected him because he did it on his own terms. Why do you have to do it on somebody else’s terms all the time? So I decided that if I was going to die, and the odds certainly said that I was going to, then I appreciated what my father did and the last thing I want to do is die in a hospital bed. I said in my book, a hospital bed gives you temporary postponement, and you’re miserable the whole time. The poem originally said, “Take the chest and leave my bones alone.” I ruined my original story because I got well. Why not hide a treasure chest full of wonderful things and let somebody else have the same thrill that I’ve had all these years? For 70 years. 75 years. The gold in the treasure chest weighs 20.2 Troy pounds. It’s full of emeralds and diamonds and sapphires and 200 something rubies. When I hid my treasure chest, walking back to my car, I had this strange sensation. I asked myself out loud, I said, “Forrest did you really do that?” And I started laughing at myself out loud. There was nobody around, but in the back of my mind I told myself if I’m sorry later, I can go back and get it. But then the more I thought about it, it started evolving in my mind, I became really proud of myself. You know, once in awhile you do something that you’re really proud of. It hasn’t happened to me too many times. But I was really glad that I hid that treasure chest.
My wife doesn’t know within 18 months of when I hid that treasure chest. But the clues are there. They’re not easy to follow, but certainly not impossible.
WOLF: I have no doubt that it’s out there. I know that some people think that there’s no way that he could have done this or would have done this, and I think that people who believe that don’t understand, uh, what drives Forrest. He really, really is driven by wanting kids having the same sort of experiences today that he had growing up even though they’re growing up in a very different world. And so, he really wants kids to get out and bond with their families and go out and explore nature and get out there and experience the thrill of the chase.
FENN: We have a problem in this country with our youth today. We’re obese. Graffiti. Drive by shootings. Disrespect. The teenagers today are going to be our senators and presidents in the future, so what are we doing to prepare those people? And I’ve got to blame the churches. I blame school teachers. I certainly blame archeologists who have a wonderful thing to offer, but they’re so full of jargon and everybody has their thing going and we’re mostly oblivious of the problems that somebody else sees but it’s not my problem. That’s the attitude today, and I think that’s a terrible attitude. In a very small way, I was hoping to get kids off the couch, out of the game rooms, and away from their texting machines and out to smell the sunshine and see what’s going on out in the countryside.
MCGARRITY: I think that’s Forrest’s whole intention. Get their kids. Take them out, and show them the outdoors and have an adventure. It doesn’t matter if you find it. I’ve had some amazing times out in the mountains just looking for it.
WOLF: We have heard numerous times, “This is the first time we have taken a family vacation. All of us. This is the first time that we have all gone somewhere and spent this much time together.” And we hear that from the kids too. Like, “This is the first time we’ve ever gone anywhere with mom and dad and done what mom and dad are doing.” And that’s really powerful. Forrest loves to hear those stories. Frankly, there’s just as much chance of a six year old from Kansas finding it as there is somebody in Santa Fe who has been dedicating their months to figuring out the puzzle. And if they wander across it, they will find it.
FENN: Again let me say that I’m not thinking of something “Let’s go do it this afternoon.” I’m thinking about a thousand years from now. Nothing has happened that was not predictable. I’ve called 911 three times. They arrested a guy at my gate and put him in handcuffs last week. Took him off to jail. I’ve had death threats. You know, when you look at politicians they get death threats every day.
HOWARD: And you know you can’t guess what these people are going to do. And people get in their head, “It’s my treasure. I deserve it. I’m going to go get it.” That can be a little scary.
FENN: So I’ll be 83 years old on the 22nd of this month and I told a guy the other day if torture and death are the only two things that you can threaten me with you’re in trouble. I’ve been down the road a few miles you know? I don’t want to leave my wife with all of these things. The vultures would circle this house and so I’m selling some things now. I’m not tearing down my walls, but things that are laying down. I’m just trying to ease the pain for my heirs. I think over spring break in Santa Fe there were about 6,500 people in Santa Fe related to the treasure chest. And, this summer, before the summer is over I spent some time estimating. I think there will be 43,000 people looking for the treasure chest in New Mexico, Colorado, Montana, and Wyoming.
MCGARRITY: On the one hand, it’s given an award for increasing tourism in the community right? I was walking in a shopping center just after the book came out and there was this huge 4x4 extended cab Dodge 350 Ram Charger. And in the back there was a 4 wheel drive all terrain vehicle. And this big Texan gets out. I know he was Texan because he had license plates from Texas. And he says, “Can you tell me how to find Forrest Fenn? I’m looking for Forrest Fenn. I’m here to look for that treasure.”
WOLF: We have met people from, probably, four continents and ten countries, who have come here. We have families, older people, young people, college kids who have come together. People who have started teams working on the puzzle. Crowdsourcing. Solutions to the puzzle, and then sending delegates out here to look.
HOWARD: I’ve run into people who’ve told me they spent their life savings coming out here. Literally coming from Florida one guy came. Spent at least $12,000 on airfare. That was his life savings. A lady come in from Mississippi. She was an old client and she said, “Well, when I find Forrest’s treasure,” she’s 40 pounds overweight, five years old than me and she’s rich and I say, “Okay, you go!” you know? “You go girl!” What the hell.
FENN: I’m right at 22,000 emails from people related to the treasure chest. They tell me where they are and where they’re going and want to know if they’re hot or cold. Thousands of emails from people that have said thanks to me for getting them out of the house. I had a man send me an email who said, “My brother - I had not spoken to my brother in 12 years. He called me on the phone and said let’s go look for the treasure chest”, and so they’re connected again. I see a lot of that - that kind of thing. It’s very rewarding, you know, it’s a by-product of something that I did. I’m the big winner in this thing, because I feel a sense of satisfaction.
WOLF: About the best one that I heard was a gentleman who said that if he found the treasure, he would give the bracelet back to Forrest and then he was going to re-hide the treasure somewhere else, and write his own book. And just kind of keep it going because he was having so much fun looking for it. And he’d been looking for it for six months and he kind of wanted to find it, but he kind of didn’t want that to end.
HOWARD: ...come to my shop, I had the guy from Florida that I mentioned came to my shop, and he brought me a detailed map. Layed out on a piece of cardboard. Told me what he was thinking. And said, “Will you go get this for me and split the treasure with me?” I said, “Look, that’s not my thing. I know where I want to go.” And he got offended and left.
MCGARRITY: You know, I really kind of wonder if some people have found it. My last adventure out, somebody had beaten me to it. To the spot. I had been there once before, but I was unprepared. And I came back, and waited for the weather to get warm, and went back. Somebody had left a message that they had been there already. Done in pink chalk. With a big X on a rock and said, “It is not here.” I think it’s a diversion because I still want to go back because there’s many many, uh, I can’t tell you where it’s at. People - somebody else already figured it out too, so whoever it was, we were both thinking and putting the clues, and that’s just interpreting the clues, which are so vague.
FENN: I’ve given clues to everybody. I’ve never given a clue to an individual. The first clue that I gave that wasn’t in my poem was because I made this guy mad and he demanded another clue. And I said, “The treasure chest is hidden more than 300 miles west of Toledo.” I don’t think he knew that I was pulling his leg. There was a guy out here someplace, dug a hole 18 inches deep and 9 inches wide and they arrested him.
FEMALE VOICEOVER: ...charges for digging near a descanso looking for Forrest Fenn’s box of gold and jewels.
FENN: Please tell me what’s going on here. Nine inches wide and eighteen inches deep and they arrested - all over the paper, they’re quoting the police officer that they’re going to prosecute this guy.
MCGARRITY: There are people saying, “Oh wait, wait, wait. He’s sending these people off to trample our wilderness.” What wilderness? Come on. About the only real wilderness we have, most people can’t get to. And that’s up in the Pecos which recently burned. You know, most of what we have in terms of national forest is not wilderness. But, “oh no, it’s going to send people out and they’re going to dig up, uh, plants and disturb the ground and be where they shouldn’t be.”
FENN: No matter what you do, somebody is not going to like it. There are always just disgruntled people. Somebody picks up an arrowhead worth $8.00. And they “stole that from the government.” So I guess the government is going to come and get them and arrest them. Too many PhD’s in government. Bureau of Land Management came in and searched my house four years ago. Somebody told them I had taken something out of a cave in Arizona that was on government land. Well it wasn’t on government land, it was private property. But, even if everything they said was true, the statute of limitations had run out 47 years ago. So four years passed, and I got a letter from them that absolved me of everything. That was the end of it. It builds character. I just wonder what I’m going to do with all this character.
