The Curse of Oak Island: Who is Laird Niven?
Archaeologist Laird Niven’s gravitas is abundant on Sky HISTORY’s The Curse of Oak Island. How did his academic background land him a place on the show?
Image: The Curse of Oak Island
Naturally, when you stumble upon supposed treasure, you want to be confident that it’s the real deal. That’s why you want experienced archaeologists close at hand – like Laird Niven, one of the regulars on Sky HISTORY’s The Curse of Oak Island.
Laird first appeared on the popular series back in 2016 and has since cemented himself as one of the go-to experts trusted by the rest of the cast.
When another member of the team enthuses about a ‘top pocket find’, Laird is there to assess whether the claim stands up to scrutiny. Here’s a closer look at what makes Laird Niven the Sky HISTORY show’s level-headed voice of reason.
Laird Niven’s academic background
On a podcast in September 2021, Laird Niven revealed what first attracted him to archaeology. ‘I’ve always been interested in history. I took anthropology at Dalhousie University, but didn’t have any exposure to archaeology. I was actually working in a camera store.’
In a bid to change that, he embarked on another anthropology course. There, he was particularly enthralled by guest lecturer Dr Stephen Davis, an archaeologist from Saint Mary’s University – which, like Dalhousie, lies in Canada’s Nova Scotia.
So, after graduating from Dalhousie in 1981, Laird saw Saint Mary’s as his next port of call. ‘I kind of wheedled my way into Steve Davis’s personal space and ended up working with him for 15 years or something.’
How did Laird Niven join The Curse of Oak Island?
Laird implies that he isn’t entirely sure how he was chosen to become a member of the show’s cast. He recalls first being brought to Oak Island in the late Noughties to undertake an archaeological survey on land owned by the late Dan Blankenship.
Blankenship himself appeared in early seasons of The Curse of Oak Island. Shortly before Laird was asked to join the show, ‘Blankenship would have been still alive and would have had records of me working for him. And so that obviously got to the production company.’
Laird Niven’s approach to archaeology
Of course, regular The Curse of Oak Island viewers are excited by the prospect that the island’s fabled treasure will eventually surface. However, by his own implicit admission, Laird Niven is not easily taken in by sensationalist claims.
He concedes that other cast members have nicknamed him ‘Negative Niven’ due to his unremittingly grounded approach to inspecting their findings. Nonetheless, the crew and viewers alike have come to appreciate his intellectual rigour.
Laird also played a major part in bringing fan favourite Emma Culligan onto the show, having been impressed by the academic credentials on the metallurgist’s CV.
Laird Niven’s biggest moments on the show
His importance to the Oak Island treasure hunt is often underestimated, as much of his work actually happens off-screen. For example, he keeps in touch with Nova Scotia’s provincial government to ensure the excavation work continues to comply with heritage regulations.
Many of his most pivotal moments on the show have come when he has contributed revelatory analysis of archaeological finds. However, his inadvertently amusing debut has also long remained in viewers’ memories.
Laird Niven checks out a mosquito-infested hatch
Laird did not really become a regular on The Curse of Oak Island until the fifth season. His on-screen debut, though, was actually in the prior season’s second episode, ‘Always Forward’.
That’s when Marty Lagina asked him to inspect a curious-looking hatch on the western side of the island. The square shape of the opening suggested that it was man-made - and, hence, could have originally been built as the entrance to a secret tunnel.
Laird recalled: ‘That was before I realised that they film everything. So I showed up in shorts and sneakers to look at this mosquito-infested hole very briefly and just got chewed out quite thoroughly.’
An ancient coin? Not so fast, says Laird Niven…
In the 11th season’s fifth episode ‘Muon The Horizon’, metal detectorist Gary Drayton finds what he thinks ‘looks like a really old coin’. Laird deduces it to be something rather different.
‘When I first saw it, I knew it was lead, so I discounted “coin”,’ he explains in the episode. ‘My best guess was that it was a bag seal.’ From the 13th century, bag seals made of lead were used across Europe to fasten packages of industrial and military goods.
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