SPDF

Polar Gateways Arctic Circle Sunrise - Web site dedication to Arnold Brower Sr.

    • Barrow mourns Arnold Brower

  • Tamar Ben-Yosef, The Arctic Sounder, October 16, 2008 at 11:40AM AKST

    Arnold Brower Sr., a highly respected Inupiaq elder, whaling captain, Barrow community leader, and decorated World War II veteran, died Oct. 13, 2008 at the age of 86 on a solo snowmachine trip to meet his large family at his remote fishing and hunting camp. He was the son of Charles D. Brower, a legendary founder of the town of Barrow.

    Note: this article is available on request from the Alaska State Library.

    • Note from John Cooper

  • I met Arnold on both of my past conference trips to Barrow as our guide “on the ice” for the Europa Arctic Ice Field Conference of 2003 and as a community visitor to our Polar Gateways conference this past January of 2008. At the latter he told me of his experiences as a reindeer herder and how he frequently saw the aurora but considered it a normal part of his life in those days. Arnold represented to me the ideal synthesis of knowledge from cultural traditions of his people with active involvement in modern science and technology. On behalf of the visiting scientists from both conferences, I extend our deepest sympathy to his family. We dedicate the permanent on-line records of the recent conference at polargateways2008.gsfc.nasa.gov to his memory.

  • North Slope Home Page

  • Oral history recordings of Arnold Brower Sr. and other residents.

  • Europa Diary III: On Polar Bear Time

  • Matthew Prius, University of Washington
    Report from the 2003 Europa conference with comments on meeting Arnold Brower Sr.

Below: Arnold Brower Sr. at lower left during ceremony turning the Naval Arctic Research Lab.(NARL), now the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC), over to the Ukpeagvik Inupiat Corporation (UIC) on June 14th, 1989.

Below: Arnold Brower Sr. (light blue parka with dark fur collar) and visiting scientists (e.g., Robert W. Carlson of NASA JPL in bottom image) during “on the ice” expedition off-shore from Barrow, Alaska during the Europa Focus Group Arctic Ice Field Conference in April 2003.