MCGARRITY: And he’s very bright. There’s nothing at all about this man that doesn’t speak to how smart he is. He’s a curious guy. That curiosity has led him to a point in his life where he is extremely well off. Lives a beautiful lifestyle. He likes to tell stories. He likes to confound people. He likes to put little things out there that has folks guessing.
HOWARD: I’m not there to try to pry information out of him. That’s not to say I don’t look carefully at everything he has said to me, because, he’s that way. There could be something there. But I don’t ask him any specific questions, and he doesn’t volunteer any specific information. It wouldn’t be fair. He’s really interested in this being something that, where the playing field is pretty level for people. But it’s going to take somebody that’s intelligent, who looks at all these in different aspects, I think, to find it. I don’t think anybody’s going to stumble upon it.
MCGARRITY: This last spot that I’ve been in, I really feel like it’s there. I’ve already hit Forrest up; he denies it. But uh, you know, he tries to get me to go back to one of my first spots, and that’s a diversion, I know.
FENN: I still have about uh, something like, 4,000 arrowheads. And I tell people I’m saving those, because after the next war, I’ll make a fortune selling my arrowheads to different armies around the world. Einstein had said, “I don’t know what we’ll fight World War III with, but World War IV is going to be fought with sticks.” And the technology is changing so fast. I mean, if your computer is two years old, it’s archaic today. Technology is not going to help you find that treasure. But your mind and your body and your attitude changes as things change.
HOWARD: It’s been a lot of fun and I’ve been a lot of places. I’ve been on top of some mountains and I’ve been in a lot of hot springs and when nobody’s there, that’s great I just take it all off and throw myself in and wait awhile. I’ve had Bighorn Sheep right near me. Bald Eagles fly right over my head. I’ve been up in the mountains for the first snowfall of the year, which at that point, in that place, was September 30.
FENN: The greatest thrill is going by yourself. You don’t know where the edge is unless you go out there and look for it.
HOWARD: I always bring something back. Generally speaking, it’s something I found along the way that interests me a feather, a mineral specimen, you know, an artifact that somebody lost long ago.
FENN: Yeah, I have some advice. Read the book. And then study the poem. Over and over. Read it over and over. Maybe even memorize it. And then go back and read the book again looking for hints that are in the book that are going to help you with the clues that are in the poem. That’s the best advice that I can give. You have to find out - you have to learn where the first clue is. They get progressively easier after you discover where the first clue is.
WOLF: Forrest has given some good advice. I mean, Forrest has told people to enjoy themselves, but not get into danger. Don’t get into trouble. Don’t go into places that a 79 year old man couldn’t get to carrying a 42 pound box. But, then again, you haven’t seen Forrest. He might not be your average 79 year old man.
HOWARD: One thing I need to tell people who think they’re going to go do this, you better be in shape. If you think that this guy at 79 was a pushover, you got another think coming.
MCGARRITY: You were asking me earlier about the reason, I was at a point in my life where I was ready for some adventure. And this was just perfect.
HOWARD: I mean I believe I know where it is. I just haven’t found the blaze. And that’s going to be the toughest part.
WOLF: I’ve seen a lot of stuff I wouldn’t have seen if I hadn’t been out there looking. And, while, a couple of times I thought, “Oh yeah, I got it. I know exactly where it is.” When I came back empty handed, I didn’t feel disappointed somehow. I came away with just more excitement about going out again.
MCGARRITY: Well Forrest contends that his real mission in life, when he wrote this book, was to get people up and off the couch and out doing something in the wild. Right? And I just roll my eyes. I said, come on. But he sticks to it. He sticks to his story.
WOLF: He is, um, passionate about adventure and he is passionate about sharing that love of adventure, and treasure seeking with other people. An American archetype if you will.
FENN: I think the thing that, as much as anything, is that first little arrowhead that I found when I was nine years old. I still have it, yeah, sure. My autobiography is in the treasure chest. I put it in a little olive jar. I rolled it up. Printed at Kinko’s. I have to use a magnifying glass if I want to read it. The olive jar had a metal lid. And metal will rust. It’s tin. And so I dipped it in hot wax to make it airtight and watertight. 10,000 years from now, that autobiography is going to be just like it is when I put it in there. There’s an old saying, “You can never go home.” How many encores can a person take? I mean, I’ve played my hand.
I don’t feel like I gave you anything.
INTERVIEWER: Oh I think we got plenty.
FENN: (reads poem)
ID # Date Source
9621 2/1/2016 CBC - As It Happens # 2
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Link: Click Here
JEFF DOUGLAS: It began as a good old fashioned treasure hunt. Several years ago, a wealthy antiques dealer by the name of Forrest Fenn stashed a 40 pound box of gold and jewelry somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. It is said to be worth $2,000,000. But now Mr. Fenn’s fun may have turned fatal. A Colorado man who was one of many who went into the wild to find that treasure has not been heard from for more than three weeks. We reached Forrest Fenn in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
CAROL OFF: Mr. Fenn can you tell us about this search that has been launched for this man Randy Bilyeu?
FORREST FENN: Well, it’s not a good story. He’s been lost in the Rio Grande River canyon west of Santa Fe. Today is the 25th day. And we’ve had as many as 50 people walking up and down those canyons and I’ve been in helicopters three days. It’s a pretty sad story. We’re still looking for the man, but we have three inches of snow on the ground here today and it’s still snowing.
OFF: When did you learn that he was missing?
FENN: Evidently, he went into the canyon on the 5th of January and I didn’t know he was lost until about the 11th. So we started late on our rescue efforts. State Police and the state search and rescue people did their searching and then they decided they didn’t have any more leads so they quit. And that's when we picked up the search. Our search people are people that have been looking for my treasure chest. But they all came together while this guy was lost. We had people come in as far away as Vermont to New Mexico to look for this guy.
OFF: Let’s talk about your treasure chest because that’s what’s really at the heart of this isn’t it? What was Randy Bilyeu doing out there?
FENN: Randy was in that canyon looking for that treasure chest that I hid in the Rocky Mountains north of Santa Fe.
OFF: And we’ve talked to you about that before. Remind people about that treasure and why you hid it there.
FENN: Well that’s a long story. You really need to read my book, “The Thrill of The Chase” in order to get - but I’ll tell you the quick answer. In
1988 I was diagnosed with what everybody thought was terminal cancer. I lost a kidney and my doctor told me I had a 20% chance of living three years. That’s when I decided I would start gathering up some valuable things and putting them in a beautiful little treasure chest and hide them someplace. I’ve had so much fun over the years looking and collecting things that I thought why not let somebody else have same thrills that I’ve had all these years?
OFF: Uh-huh, and so this - we talked to you about this - this is a hidden treasure you hid in the Rocky Mountains worth about $2,000,000. All kinds of people have been out looking for it, right?
FENN: That’s right, but I’ve never said what it was worth. I’ve never had it appraised. But it has 265 American Eagles and Double Eagle coins, and it has hundreds of gold nuggets. Some of them as large as chicken eggs. And it has two hundred sixty some rubies and there’s diamonds and eight emeralds and two Ceylon sapphires and pre-Columbian gold and jade figures. It’s a wonderful treasure chest full of good things.
OFF: Your understanding is that Randy was out searching for the treasure when he went missing?
FENN: That’s my understanding, yes. There are a lot of mysteries involved in this so I can’t speak with any authority on exactly what he was doing or where he was.
OFF: Do you feel any guilt for encouraging people to venture out into remote, dangerous areas looking for your treasure, like Randy?
FENN: No. Nobody is responsible for what this man did but himself.
OFF: Uh-huh, but he went out looking for the treasure you put there, so how are you feeling about that?
FENN: Well I’m - anytime somebody gets their kids off the couch and game room and away from the texting machines and going into the Rocky Mountains looking for my treasure I’m tickled to death with that. It’s sad when somebody gets lost. But I’ve said over and over you should not look for my treasure in the winter time. You know the winter mountains are not your friend when there’s snow and ice on the ground. I don’t know what else I can say.
OFF: Well I’m sure you’ve heard that since you put that treasure there, there have been other people with not enough experience perhaps were out. A woman got caught in the dark in, when she was out looking for it. There have been others who have had to be rescued by rangers and and some people damaged some sensitive archeological sites looking for your treasure. Does any of that give you pause?
FENN: What you say is true, but how many people have been lost in the mountains hunting for deer and elk over the years? I mean if somebody gets lost in the mountains looking for - while they’re hunting, does that mean we should stop hunting?
