Brian Bell This is Me

Education

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1. 1. PROFILES - College of the Rockies

   www.cotr.bc.ca/profiles/ - [Cached]

   Published on: 8/26/2008   Last Visited: 8/26/2008

   Teaching and Learning in BC's Great Outdoors - Brian Bell, Program Coordinator for COTR's Mountain Adventure Skills Training program has travelled waterways from Canada to Central America.
   
   Read more about Teaching and Learning in BC's Great Outdoors
   
   From Belfast Shipyards to COTR Classrooms -- a Writer is BornFrom Belfast Shipyards to COTR Classrooms -- a Writer is Born - When Will Morrison, a former COTR instructor, retired in 1997, he was looking forward to a quiet life with his wife Margaret, commuting between Cortes Island and Burnaby, reading books, and attending concerts.

2. 2. COLLEGE OVERVIEW - College of the Rockies

   www.cotr.bc.ca/public_info/cot - [Cached]

   Published on: 3/25/2008   Last Visited: 3/25/2008

   Brian Bell, Program Coordinator for COTR's Mountain Adventure Skills Training program has travelled waterways from Canada to Central America.

3. 3. www.vueweekly.com

   www.vueweekly.com/articles/def - [Cached]

   Published on: 11/1/2007   Last Visited: 11/1/2007

   Brian Bell is the coordinator of the Mountain Adventure Skills Training (MAST) program at College of the Rockies in Fernie, BC.When you walk into his office, you find the familiar trappings of any instructor: desk full of papers, bookcases crammed with reference manuals.But something else stands out.He has also found room in his small office for his skis, a climbing rope and a couple of canoe paddles,tools of the trade.It's the office of somebody who prefers to be outside.
   
   And he finds kindred spirits in the yearly rotation of students who come through the school.
   
   "There's no typical student," he explains.
   ...
   Many of the people who come to the program, Bell says, have very little experience beyond camping and skiing.
   ...
   According to Bell, for successful students who go on into adventure tourism, the opportunities are ripe.Some, he says, ski patrol in the winter and raft guide in the summer.Others have gone on to work in adventure kids camps, and some snag the "winter dream job" of CAT-skiing or heli-skiing guides.
   
   Bell, who has been teaching at the school since 1994, also enjoys watching his former students going on to be successful business owners in adventure tourism.A couple of the grads started the first white-water rafting business in Fernie.
   
   The MAST program is also transferable to other institutions in British Columbia.Students can go on to gain a two-year diploma in Adventure Tourism at Golden's College of the Rockies Campus or a four-year degree in Adventure Tourism Management at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops.
   
   Bell has been in adventure tourism for much of his adult life.Graduating from Lakehead University's Outdoor Recreation program in the ,80s, he went on to canoe guide in Ontario before guiding the Nahani River in the Northwest Territories.During the early ,90s, he spent his winters as a ski-kayaking guide in Belize.
   
   While he definitely loves being on the water, after four winters in the tropics, he and his wife realized that they missed winter,particularly skiing, so they began looking for a ski town.Coming to Fernie on a friend's recommendation, things just fell into place.Bell found that the College of the Rockies was looking for an instructor in water sports, a job he took in ,94, before becoming the MAST program coordinator in 1998.