The Halifax Herald

September 28th 2003

Treasureless surveyor: Panel upholds guilty decision of man who moved Oak Island Markers

By Steve Proctor
Business Editor

A Bedford land surveyor who deliberately mispositioned survey markers to protect evidence he believed could help solve the mystery of Oak Island has been found guilty of professional misconduct by the provincial surveyors association and suspended for three months.

Fred Nolan was also ordered to pay $2,000 for the cost of the Association of Nova Scotia Land Surveyors disciplinary hearing and $1,200 for a failed bid before the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal to get the decision set aside.

In a written decision released Wednesday, a three-judge panel of the Appeal Court upheld the findings of the survey association's disciplinary committee, which found Mr. Nolan had knowingly altered a property line by over 10 metres during a 2001 survey on the famed Mahone Bay island.

For more than 200 years, treasure hunters have been drilling and digging on the 10-hectare island in an attempt to find treasure reputed to be buried there.

The search has attracted the attention of engineers, psychics and amateur archeologists like former American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It is listed in many places as one of the top 10 unsolved mysteries on the planet.

Mr. Nolan has been looking for treasure on the island since the early 1960s. In 1987, he went to court with a treasure-hunting company headed by Montreal businessman David Tobias and won the ownership of six island lots.

Mr. Nolan has kept most of his efforts secret but has had on-again, off-again friendship with Dan Blankenship, a fellow : treasure hunter who served years as the field manager for the treasure-hunting company.

The pair were on the outs in summer of 2001 when Mr. Nolan carried out a survey of the line between Mr. Blankenship's property and his own.

In testimony before the disciplinary hearing, Mr. Nolan said he altered the position of the line to protect evidence of ancient markers he believed Mr. Blankenship might destroy.

He said Oak Island was built on. secrecy and when he placed survey markers on his property "It was like a game."

At the time, he was not acting as a professional surveyor but :as a landowner, he said.

The committee found Mr. Nolan guilty of professional misconduct because he used his position to disadvantage a neighbour, failed to avoid the appearance of professional impropriety and.' failed to exercise unbiased independent professional judgment.

Contacted Wednesday night Mr. Nolan said he did what he thought was correct but others didn't see it that way, so he is prepared to live with the consequences.