OFF: So you - are you going to call off the treasure hunt?
FENN: No, I will not call off the treasure hunt. 65,000 people have had wonderful experiences in the mountains looking for my treasure and I get 120 emails a day from people that thank me for hiding that treasure and I got an email from one man who said he had not spoken with his brother for 17 years but they called - he called his brother and now they’re out looking for the treasure. I mean that’s very rewarding to me. Occasionally, someone gets lost and I’m very sad about that. It’s unfortunate. But you should not be looking for my treasure in the wintertime.
OFF: Well now the treasure hunters are out looking for Randy is that right?
FENN: Yes.
OFF: And so what chances are do you think they’ll find him alive?
FENN: You know, I can’t predict the future and I don’t know what the odds are. We’re not going to give up looking for him.
OFF: But if it does turn out that Randy did not survive this, it won’t change anything for you.
FENN: I’m not going to speculate on that and I don’t even want to think about it.
OFF: Alright Mr. Fenn thanks for speaking with us.
ID # Date Source
9684 05/25/2016 The Last Word’s Podcast
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Link: Click Here
ABIGAIL ADLER: Welcome to The Last Word: Conversations with Writers. I’m Producer and Host Abigail Adler. We’re broadcasting from the studios of KSFR Radio in Santa Fe. We’re here every Wednesday at four o’clock and I’m glad that you are here too. My guest today is Forrest Fenn - a well-known gallery owner and author. He is the author of ten books: a memoir, art and archeology. A lot of people may not know that before he opened his gallery in Santa Fe in 1972 he had a whole different career of twenty years as a fighter pilot in the Air Force and we’ll find out about all kinds of things we didn’t know about Forrest. One of the most interviewed man - men in town and we’ll see if I can come up with something a little different for his books his memoir, Forrest mined the depths of his adventurous life. Most of us think of our lives as not particularly extraordinary, but Fenn shows us that there is drama and passion and surprise in our lives if we look and just write down some details and follow the narrative. Here is some of his raw material. He is from a real Texas upbringing with family steeped in Texas and family life. He bypassed college and signed up for the Air Force during the Korean War. During that 20 year career he was shot down twice over Vietnam. After retiring from the Air Force, Fenn and his wife Peg, and two daughters looked around Lubbock. It was flat. It was windy. It was dusty. And apparently it was Peg who said it was time to get out and move to the mountains in New Mexico. And that’s when they started the now famous Fenn Gallery. Welcome Forrest.
FORREST FENN: Why thank you.
ADLER: I think you said to me once that you wrote your memoirs actually for your children. For your two daughters.
FENN: Well, that’s true. I was shocked about maybe 15 years ago. My daughters are now 55 and 54, and I learned that they didn’t know who Clark Gable was. And it shocked me, and I told myself, you know, I want them to know who their family was. So I started - I decided I was going to - I wasn’t thinking about a memoir, just the history of my family. So I got a yellow pad and pencil and I started writing and I did this for a few years. I didn’t have a computer but, I talked about my grandmother telling me when I was a little kid about the Indians running through her barnyard in Fort Worth trying to catch chickens - Kiowas and Comanches and you know, I talked about my parents making soap out in the backyard. My father made his own lye. Most people don’t know how you make lye, but my father made his own lye. He killed his own pigs and we made soap, and we poured it out in a big flat container. All the neighbors came over with a knife and cut up a couple of bars of soap. That’s the way we were doing things in the 1930’s and the early 1940’s before World War 2.
ADLER: And in your book, which is called The Thrill of the Chase: A Memoir, is really quite colorful in the layout and the wonderful old photographs and they are family photographs and we do get to see Forrest Fenn as a very young man. But it really gives a sense of place and a sense of the time.
FENN: Well I remember what I wanted to teach my daughters was everything that I could remember that I’m sure that they didn’t know about. And I remember my first recollection. I think was when I must have been about 2 years old. I couldn’t get up on a little stool that was about six or eight inches high, my father lifted me up. Put me on that stool. And I think that is my earliest recollection, but I wanted - I wanted… It took me, uh, I think my memoir has 28,000 words in it, and every one of them is something I wanted my kids and grandkids to know about my side of their family.
ADLER: Well, and some of it is pretty adventurous. I mean I love the chapter you have about when you were 16 and you went on a big adventure with your friend, Donny. You went on two horses and took off.
FENN: We were in Gallatin National Forest out in West Yellowstone, Montana. We were - our excuse was we were gonna go look for Lewis and Clark, because we were going up the mountains almost exactly where they were. And we got up there, and we got lost. We spent, I don’t know, 4, 5, 6 days up in there. It was a wonderful adventure. When we decided to go out, to go home, we didn’t know where home was. It took us a couple of days to solve that problem. But it was a great adventure.
ADLER: And in your book, actually in that chapter, has some advice for would-be adventurers. You learned on that trip, and just a couple of things here, “hunger is not a good thing”, that was one thing, “you can’t hide from thunderstorms”, “porcupine meat tastes like kerosene”, “coffee made by boiling pine needles can bring on cardiac arrest” there’s a whole list here of amusing things you learned at the tender age of 16.
FENN: Experience is the best teacher.
ADLER: Yeah. How did you, how did you get from writing on a yellow pad to actually deciding to do a book and accomplishing that?
FENN: I started writing on a yellow pad with a pencil and I’d make a mistake, I would erase it. And try to fill in a didn’t know enough about writing to just mark it out and keep going. And I wrote my first book “The Beat of the Drum and the Hoop of the Dance” I drafted 85,000 words and I think 10 or 12 re-writes later I had 65,000 words and it was a hard book for me. But after that I got a computer and, you know, things got a lot easier.
ADLER: Well what was that book you just mentioned?
FENN: It was the biography of Joseph Henry Sharp. It was one of the first artists to live in Taos.
ADLER: And you wrote quite a few books about art in the southwest. Why did you decide to write art books and art history books?
FENN: Well I had an art gallery and, uh, called Fenn Gallery in Santa Fe just a couple of blocks east of the state capitol. I learned early on that if you write a book about something, people think you’re an expert on that subject. And I needed to be an expert because I wasn’t making any money in the art business, and I wanted people to come buy some paintings from me. That’s why I wrote my first couple of books. I wrote a little book about William R. Leigh and the drawings that he had made for the dioramas in the Natural History Museum in New York.
ADLER: Really?
FENN: Yeah, and that was really my first book.
ADLER: Why did you think to do that? The dioramas are amazing I grew up going to them.
FENN: Well, I’m sorry you asked me that question, but I’ll answer it. I wrote the book because I had all the drawings. The originals. And so, you know, you could almost call it a catalogue. But it was to promote those drawings and I sold all of them and I sold some of them to the Natural History Museum in New York. That told me that, you know, I didn’t have any education. I made terrible grades in high school, but I was successful with my first book and I said you know, if that’s all there is to it, I can do that!
ADLER: So you do a lot of research? You write a book, and you become an expert.
FENN: Well, there are people that say I’m not an expert, but I like that persona (laughing).
ADLER: And you have a second memoir also. So…
FENN: I wrote a second memoir that’s called “Too Far To Walk.” It’s kind of a sequel to “The Thrill of The Chase.”
ADLER: And where does that pick up in your life?
FENN: It’s more of - It’s a series of short stories. I talk about, uh, some of my, you know I’ve always said that I’ve always thought that I’m the world’s greatest shmoozer. When people came in my gallery, I wanted to take them to lunch. I wanted to learn everything. How did they get where they are? And I met wonderful people from Michael Douglas to Jackie Kennedy to Robin Olds to lots of politicians, President Ford and, you know it’s fun to sit down with people that really made a mark with their lives. When I was stationed in Germany, I went - I was on my way from Bitburg, Germany to Munich and I looked on a map and I recognized a little town just off the autobahn. The town where Field Marshal Rommel lived. You know, he was the Desert Fox that fought with Patton in the tank battles in North Africa. And so I stopped my car and knocked on her door and she invited me in.
ADLER: Who invited you in?
FENN: Mrs. Rommel.
ADLER: Oh.
FENN: And her son Winfred was there. He spoke a little English and we drank tea and I stayed there for an hour and she was afraid that her husband would be forgotten. You know he’s the one that tried to kill Hitler. Hitler made a deal with him, “If you’ll commit suicide, we’ll take care of your family. But if you don’t we’re going to kill you and your family.” So Field Marshal Rommel killed himself to save his family. I don’t think he was a Nazi. He was a soldier.
