N.S. man searching for volunteer to live on private, possibly haunted island Melanie Patten, Canadian Press Published: Wednesday, July 26, 2006 HALIFAX (CP) - Oceanview property in Nova Scotia. Plenty of privacy. Free rent. As far as real estate goes, it's a dream listing. But Bill Mont hasn't been flooded with calls from prospective tenants wanting to live on Devils Island, a barren, uninhabited spit of land at the mouth of Halifax harbour. Mont, a Halifax-based entrepreneur, has owned the windswept, 12-hectare island since the 1960s. Now, he's trying to resurrect life on the island, though it hasn't been an easy task. "This is almost a Survivor thing," says Mont, referring to the popular reality TV show in which contestants are stranded on an island with few provisions. "You go out there and you never know if you're going to get off the next day or for two days or three days because the waves can come up." Then there's the house. "It's rundown, the shingles are bad on the roof," he says of the two-storey, four-bedroom house, which once belonged to the lighthouse keeper. "There's no electricity, but there's wells out there." During the early 20th century, the island was occupied by 20 fishermen, their wives and children. Today, all that's left is the dilapidated house, some rubble and a forlorn automated lighthouse, still owned by the Canadian Coast Guard. Legend has it that the island is now home to the ghosts of those who drowned off its shores. But Joyce Hall says she loved living on the island before her family left for the mainland prior to the Second World War. "To me, it was a treasure," says Hall, now 83. As the daughter of a fisherman, Hall says she would often sail to Halifax for visits, but she always loved returning to the family's island home. She recalls that the lightkeeper's residence was once a showpiece. "It was the nicest home on the island because the government paid for it," she says. "We thought it was fabulous. It had everything in it that we didn't have. They had nice cupboards, this newfangled stuff." Hall says she would like to see residents returning to the island, though she admits the isolation isn't for everyone. "You'd have to be a certain type, a certain breed - like me," she says. "I had a wonderful life there." Mont, 77, has visited Devils Island only a handful of times, mainly to make repairs. He spent one night there as part of a Halloween dare for a local radio station. He's confident he'll find a tenant, likely an artist or a retired lighthouse keeper who would embrace the isolation. Mont says he's had about 10 serious inquiries, including one from a local independent film company. He says he could live there himself, but that won't happen because he's simply too busy on the mainland. "There's always a possibility," he says. "It certainly would be different." © The Canadian Press 2006