New book on Brower family

Submitted by Erica Hill
Phone: (907) 474-5832
08/18/04

The University of Alaska Press has just published The Whales, They Give Themselves, an oral biography of Harry Brower, Sr., an Inupiaq whaling captain who played a central role in North Slope history.

Brower was a community leader and consultant at NARL, the Naval Arctic Research Laboratory in Barrow. His insights into bowhead ecology and behavior helped to guide scientists and protect Native subsistence whaling. Karen Brewster, a research associate with the UAF Oral History Program, spent several years interviewing Brower and his family in order to record Brower’s life from his own perspective. The Whales, They Give Themselves is illustrated and provides detailed descriptions of whaling practices and life in Barrow in the early and mid-twentieth century. The book is now available from the University of Alaska Press.

Contact: Erica Hill at (907) 474-5832 or ffeh@uaf.edu.