ADLER: He was in North Africa.
FENN: Yeah.
ADLER: Yeah. So it sounds like when opening your gallery, going from, I think, um, I can’t remember if you told me this…. You go from when you first came to Santa Fe, you got your little - your gallery, and you were sleeping on mattresses on the floor. It was a pretty rudimentary operation. How do you - and then you went from that to being the biggest gallery in town for quite a while - your gallery is where the Nedra Matteucci Gallery is right now.
FENN: I sold to Nedra. She was a good client of mine and a good friend. She had a little gallery on Canyon Road. I made a deal with her to - one of my old rules that I started when I was fairly young was that I don’t want to do anything for more than 15 years. My reason was there’s too many great things to do and there are not very many 15’s. And I’ll use an example. I walk down the street and I see attorneys, lawyers, walking to work - 90 year old attorneys. I mean they’re going to die at their desk. And they love that and, you know, but I’ve always said if you don’t like your job or your marriage, you should slam the door and go someplace else. But that’s my philosophy about that.
ADLER: But you kept at it with the gallery. And what happened? How did you get from sleeping on the floor to quite a lovely establishment?
FENN: Well because I had no education. And I had no experience in art. I didn’t own a painting when I opened my gallery, but I learned that if I’m going to compete with the big guys, then I’ve got to have an appearance. And I told myself if I advertise full page color in the prominent magazines of the day, they’ll think that I’m an expert. And they did. And then because I wasn’t an expert, because they thought I was, then I had to go to school and research and bring myself up to speed and so after 17 years, why I became knowledgeable - I don’t think I’m an expert or anything, but I’m knowledgeable about a few things.
ADLER: I want to take a moment here, um, a little break to tell our listeners, that you’re listening to The Last Word: Conversations With Writers. I am the host and produce, Abigail Adler and today we are speaking with gallery owner, and um, writer, Forrest Fenn. Um, Forrest, what kind of people walked into your gallery?
FENN: You know, that was a very fortunate byproduct of owning a gallery that I did not anticipate when I got in the business, but we had all kinds of politicians: John Connelly, three times governor of Texas and Secretary of the Navy. He and I were partners in a bunch of paintings. And of course, Jackie Kennedy stayed in my guest house for a week. President Ford stayed in my guest house. All kinds of movie stars from Robert Redford to Chere and everybody in between. It was a wonderful experience. Like I said, I’m a great schmoozer and I - if you’ve done something, then I want to talk to you. I’d like to take you to lunch and find out what you’re doing. I’d like to spend an hour with Charles Manson. You know - try to find out what’s ticking with that guy, if anything.
ADLER: Did any of the celebrities buy some artwork? At least a book?
FENN: Jonathan Winters bought an expensive painting from me. Steve Martin bought paintings from me. Suzanne Somers bought a number of paintings from me. Robert Redford bought excellent paintings. Sure a lot of them did.
ADLER: And I do remember, uh, years ago that your gallery was the scene of a couple of movies that were shot in town.
FENN: There was one movie, it was called, uh, “And God Created Woman.” Yeah. They shot that in my guest house.
ADLER: And Roger Vadim was in town I remember for that.
FENN: That’s right.
ADLER: You had quite a collection - they had a tent right there on Paseo de Peralta for all the actors.
FENN: That’s right.
ADLER: So why, um, I think all of your books are self-published. Why self publish?
FENN: Well I hate to say that I couldn’t find a real publisher, because I never did try but, I had some experience with publishers. A publisher wants to save money. And they can rearrange your book. They like to put all the color photographs in one signature. And I just wanted my books to be the way I wanted them to be. If I’m talking about a painting I want to talk about it on the same page where I pictured the painting. So you don’t get that when you go to a commercial publisher.
ADLER: So you, it was important to you to have control over how the book looked.
FENN: Yeah, and you know, when I write a book, uh, I’m not but 20% there because I hire a designer, a layout artist, and we fight back and forth about the design, and the layout. Then I take the book to a printer, and I approve the signatures before they start the press runs and when the book is printed, then I go to the binder in Phoenix, Roswell Bookbinding, and I get in line and help glue the covers on. I mean, I’m part of the entire process.
ADLER: So now you’re an expert on something else. An expert on putting a book together.
FENN: I’m knowledgeable about it, yes.
ADLER: You know, I’m not sure where I got this, but, um, someone wrote that the urge for you - that you told them the urge to collect started at the age of nine. When you found an arrowhead in a plowed field in central Texas? And you still claim it’s your most treasured object. You said it was a thrill and that started me on a long journey of adventure.
FENN: It’s true. I was nine years old. I wrote a book about that called, “The Secrets of San Lazaro Pueblo.” I talk about finding that first arrowhead. I was with my father and when I picked it up, I told myself, “This little projectile has been laying on the ground for 2,000 years waiting for me to come along.” Is that not exciting? And I picked it up and I looked at my father and the expression on his face when he saw the expression on my face was something that’s burned into my memory. It’ll stay there forever, I mean, I wish more fathers would take their sons and daughters out into the countryside. Not necessarily looking for arrowheads, but looking for - I mean, roll a log over and see what’s under it? You’re gonna find ants and worms and grubs and beetles and make notes. There’s so much to be learned in the mountains and in the desert. We are too sedentary today.
ADLER: Yes, you walk outside and there is adventure waiting.
FENN: That’s right.
ADLER: Pretty much in any direction you go. And, I think you said to me, and I don’t know if it’s a famous quote by you, but you did say to me when I was talking to you earlier, “I don’t do anything, I just make things happen.” Things just happen in your presence it seems.
FENN: You know, I don’t know what that is. It’s an idiosyncrasy of my biology I think. But in Vietnam I flew 328 combat missions and a lot of them - most missions in Vietnam were not very exciting, but it seemed like every time I pulled my gear up, things started happening. And, sure, there’s exciting things happening everywhere in the mountains and in the desert and I love to… I’m an avid fly fisherman. I was a professional fishing guide when I was 13 years old in Yellowstone. But you know there’s a famous quote in a new book on Duveen. It says, “They never knew that it was the chase that they sought, and not the quarry.” I can’t tell you how many times I could hardly wait to get out on the river to fish and when I get out there, I’d go sit under a tree and watch the Osprey catch fish - you know it’s not catching the fish that counted, it’s being there was hat was important to me. And I would urge parents to take their kids out, particularly in the mountains. Summer’s here now, the snow’s pretty much gone. It’s a good time to experience some of those things. It’s memories that your kids will never forget.
ADLER: That comes through in your books. The experience of growing up in the west, and growing up outside. But we only have about 5 minutes and I’d be remiss if I didn’t bring up your treasure hunt.
FENN: Okay.
ADLER: I think most people know that, um, Forrest has buried a treasure somewhere out here.
FENN: Now I never said I buried it. I hid it.
ADLER: Hid it. Okay, hidden the treasure. Maybe there’s a clue. Maybe not. That’s worth at least a million dollars and what, what’s in there?
FENN: Well there are 268 gold coins, there are hundreds of gold nuggets. Two of them are the size of hen’s eggs. And there’s lots of pre-Columbian gold jewelry and Tairona necklace and wonderful quartz fetishes and two little carved - ancient Chinese carved jade figures. I mean it’s wonderful.
ADLER: When did you actually hide this treasure.
FENN: Well I’m 85 years old now, I hid it when I was either 79 or 80. My wife didn’t know within 18 months of when I hid that thing. She knew I had it. But she didn’t know that I had gone out and hidden it.
ADLER: So it was a secret that you had hidden it. The time that you hid it.
FENN: Yeah, nobody knows that I hid it, or where I hid it. I’m the only one in the world that will know that.
ADLER: So far. And you invite anyone who wants to to find it.
FENN: Sure. I invite parents to - I’ve said that it’s hidden in the Rocky Mountains north of Santa Fe, and below the Canadian border. So I’m inviting people to get the kids and go out looking for it. If you can find it, I guarantee it’s worth your while.
ADLER: So, a million dollars. Why did you decide to do that?
