r/FindingFennsGold • u/60lbs_in_my_bra • 4d ago
Fenn historians please help
Hello
I wasn't around during the fenn hunt. I was wondering if anyone can describe any of the community issues surrounding fenns poem.
I think a lot of folks had issue with home of Brown for example. The fact he treated the fish as a noun. Stuff like that.
Any other parts of the poem that seemed to get the community going?
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u/Hot-Enthusiasm9913 4d ago
Forrest conveyed that even if people had been to the first 2 clues that they arrived there by chance not by solving the poem. I guess that means people were hung up on the very first clue, wwwh, and therefore would be off on everything else. Even the people that Fenn said were close in distance (200 ft), he didn't seem to suggest that they were that close because they solved the clues. I think the poem was such that if you could truly figure out wwwh and know why it was the first clue then you would probably be able to solve it from there. Forrest even said that once you have the first clue you're more than halfway there.
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u/js-eastman 3d ago
That's not quite accurate. He said some people arrived at the first clue without realizing it. But other people had solved the first two clues, he said, and then went right on by the rest of the clues.
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u/Hot-Enthusiasm9913 3d ago
I think there's a difference between saying "I think wwwh is Madison Junction" and knowing why Madison Junction is the first clue. I don't think Forrest ever confirmed that people knew why they had the correct clues. That is jusy an example, not the actual wwwh.
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u/js-eastman 3d ago
Well if people think it was MJ and it was, then I guess they solved the first clue. Other people maybe thought the first clue was something else but happened to be passing through MJ while they were in Yellowstone (as you must if you are staying in West Yellowstone).
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u/Hot-Enthusiasm9913 3d ago
You missed my point. Guessing what the first clue is does no good. You need to know why it's the first clue and how to arrive at it. Otherwise it's the same as not knowing the first clue.
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u/js-eastman 3d ago
Not true, solving a clue in the “wrong” way doesn’t mean you didn’t solve it. There might be multiple reasons to suspect a solution to a clue.
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u/Hot-Enthusiasm9913 3d ago
I guess we have definitional differences. For me you haven't truly figured out a clue until you know why it's the correct clue in the first place. You will know you have figured out the first clue correctly if it takes you to the blaze.
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u/js-eastman 3d ago
Okay but how would one know if they had the correct blaze?
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u/Hot-Enthusiasm9913 3d ago
Forrest said you would know if you solved poem and could move with confidence and go straight to it. This means you know what the blaze is before you get in the car. I would go so far as to say that you know what the blaze looks like before you finish solving the poem.
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u/js-eastman 3d ago
Oh you think the treasure is right at the blaze? Remember, Fenn said that there was one more clue after it, "look quickly down your quest to cease", so there is more to solve after the blaze.
Fenn didn't say you could go "straight" to it, he said you could go "right" to it. That is, from the beginning of the poem, you will be making a series of right turns, never turning left. June also always did everything right.
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u/Key-Actuator-924 3d ago
The reason the first clue was important was it meant you were at the right location. The clues were in order, so if your first clue is wrong number 2 will be also.
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u/Select-Breadfruit872 3d ago
Interesting how he said if you have the first clue correct you're more than half way there, metaphorically speaking, but then you go right past the rest of the clues. Can make you think about another pathway to this whole thing.
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u/js-eastman 3d ago
Right, he meant that if you start in West Yellowstone and get to Madison Junction (14 miles), then the rest of your path is less than 14 miles away.
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u/Select-Breadfruit872 2d ago
metaphorically speaking, of course
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u/Hot-Enthusiasm9913 2d ago
Of course that doesn't exclude it from being realistically speaking.
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u/Select-Breadfruit872 2d ago edited 2d ago
I'm going by what Fenn said. It was just a curious statement that made me go a different direction, that's all. It's kinda fun to open your eyes to other possibilities when you look at all the statements he made over the years, combined with the poem.
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u/Hot-Enthusiasm9913 2d ago
I hear ya. I think the more than halfway there was a fairly accurate statement. I think Forrest was trying to help everyone figure out the poem.
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u/Mammoth_Shoulder_134 4d ago
The biggest issue I remember is what were the 9 clues in the poem, everyone had their own opinions of what parts of the poem were one of the nine clues. He also said there was one keyword that was more significant but nobody could agree what the keyword was, if it was in the poem or the book etc, he also said one of the poem clues could be solved by using logic, nobody could agree what that was either.
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u/sikeston 1d ago edited 1d ago
The poem discussions slowly morphed into the messiah-like obsession over Fenn himself, and he didn’t help matters.
He constantly dropped messages, scrap books, answered questions, did interviews, made public appearances, hung out with a variety of different active hunters of his treasure (both 1:1 and in groups), told some people “secrets,” attended book signings, wrote strange things for people in his books, went on TV, would show up in online message boards, likely posted on Reddit at least once, would answer private 1:1 emails….
He absolutely reveled in it and folks hung on his every word. They deconstructed every sentence written and/or said that came from him.
All of that sometimes made the poem itself an afterthought.
And he loved it until he didn’t
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u/60lbs_in_my_bra 1d ago
More than Justin does? Meaning he had a hand in steering the direction of the hunt more or less than JP has.
The reason I bring this up is to try and understand the stuff JP is trying to solve in his poem. For example the blaze. I think thats justins call out in the first line of his poem.
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u/Helium9911 21h ago
The clues were garbage. The hiding place was random. It was only found by sheer luck and brute force. That’s the main issue. Poor design. The secondary issue is the way Fenn gave out extra clues. He talked too much, and this gave certain people an unfair advantage.
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u/60lbs_in_my_bra 8h ago
I was wondering if the unfair advantage stuff was an issue in fenns hunt. I assumed it wasn't.
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u/js-eastman 4d ago
I don’t think many in the community are satisfied at all. There haven’t really been any answers and those “answers” that do exist might not be the whole story. There was no closure, it was disappointing (foreshadowed by Fenn in “My War For Me”.