Graham Westbrook Rowley (1912-2003)

Abstract

Most readers of Arctic will have heard with sadness the news of Graham Rowley's death in Ottawa on December 31, 2003. And many will have read with gratitude the heartfelt tributes his passing occasioned in the press on both sides of the Atlantic, which variously detailed Graham's lifelong, wonderfully eclectic engagement with the Canadian Arctic through exploration, administration, scholarship, and scientific enterprise. Graham's introduction to the Arctic came in 1936. ... he seized the chance to join Tom Manning's British Canadian Arctic Expedition (1936-39), which was headed for northern Baffin Island and the largely unexplored east coast of Foxe Basin. ... As the expedition's archaeologist, Graham had one main quest, set for him by Diamond Jenness at the National Museum in Ottawa: to unearth conclusive evidence of an ancient Arctic culture quite distinct from the so-called Thule culture described by Danish archaeologist Therkel Mathiassen. ... At Avvajja, [near Igloolik Island] he was able to excavate a uniquely "Dorset" site, confirming Jenness's hunch, and establishing the Dorset culture as archaeological fact. He published the results of his archaeological investigations in an article entitled "The Dorset Culture of the Eastern Arctic," which appeared in the American Anthropologist (New Series 42, 1940). ... The British Canadian Arctic Expedition left its mark on Igloolik's recorded oral history. Graham and Reynold Bray (who tragically drowned in September 1938) are especially remembered. They both had Inuktitut names, Graham being Makkuktu'naaq ('the little, or likeable, young man'), and Reynold, Umiligaarjuk ('the little bearded one'). A mixture of surprise, amusement, and admiration had greeted their arrival in Igloolik by dog team in February 1937. Here were two young white men, remarkably ill-dressed, lice-infested, walking on the shanks of their skin boots, and almost out of supplies, who had journeyed more or less alone from Repulse Bay, some 200 miles away, in the middle of winter. Even more remarkably, they knew how to manage a dog team, build snow houses, and (especially Graham) communicate in basic Inuktitut. Inuit elders interviewed in Igloolik during the 1990s still remembered Graham's departure for the war and the doubts they had entertained at the time about his chances of survival. But survive he did. Graham returned to Ottawa after the war. Still serving in the Canadian Army, he commanded the advance party of "Exercise Musk-Ox," an operation designed to test the effectiveness of motorized vehicles in the Arctic and Subarctic regions of Canada. The assignment took him from Churchill, Manitoba, across the barrens by tractor-train to Baker Lake. Retiring from the Army in 1946, he joined the Defence Research Board, where he was responsible for Arctic research. He oversaw the Board's sponsorship and support of Operation Lyon, which brought a medical research team, including Graham, to Igloolik by R.C.A.F Canso aircraft in the late summer of 1949. Needless to say, he took the opportunity to engage again in archaeological excavation, picking up where he had left off ten years previously, and uncovered some interesting Dorset and Thule material. In 1947, ... Graham and ... like-minded friends, founded the Arctic Circle Club, an Ottawa-based association that quickly became the focus for all those with northern interests. ... In 1951, Graham began his 23-year career with the Department of Northern Affairs and National Resources ..., serving first as Secretary of the Advisory Committee on Northern Development, responsible for the coordination of government activities in the North, then as Scientific Adviser. ... he was closely involved with the planning and establishment for the Eastern Arctic Scientific Resource Centre, now the Igloolik Research Centre, which opened in 1975 and, through federal and now territorial administration, has supported scientific research in northern Foxe Basin ever since. ... Graham re tired from the Public Service in 1974, .... The archaeological work of Graham's daughter Susan on Igloolik Island, which spanned a decade beginning in the mid-1980s, happily gave Graham the opportunity to return frequently to his old haunts. ... Graham's professional achievements were widely acknowledged: investiture in the Order of Canada, honorary doctorates from Carleton Univesity and the University of Saskatchewan, the Massey Medal of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, and the Northern Science Award, to name a few. He was also a past Chairman of the Arctic Institute of North America. ...