FENN: Well, I talked about that in my “Thrill of the Chase” book. In I was diagnosed with what everybody said was terminal cancer. You know it takes a while for that to soak in, but after a couple of weeks I said, you know, “If I’m gonna go, who says I can’t take it with me? Who says I can’t impact the future?” And so I decided, you know, I’ve had so much fun doing this over the last seventy some years, why not let somebody else have the same opportunity and the same thrill of the chase that I’ve had. And so I started - I bought this wonderful little metal cast bronze box, paid $25,000 for this beautiful little chest that’s - I don’t know how old it is. It’s romanesque. I started buying things just to put in it. Gold nuggets and gold coins and gold jewelry. There’s, I think, 270 rubies in there. There’s diamonds, there’s two Ceylon sapphires. There’s eight emeralds, and there’s all kinds of gold bracelets and wa’kas and pre-Columbian gold figures.
ADLER: We have a few more minutes, but, um, do you have any advice or hints for people that might want to look for the treasure?
FENN: Sure. In my book, there’s a poem. And there are nine clues in that poem. I would suggest if you want to find my treasure, read that poem over and over. And then try to find out - try to follow the clues to the treasure.
ADLER: And where is that poem? Is that the one on the first page here?
FENN: No it’s toward the back of the book.
ADLER: Toward the back. Okay, so, you have to get your hands on a copy of “The Thrill of The Chase” and look for the clues in that poem. I’m sorry, we only have one minute, but I’d like to say that, um, well, maybe tell us how people can find out more about the treasure. Is there a website?
FENN: There’s a blog called dalneitzel.com d-a-l-n-e-i-t-z-e-l dot com. And he gets about 40,000 hits a day on that blog. The blog is dedicated to the treasure story and my books.
ADLER: And you can buy your book in town here?
FENN: Yes, Collected Works Bookstore in Santa Fe.
ADLER: And, very quick, I do want to mention that you are hard at work at some other books and one particularly about Taos.
FENN: Well, I’ve got a book in my computer called, “Closet Stories of Taos.” It’s not an art book, but it’s about the artists and the characters like Long John Dunne and Dovelli Price and Mace McHorst and Mabel and Frieda Lawrence and it’s a gossip book, but it’s very interesting. I bought the estate of Leon Gaspard, and the home, and everything that was in the home and there were wonderful diaries and ledgers and… Anyway, this book is coming out of that purchase.
ADLER: So, when this comes out, we’ll have a different look at that whole Taos community.
FENN: That’s right.
ADLER: Well, Forrest, thank you so much for being with us today. It’s lovely to see you.
FENN: It’s my pleasure Abigail, thank you.
ADLER: And thank you for tuning into The Last Word - Weekly Conversations With Writers about writing and life. We broadcast from the studios of KSFR radio in Santa Fe streaming live on the web at KSFR.org. We thank Nick Appalucci for engineering this show. We thank you for being with us. I’m Abigail Adler.
ID # Date Source
9698 5/27/2016 Richard Eeds Show
Quote
Link: Click Here
RICHARD EEDS: (note: this transcript begins at the 1:57 mark). Always a good day when we get to see our buddy, Forrest Fenn. Forrest is here. We’re going to talk about a few things. Ummm, and including something called FennFest. Mr. Fenn, how have you been?
FORREST FENN: I’m fine but, people haven’t called me Mr. Fenn in a long time.
EEDS: Well you are Mr. Fenn.
FENN: Thank you, sir.
EEDS: You’re a good man. How are you?
FENN: Well I’m hanging on.
EEDS: Yeah? Hanging on to what?
FENN: Anything I can grab!
EEDS: A root?
FENN: I’m 85 years old. Everytime I wake up, I’m thankful.
EEDS: Yeah, but you look good. You look healthy.
FENN: Well, thank you. I hope - I am healthy, I think.
EEDS: You came down here by yourself today, or did someone drop you off?
FENN: No, I drove my own car.
EEDS: So, uh, that’s a warning. (laughing) I’ll let you know when Forrest is headed out. You a good driver?
FENN: I’m a good driver. I haven’t had a speeding ticket in 50 years.
EEDS: Really. What other kinds of tickets did you get?
FENN: Don’t talk to me about parking through.
EEDS: Yeah. (laughter) Got a few of those out there? What are you driving these days? You got a modern car or your old classic car?
FENN: My old Jeep?
EEDS: Yeah? How old? Is it a Willy’s?
FENN: It’s about 5 or 6 years old.
EEDS: Oh, okay.
FENN: I lose track of time.
EEDS: You still have the first car you had?
FENN: I have a 1935 Plymouth. It’s the brother of the car that I bought when I was 16 years old.
EEDS: That's great. In Georgia, right?
FENN: In Atlanta, Georgia.
EEDS: Alright. Ummm, FennFest. Tell us about FennFest. What is FennFest?
FENN: You mean Fennborree?
EEDS: Fenborree! I’m sorry. I’ve been calling it FennFest.
FENN: Fennboree is a thing that -
EEDS: I renamed it!
FENN: - a couple of gals in Albuquerque are putting on. Stephanie Meachamum, Sasha Johnson, and it’s gonna be on the 3rd and 4th of June. I guess next weekend.
EEDS: That’s next weekend.
FENN: And I think they are expecting something like 200 people there. Up Hyde Park Road in the Forest Service Recreation Area.
EEDS: So next weekend. Here in Santa Fe. Up in Hyde Park.
FENN: That’s right.
EEDS: Alright. Is it, uh, are the details anywhere online? On your website - on the uh…
FENN: Well the uh,
EEDS: The Trading Post website?
FENN: If you go to dalneitzel.com there’s a place up at the top that tells you all about it. D-a-l-n-e-i-t-z-e-l dot com.
EEDS: He does all your websites -
FENN: It’s dedicated to my treasure chest.
EEDS: Right, right. He was on the show last time you were here.
FENN: That’s right.
EEDS: Yeah. Um, alright. I got an email a little while ago from Tomas Leach. Remember him?
FENN: Oh yeah. From London.
EEDS: Yeah.
FENN: He’s a good guy. Tomas.
EEDS: Yeah. Very nice. Very pleasant fellow. He was here making a documentary about it. So I emailed him this morning. You know, what’s going on? What’s the status? Do you have anything new? So, he just emailed me back a little while ago, Forrest. He said the film is called, “The Lure.” And now it’s the the final sound and music mix. Will be premiering the film in the fall at film festivals before releasing it in theaters. I can’t make it on - I actually invited him to call in and chat with us, uh, this morning. He said, “I’d love to come back when the film is out, especially when we bring it to Santa Fe. Send the best and my best to Forrest and you also.” He also adds a little a P.S. down here - that Ivan cut out of the film All of this stuff I did ended up on the cutting room floor.
FENN: Well he wanted to upgrade
EEDS: Exactly. Thank you, Forrest. Um, aright. Before we get into, and I said I was going to bend your fingers back, or I was going to torture you or somehow to make you tell me, and only me where the treasure chest is. Um, the story is, and I know - this you probably took personally, a man who was searching for the treasure was in New Mexico, who vanished. As far as I know, no trace. I mean there have been traces but he has not been found, correct?
FENN: He’s not been found since - not been heard of since the 5th of January.
EEDS: Right. And the last I heard, Forrest, maybe you have newer information, is that a backpack, a blue backpack was found up near Bandelier. And it didn’t make any sense to me because it was found up on a cliff and in a scree field… It’s like - Forrest is not going to climb up something like that even a few years ago, I don’t think, to hide the treasure chest. Uh, was the backpack ever identified as being his, was it confirmed?
FENN: I don’t think so. The Police are holding that information pretty close to their chest, but I really don’t know what’s going on. It seems to be - everybody seems to have a different opinion, but something very mysterious has happened to him.
EEDS: Really?
FENN: I think so.
EEDS: Think so?
FENN: I mean, they’re not putting out any information, which makes me suspicious already.
EEDS: Is the, um, is the search continuing? I know his ex-wife, right? His ex-wife was continuing the search. Asking people to volunteer.
FENN: You know, I really don’t know. I don’t know why anybody would continue to search in there. I spent nine hours flying up and down in a helicopter flying up and down that - 18 miles and
EEDS: Of the canyon?
FENN: Of the canyon, yeah. From Buckman road all the way down to Cochiti Lake and we couldn’t find anything. But there are guys out there with drones and nothing turned up. Then all of the sudden this backpack shows up where -
EEDS: Up near Bandelier.
FENN: Up near Bandelier, yeah.
EEDS: Right. Is there any chance this is another, I don’t know - you know, just another mystery or another uh, effort, uh, I don’t know… I’ll just leave it at that. I know you don’t want to go there because I don’t know, but it is a sad story if the family never gets any closure.
