Gerald Fremlin was born in Clinton, Ont. in 1924. He joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1942, and did active service as a bomb-aimer, attached to R.A.F Bomber Command in England. He graduated with a degree in English and Philosophy from the University of Western Ontario in 1950 under sponsorship of the Department of Veterans Affairs. After a period of philosophic rumination, he returned to Western and obtained an M.[...] Geography which got him employed in the Geographical Branch in Ottawa where he worked on compiling the 3rd edition of the National Atlas of Canada (1957). On completion of the atlas, and after a number of miscellaneous assignments in applied geography for the federal government, he was sponsored by the Geographical Branch and the Canada Council to two years graduate work in cartography at the University of Wisconsin, under Arthur H. Robinson. On return to Ottawa he became editor-in-chief of the National Atlas of Canada, produced the 4th edition (1974), and, immediately after setting up plans for the Canada Gazetteer Atlas (1980), took early retirement. He and his wife Alice live in Clinton, Ontario.