One of Canada's Explorers* 



By Charles Hai.lock, M. B. S. 



Editor Forest and Stream : 



For thirty years I have known Dr. Robt Bell, F. R. S., of 

 the Geological Survey of Canada. To his personal canvass 

 Forest and Stream is largely indebted for its early prestige 

 and strength in the New Dominion. This month he is start- 

 ing out on his forty-third year of continuous field work in 

 British North America, his destination being the Great Slave 

 Lake in the Mackenzie River Basin, N. W. T., lat. 63 de- 

 grees, of which he is to make a topographical and geological 

 survey. The lake is 300 miles long and 3,000 miles off', 

 though now accessible a large part of the way from Ottawa 

 by rail and steamboat. 



Although fifty-seven years of age, and exposed all these 

 years to the rigors of high latitudes, he writes me that he is in 

 perfect health and vigor, and able to get about as well as ever. 

 This fact he attributes to a knowledge of how to take care of 

 himself. "No matter how tired I am," he says, "I see that 

 I always have a comfortable and dry bed of brush or some 

 substitute every night. I always dry my clothes, or change 

 to dry ones, if I can have a change, and do not go without 

 more meals than I can help." He has always followed the 

 simplest methods in his out-of-door life, carrying no impedi- 

 menta in the shape of camp furniture ; his habit being to "go 

 light" and live off the country. Where fish or game was not 

 to be had, he has subsisted on the plain common food of the 