FENN: Well, everybody has a different idea, you know. The guy could be in Tijuana sipping tequila with his girlfriend for all I -
EEDS: That’s where I was going. I don’t know so I didn’t want to… Alright how many people? How many people do you expect? How many people around Santa Fe? Now that the weather’s good will people come out of the forest or come to New Mexico, or come to Yellowstone, or come to wherever searching for your treasure?
FENN: Well, I spent some time thinking about that. And up until this coming summer there have been about 65,000 people out looking for the treasure and thankfully that’s parents taking their kids out of the game room and away from their texting machines and experiencing the national forests and the mountains. It’s a good thing.
EEDS: Which some people say is, was your intent. That’s the real treasure that your hinting at.
FENN: That’s correct.
EEDS: Your granddaughter, who was here the first time you came into the show, and I questioned it. I don’t know if this is actually a real treasure or an imaginary treasure or a metaphorical treasure, but when your granddaughter was here, when she came, you know, she convinced me. Just the look on her face. Recounting. You know, she knows a lot of these pieces that you say are inside of the chest.
FENN: That’s right.
EEDS: It’s not just, you know, it’s not just bullion or coins, there’s a lot of cool stuff you put in there.
FENN: Well there’s pre-Columbian gold artifacts and 2,000 year old necklaces and bracelets and ancient Chinese carved jade figures. It’s wonderful.
EEDS: Alright before we get into some of the “what’s in the treasure chest” - For people listening that don’t know the story, how did this - I don’t want to go all the way back, because in the past we’ve gone all the way back: Vietnam and prior to that when you met your wife, and Georgia and Texas and all of that, and why you came to Santa Fe. Um, but let’s go back to the poem. Where can people find the poem?
FENN: The poem is printed in my book, “The Thrill Of The Chase.” And they can buy it at Collected Works Bookstore in Santa Fe. As a matter of fact, that’s the only place they can buy it.
EEDS: Not online?
FENN: Online they can get it from Amazon, but Amazon gets it from the bookstore.
EEDS: Okay. So Collected Works is the best -
FENN: Collected Works Bookstore.
EEDS: Uhh, what is the poem?
FENN: Well, there are nine clues in the poem. And if you can follow the clues, one right after the other, it will take you to the treasure chest.
EEDS: If you can follow the clues.
FENN: There’s a big “if” there. It’s not easy, but it certainly isn’t impossible. People have been within 200 feet that I know for sure because they tell me where they are.
EEDS: Well that’s a clue right there. Who?
FENN: Well you better get out in the mountains then, Richard.
EEDS: Alright, now, Forrest I’ve read this poem. You know, and, it seems to me, to my mind Forrest, how long did it take you to write it? It is very complex. It is very well put together, it is, you know, in terms of just being a poem, in terms of being a kind of literature it’s very impressive. But in terms of being part of a treasure hunt it’s even more impressive. How long did it take you?
FENN: I worked on it on and off for fifteen years, Richard.
EEDS: Okay
FENN: And I looked up words, definitions of words, and changed them, and went back and rebooted. I’m very pleased. It turned out exactly like I wanted it to turn out.
EEDS: As difficult as it as you wanted it to be right?
FENN: The results are what I wanted out of that poem.
EEDS: Is it fair? Do you think somebody will try hard enough, search hard enough, search long enough that they can find the chest?
FENN: It’s not a matter of trying. It’s a matter of thinking. Read the poem. Read the book, because there are some hints in the book that will help you with clues in the poem. But sure, people have figured the first couple of clues and unfortunately walked right past the treasure chest.
EEDS: So people have - and people contact you probably on a daily basis -
FENN: I get a hundred emails a day.
EEDS: Through your email. People show up at your house unfortunately. People contact Dal and through the website. Actually the last time, the two of you were here, I got a bunch of emails from overseas and I probably goofed a little bit and told - sent some people some links to things that were maybe not 100% fair. I was just trying to get them off my back and back onto you. So, people who have contacted you, there have been people who have been very, very close.
FENN: Very little close. They
EEDS: Ooooh. Do you tell them?
FENN: No, I don’t tell them that they’re close. I couldn’t afford to do that, but some of the emails I get are wonderful. I got one from this little girl in Philadelphia I think, she said, “Mr. Fenn if I find the treasure, do I have to share it with my brother?” So, you know, I tell myself that, the treasure chest story is doing what I want it to do. Getting kids out and thinking and planning and there are clubs in schools all over this country called The Thrill Of The Chase Club and kids are getting organized and trying to find out where the treasure is, and this summer they’re going to get on the bus and go look for it.
EEDS: Alright be back with Forrest after this timeout. It’s 19 minutes after nine. He will tell me where the chest is - or else. Nineteen minutes after nine o’clock. Our guest is the great Forrest Fenn. Treasure writer-er-er-er and the keeper of the clues. Twenty minutes after nine. Be right back. KVSF the voice of Santa Fe. We podcast. If you think there might be clues in this interview, find the podcast at Santafe.com. I’m not going to tell you any more than that.
EEDS: (note: 15:06 mark) Forrest Fenn is our guest. Talking about his treasure chest and the treasure hunt, and uh, his poem which - I don’t know. I think it may be impossible to solve this darn thing, but I guess I just gotta get out in the mountains or somewhere and start looking for this darn thing. Could be anywhere… What do you say, from Santa Fe to, to…
FENN: Canadian Border
EEDS: Canadian Border, yeah.
FENN: In the Rocky Mountains north of Santa Fe.
EEDS: And a lot of people like, like looking around Yellowstone because you have a history with Yellowstone. You’ve been there many times as a younger man and so a lot of people are like, “Oohhh that’s where he put it.”
FENN: Well I spent the first 18 uhh, first 20 summers up in Yellowstone Park for three months each summer. My father was a schoolteacher. We had the summers off.
EEDS: Why Yellowstone? Why was he drawn to Yellowstone?
FENN: Well my father was a fisherman and his father-in-law was up there and everything just tied up and we fell in love with that place and I’m the only one left in my family but I’m carrying on my love for Yellowstone.
EEDS: A lot of fond memories of uh
FENN: Oh yeah
EEDS: As a youngster up there?
FENN: Oh yeah.
EEDS: Those stick with you.
FENN: They stay forever, yeah. I was a fishing guide at age 13 up in Yellowstone.
EEDS: Giving other people the -
FENN: That’s right.
EEDS: So they experience the magic of Yellowstone.
FENN: I used to know every fish in that whole country.
EEDS: Uhhhh, caught your first fish where? First fish, ever.
FENN: My first fish ever was down in Temple, Texas. A little creek - fishing with worms and a bobber. A little catfish about six inches long.
EEDS: Proud though weren’t you?
FENN: Oh yeah. Sure.
EEDS: makes you happy.
FENN: I tried to have it mounted, but my father wouldn’t go for that.
EEDS: Dad, can we stuff it? Well, when you get a bigger one (laughter). Or when you get bigger. I remember catching - as I recall, it was a German Brown Trout up at Eagle’s Nest. And it was a big deal!
FENN: It is a big deal.
EEDS: Alright, uh, what’s in the chest? Give us an idea. You know, I tried to put a value on it and you said there’s no point.
FENN: There are 20.2 Troy pounds of gold in that chest. 265 gold coins. Most of them double eagle american coins.
EEDS: Are they more valuable to melt down or as a coin?
FENN: No, you don’t melt those things down. They have numismatic value. But there is 265 rubies and emeralds and diamonds and sapphires and there’s hundreds and hundreds of gold nuggets. Two of the gold nuggets are larger than a chicken egg. They weigh over one Troy pound each. And that’s a pretty big nugget.
EEDS: That’s a big nugget. Where’d you get them? Where’d you find the nuggets? I mean - most of these things, you acquired over a lifetime right? I mean, you had a trading post, you know your art - art dealer...
FENN: When I decided I was going to hide this chest, I went out looking for things you know. I wanted - it had to be small because the chest is not really big.
EEDS: Yeah. It’s not. Yeah.
FENN: But you find gold nuggets at gun shows and arrowhead shows and you know
EEDS: As big as a chicken egg?
FENN: Well that’s unusual, yeah sure.
EEDS: You stole them out of some museum didn’t you?
FENN: Well I would have to have!
EEDS: Are you a wanted man? Have you ever seen the gold nugget up at the uhh… Natural History Museum in Denver?
FENN: Oh yeah. They have a great collection of gold nuggets.
EEDS: Big as a football!
FENN: Well sure. Larger than that.
EEDS: Alright so there’s raw gold. There’s gold coins. There’s precious stones. Did you acquire the stones over years?
