Tarhe the "Forrest Fire" Fighter

Photo: Tarhe Helicopter carring the Phantom

“It’s not in Nevada and it is more than 300 miles west of Toledo, but those won’t help you much. Good luck. f”

That quote was pretty funny and Mr. Fenn repeats it a lot. Just recently he used the same line but substituted “Peoria,” which is now a obvious aberration.

The goal of my book was to understand Forrest but more importantly to find his hinting technique. I went into great detail highlighting his technique and now is a good time to test his methods.

Forrest has a great sense of humor and loves to participate in his treasure hunt but is insistent he won’t give any more clues. He won’t reveal his method of hinting and that is for us to discover. Put yourself in his shoes, could you spend fifteen years designing a treasure hunt, participate but not give hints? Wouldn’t it be fun to place hints in jokes and general responses so that everyone has that slap in the face when the chest is discovered?

Take this joke response for instance: “It’s not in Nevada and it is more than 300 miles west of Toledo, but those won’t help you much. Good luck.”

Forrest Fenn repeats this joke several time to the point it gets a little old so is there more to this “non-clue?” It is a non-clue because the treasure is located in the Rocky Mountains which is naturally more than 300 miles west of Toledo and the Rockies certainly do not exist in Nevada.

So maybe there is more to it. Dal even wrote how he tried to tackle this “non-cue” on his blog. I highlighted the importance of Toledo when I introduced the Tarhe, the “Brave in the wood” that I believe Forrest’s bronze carving hints to.

Mr. Fenn included “and” in that statement, thus logically we must analyze both sides of the “and” as two requirements to make one truth. Now it is time to discuss, “Nevada. “

The CH54 Tarhe helicopter is a specialized Vietnam heavy lift helicopter that exist today in scant numbers and have now been converted to the Erickson S-64 Sky Crane named after the Indian Chief Tarhe “The Crane.” These Tarhes are unique because they have a rotary wing. Forrest hints incisively about circles and he is very proud of being a helicopter pilot himself. He mentioned helicopters 16 times in his memoir and talked about being rescued after being shot down in Vietnam by a helicopter in his story My War for Me. After the Vietnam War, The Tarhe helicopter was used by the Air National Guard in Nevada to conduct specialized heavy lifts. They are unique because they look like a dragon fly, which might explain why he carved them onto his bronze jars that are featured in his memoir.

Every Tarhe has a name like “Elvis” and my personal favorite “Olga” which was the Tarhe/Sky Crane used to place the antenna on the CN Tower in Toronto. Where have we heard the name Olga before? Thats right! Tea with Olga; what are the odds of anything having that name? And we are back to Canada again things are starting to connect!

Speaking of names, Forrest Fenn talked a significant amount about his close friend Eric Sloane. Maybe he wasn’t hinting Eric but rather Erick-son?

Today the Tarhe/Sky crane is used to fight Forest Fires. Maybe that is why Forrest calls himself “Forrest Fire.” These helicopters have an excellent chance of representing the clue “heavy loads and water high” because they lift heavy loads of water, high in the sky to douse raging forest fires. Think about all of those stories about fires and explosions, could they somehow link to the Tarhe? I know that is probably not enough to convince anyone unless we discuss what else the Tarhe can carry. I will discuss “it” next.

The whooping crane reminds me of the title of one of his books The Beat of the Drum and the Whoop of the Dance and begs the question, is this the “title” that will give the gold? Incidentally these birds only natural nesting ground is in Wood Buffalo National Park in Canada which helps me understand those frequent references to “wood” and “buffalo.”

In the mean time, “more than 300 miles west of Toledo and not in Nevada” now have a logical explanation but there is a much better one if I “bend” it a little. Perhaps if we think “in the middle of Toledo and Peoria” it will become clearer.

In the mean time didn’t he also joke that the treasure wasn’t in eastern Saskatchewan (my home Province)? I wonder how that intersects all of this?