Welcome to Unexplained Extra, with me Richard McClain Smith.

Where for the weeks in between episodes, we look at the stories that for one reason or

other didn't make it into the show.

In last week's episode, Into The Abyss, we fell headlong into the seemingly never-ending

mystery of the Oak Island treasure pit.

The hunt for what some have claimed to be the lost treasure of pirate-capped-in-William

kid is widely considered one of the most famous treasure hunts of all time.

We might also say that what has played out on that island in the 120 odd years since

the pit's discovery is nothing less than the story of humankind, of land and lives

destroyed on a promise of riches.

The Beguiling Oak Island mystery put me in mind of another much publicised treasure hunt

of an eminently more gentle variety, though it is a story no less interesting because

of it.

It began in 1976 with a request from publishing agent Tom Maschler to the then 30-year-old

artist Kit Williams to put together a picture book.

Though Williams was open to the idea, he didn't want to create something that would just

be flicked through by the reader with his art being treated as something incidental.

And so he hashed a plan.

He accepted Maschler's offer on one condition that he be allowed to do something that no

one had done before.

Over the next few years, Williams developed the story and set to work on the 16 paintings

that would help to tell it.

...