FENN: That’s right. And every wonderful thing that I had that was small enough to fit in that chest, that’s where I put it.
EEDS: And there are some - i mean there are kind of some heirlooms in there as well, right?
FENN: Well it’s a personal thing with me. When I had the chest almost full, I told myself, you know, I want to put something in there that’s personal. I want to put some of me into this chest. And I had this wonderful little bracelet that Richard Weatherall - made of prehistoric beads. Richard Weatherall found at Mesa Verde the first time he ever climbed down into that ruin. It was made into -
EEDS: He’s not the cowboy that - I mean the guys on the cattle drive that crossed the plateau?
FENN: He’s the one that discovered Mesa Verde.
EEDS: Wow. I think there might be some Indians that might differ with that opinion, but… So he’s the first white man? Cowboy right?
FENN: Well, well, I wasn’t there at the time, but you’re in the ballpark.
EEDS: So he found this?
FENN: He found 22 little turquoise disc beads the first time he ever climbed down into Mesa Verde.
EEDS: Right.
FENN: And a couple years later, an Indian working for him made a bracelet out of those 22 beads and then many many years later I won it a pool game with a nephew of Byron Harvey.
EEDS: Really?
FENN: Yeah.
EEDS: So you’re a pool shark? Fats Domino. Minnesota Slim.
FENN: You just have to be good enough to win, that’s all.
EEDS: Where was this? Where was this pool game?
FENN: It was in Scottsdale, Arizona.
EEDS: And you won this - bracelet or necklace?
FENN: In a pool game with Byron Harvey. Yeah.
EEDS: Wow. That's pretty cool!
FENN: I was surprised it fit me perfect and I hated to put it - I’ve said over and over whoever finds that treasure chest, bring that bracelet back to me and I’ll buy it. I’ll give a good price for that bracelet.
EEDS: Right. Your, uh, granddaughter, when she was here with you, Forrest, she brought up something. It was a piece of jewelry. An heirloom of some kind that was really stuck in her mind. It was for some reason special to her. I don’t remember what it was though.
FENN: Maybe it was that bracelet. Probably was.
EEDS: Could have been that bracelet. There was something in there that was - and it was the look in her eye that her remembering that piece that I THINK convinced me that this whole thing is on the up and up.
FENN: She has appreciation for fine things.
EEDS: Well she’s your granddaughter.
FENN: That’s right.
EEDS: How is she?
FENN: She’s fine.
EEDS: She went off to Lubbock for awhile right?
FENN: She graduated from Texas Tech University.
EEDS: God forbid go to Lubbock, Texas. All the family’s good?
FENN: Yeah. They’re all good. Everybody’s working and making a few bucks. That’s what it’s all about. The thrill of the chase, right?
EEDS: It is the thrill of the chase, whatever you're looking for. Any - Stick around a little while longer? I don’t know what your schedule is today. I know you’re a busy man.
FENN: I’ll hang around. I got some hot tea I’m sipping on.
EEDS: Alright. Forrest Fenn is our guest. Always a pleasure to talk to Forrest. Guy is mysterious. He’s always got stories. But you gotta kinda dig them out of him. He ain’t gonna give them up easy. Kinda like the treasure chest. We’ll see what we can do. See if I can get a clue out of him. Thirty-one minutes after nine o’clock. Sandy Brice will be here. Sandy knows Forrest. Actually has stories about Forrest Fenn. As does Kate Collins who was here the other day. She used to type up stuff for you. She was telling me about you Forrest. A lot of women in town have stories about Forrest Fenn. We’ll be right back.
EEDS: (23:00 mark) Thirty-five minutes past nine o’clock. Forrest, did you ever own a mule? You ever had a mule?
FENN: Say that again?
EEDS: Have you ever had a mule?
FENN: I’ve had donkeys. Never had a mule.
EEDS: Yeah?
FENN: Well, I gotta say Richard you got good taste in music.
EEDS: Thank you. Well Taj Mahal played here in Santa Fe last night at the Railyard Farmers Market Pavillion as a benefit for KSFR Radio. I am sure it was a fantastic show. I hope a lot of people attended and they raised a lot of money. Taj Mahal. Great, great musician, and um, big fan of Taj. Met him a few times. Alright. Forrest you told me - I was going to go in a different direction, but you told me that when we came back, you would reveal, if I asked you where the treasure chest is, you’ll tell us.
FENN: So are you gonna ask me?
EEDS: Where is the treasure chest, Forrest Fenn?
FENN: It’s - I’ll tell you exactly where it is Richard. It’s in the Rocky Mountains somewhere north of Santa Fe.
EEDS: And?
FENN: No and. That’s where it is.
EEDS: Now I made the mistake, several times, first two times I think you were here, saying it was buried. And you said, don’t assume it.
FENN: I like you because you’re so easy, Richard.
EEDS: I know. I’m gullible as can be. “Ask me where it is, I’ll tell you Richard.” But, uh, people should not assume that you buried it right?
FENN: Should not assume that I buried it, but you should not assume that I didn’t bury it. I don’t want to give that as a clue.
EEDS: Right. Uh, it could be in a tree trunk. It could be in a cave, with a
FENN: No. I’ve said that it’s not in a cave or a mine. I don’t want people getting killed in the mines.
EEDS: That’s a good point. Yeah, there’s too many unstable mines between here and the Canadian border.
FENN: That’s right.
EEDS: Somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. Uhh, um, alright, you’re not a nice man, I’ve decided. Uh, um, the Fennborree
FENN: Fennborree.
EEDS: Fennborree next week up at Fort, uh Hyde Park Road. Details on the Fennborree - on the - on Dal’s website. Once again, what’s the -
FENN: D-A-L-N-E-I-T-Z-E-L dot com.
EEDS: Alright. And he does all the stuff related to the treasure chest.
FENN: That’s right.
EEDS: And, you know, Forrest, so you can find it if you want. How many people are going to show up for that?
FENN: Well, we don’t know. We don’t have a registration, and I’m not putting it on.
EEDS: Right.
FENN: But I’m guessing, from what emails I’m getting, there should be 200 people or so.
EEDS: Probably all treasure hunters.
FENN: Well I think nearly all of them are, yes.
EEDS: It’s the Fennborree. I’ve been calling it the FennFest, but you should maybe take FennFest and put it in your pocket and use it somewhere down the road. It’s kind of a good name.
FENN: Well
EEDS: Gotta good ring to it.
FENN: Thank you for that clue. Maybe I’ll do that.
EEDS: Yeah, you can have that. Alright, you mentioned, Forrest, that you had an email from a little girl, saying if she found your treasure, does she have to share it with her little brother. Um, first of all what’d you tell her?
FENN: Well, I told her to consult her father on that subject.
EEDS: Okay.
FENN: As I recall -
EEDS: Probably good advice
FENN: I don’t want to cause any disruption in the family.
EEDS: Okay, umm. You get hundreds of emails a day.
FENN: That’s right.
EEDS: You get them from all over the world.
FENN: That’s right.
EEDS: Has the poem been translated at all?
FENN: Well yes. There have been documents made in four or five different countries, and they read the poem in those languages.
EEDS: Okay
FENN: Two in Japan, I think. Germany and France, sure.
EEDS: And the hunt, and the poem, and you’re extremely popular in the UK. What do you think it is? I mean there’s people in Scotland and England that pestered me after you were on.
FENN: I don’t know but four documentaries have been made by London documentary makers.
EEDS: Including Tomas Leach
FENN: That’s right.
EEDS: Called “The Lure” which will be out this summer. Final stages. He’s just gotta cut me out of it.
FENN: Well he came from London to Santa Fe four times and interviewed me. He wanted to interview me in all four seasons. I don’t know what that had to do with it, but he must have a plan of some kind.
EEDS: He came by here, and we did a little thing about what this kind of tourism means to Santa Fe and how important you were. If you were a nice man or not. At the time I thought you were. All of these emails - how many do you answer?
FENN: If a person sends me a short email, signs his name and doesn’t ask me questions, usually I’ll respond. But if it’s a long email, I just can’t read them. I just get too many.
EEDS: I agree. You know, why? Keep them short. But you’ve got a soft spot if kids send you emails right?
FENN: Yeah. I love to get emails from kids, and there are a lot of, as I said before, the thrill of the chase clubs in school systems throughout this country, and one in England. They’re trying to figure out where the treasure is, and they’re going to get on a bus this summer and come to the Rocky Mountains and look for the treasure.
EEDS: And you attend some of these? You participate in some of these? Do you also do, uh, like video conferencing with some of the classrooms, something like that? Skype with them?
FENN: That’s right. That’s right.
EEDS: There was a documentary made. You sent me a link I think it was on Discovery Channel maybe? A guy on a motorcycle maybe? Cruising all around Northern New Mexico.
FENN: It was the Travel Channel.
EEDS: Travel Channel. Yeah. It was well done!
FENN: Expedition Unknown.
EEDS: Yeah.
FENN: They did 47 minutes on the treasure story.
EEDS: Plus commercials, came out to an hour.
FENN: That’s right. They spent a lot of money on that. They got in helicopters and hot air balloons in Albuquerque and
EEDS: But it was pretty good, and they went up and down the river. Climbed up and down the rocks like south of Taos Gorge. South of the box or something like that. But one of the things that they did and they showed was the family that was going around. A family traveling around in like a minivan with like a metal detector. It was like four teenage girls and - young teenagers and going around all over the place. Man, a couple of times they said, “This is the campground. This is the site where we’re going to find it.”
FENN: “This is exactly where it is!”
EEDS: And they are convinced
FENN: That’s right.
EEDS: A lot of people like that.
FENN: And they have a lot of fun, and that’s what it’s all about.
EEDS: And that was the cool thing about that.
FENN: But the treasure chest is out there and its waiting for whoever can figure out the clues.
EEDS: Now you get messages all the time I would imagine from people saying we know and we are 100% certain and it will be revealed very soon. We know where this darn thing is.
FENN: There was a thing - an item on eBay this last week. These two little old ladies found the treasure chest with a metal detector. The ground was frozen so they couldn’t dig it, but they’ll sell the clue to you on eBay starting price of $50,000.
EEDS: Two little old ladies.
FENN: But you could buy it right now for $100,000 to find the spot.
EEDS: Or you have to wait and bid.
FENN: Ebay took it off.
EEDS: Or you can buy the book for how much at Collected Works from Dorothy?
FENN: I think it’s $35.
EEDS: Yeah.
FENN: We wanted to price it so that everybody could afford it.
EEDS: So $35 or $100,000. That’s great. Two little old - probably isn’t two little old ladies either. Probably some shady kind of guy somewhere, but you know the story of two little old ladies would touch somebody. Right?
FENN: Some Mafioso someplace.
EEDS: Russian Mafioso somewhere. Um, you uh, you’ve told this story. You told this story many many times. Why you came to Santa Fe, and the story of being shot down twice as a fighter pilot in Vietnam and injured, and you came to Santa Fe and became a well-known and well-off art dealer written all these wonderful art books. The latest one is just absolutely, absolutely gorgeous. Uh, Gaspard, Leon?
FENN: Leon. Biography of Leon Gaspard.
EEDS: Yeah, it is a beautiful book. What is that history - your service, Vietnam, being a fighter pilot, what does that all mean to you when we come to a weekend like Memorial Day and all those, all those brave soldiers who paid the ultimate price up on the National Cemetery?
FENN: It’s hard for me in my mind to realize what’s taken place over the last 85 years, you know? I never did - I don’t feel like I planned anything, things just happened to me and each item passes pretty fast. You know, my military career was 20 years, but I look back at it now and it seems like just yesterday. I don’t know. At age 85 I think your mind starts evolving and looking back and I’m proud of some of the things that I’ve done.
EEDS: Oh I’m sure. I’m sure. I mean you’ve got to be proud of that. You’ve got to be proud that you’ve been married to the same woman for 62 years.
FENN: But you know I think everybody, uh, has those same feelings.
EEDS: Sure. Sure.
FENN: I’m not unique in that sense.
EEDS: But your military service,
FENN: Well I’m proud - I was a fighter pilot for 18 of my 20 years. I was shot down twice in Vietnam, but I -
EEDS: And you survived that!
FENN: And I took battle damage a few times. I lost some roommates and you know I’ve said over and over, we’ve got to start leaving people alone, Richard. I can’t say that often enough.
EEDS: Your thoughts on the President of the United States visiting Vietnam the last few days, and today at Hiroshima.
FENN: Yeah.
EEDS: Pretty historic visits. He’s not the first President to go to Vietnam since the peace. I guess if you can call it that, but he says, you know, we’re going to lift all embargos against Vietnam and, you know, we need to make things right. Not apologizing, but we need to understand the significance of all of these acts of war.
FENN: Well, you know I talked about that some in my book. You’ve got to ask yourself why are we doing those things?
EEDS: Did you ask when you were, early 20’s I assume?
FENN: No. I did what I was told. I was a Major in the Air Force. The President of the United States telling me to go to Vietnam and fight in a war, and I did that. After I came back I realized, why was I over there? Why was anybody in Vietnam? Or Korea? I mean we gotta learn to leave - to stay out of those things.
EEDS: Right. Your, um, your life here in Santa Fe is a good life. Do you love Santa Fe?
FENN: I love Santa Fe. Santa Fe has absolutely everything that I want.
EEDS: And days like this - weekends coming up like this, there’s a lot of people in town, and we get to share it with a lot of people who would give up a lot to live in a town like Santa Fe.
FENN: That’s right. And we got Folk Art Market coming up, and that’s a wonderful thing too.
EEDS: You like that?
FENN: Oh I love it.
EEDS: That’s a great weekend isn’t it? I was out of town. I was in France with my brother summer, but, that is a really good weekend.
FENN: Yeah. It really is.
EEDS: Um, your dabblings in dealing art is books in itself. Why, and you’ve told this story, why, I find it fascinating, why the Russians? Why did you - how did that kind of come about that you became this expert dealer in very fine Russian art?
FENN: Well there’s the famous Taos Society of Artists. There were ten members in that, but the two greatest artists that lived in Taos during those same days were Russian immigrants. Leon Gaspard and Nikolai Fechin. I wrote books about both of them. When you compare the art that they made compared with, uh, the Taos Society of Artists, they’re very favorable. In my opinion, they were better than any of those other artists. A lot of people disagree with me on that, but it was very unlikely that 12 very important international artists would live in a little town in Taos right after the turn of the last century. We’re talking about 19-
EEDS: What are the odds?
FENN: Incalculable.
EEDS: Yeah. Well when was Gaspard in town?
FENN: He moved into Taos - he was shot down in the first world war and he was very seriously hurt, but when he recovered he moved to Taos somewhere like 1919? The war was still winding down. 1919 somewhere around there -
EEDS: First world war.
FENN: Yeah first world war.
EEDS: So he was a fighter pilot as well?
FENN: He was an observer flying in the backseat of this little airplane and it got shot down and they didn’t have parachutes so the pilot is going to crash this airplane into a haystack and Leon Gaspard jumped out at the last minute without a parachute and landed in a mud puddle and was very seri - the pilot was killed and…
EEDS: Wow. So shot down in a Sopwith Camel somewhere.
FENN: There are exciting things out there for you to do, Richard.
EEDS: Yeah, well I don’t want to do that at any point. But so much, Forrest, is coming out. Especially right now. New books, new film Awakening in Taos. All this revival of those years of the Taos artists of the Taos School, uh, Mabel Dodge Luhan, and Georgia O’Keefe and all stories, all those kind of overlapping overlaying stories of Georgia and Mabel and and Taos Pueblo and, you know, Ansel Adams, and all these great stories.
FENN: Well you know, I got three more books in my computer and I don’t think I’m going to finish them, but
EEDS: Do you? You told me the Leon the Gaspard one was the last one. You’re unpredictable.
FENN: Well you can’t write your next one till you finish your last one.
EEDS: That’s true. You’re a crafty man. Alright you wanna, I’m going to let you go. You wanna leave us a clue before you leave?
FENN: The clue is enrich your life and get the kids out of the basement and go out and spend a couple of weeks in the Rocky Mountains and Santa Fe and Yellowstone and every place in between.
EEDS: Could be up in the, uh, what’s that, Rocky Mountain National Monument up in Estes Park.
FENN: I wish you’d not said that.
EEDS: Somewhere up there with those giant bull Elk.
FENN: Animals are wonderful.
EEDS: Forrest, thanks for coming by.
FENN: My pleasure always.
EEDS: Try and stay out of trouble, alright?
FENN: Thank you and invite me back please.
EEDS: Alright. I will! We will be real clear on the day and time. We’ll be back. 10 minutes before nine o’clock. Forrest Fenn. Fennjam - Fennboree. Uhh, next weekend up in Hyde Park. 10 minutes before ten, we’ll be right back.
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