Fifty Years Below Zero: A Lifetime of Adventure in the Far North In 1883, at the age of 20, Charles Brower joined a party to investigate coal mining possibilities on the Arctic Ocean in Alaska. He remained at Point Barrow until he died in 1945. This is Brower’s account of life as a whaler and pioneer and of the daily lives and customs of the Native people with whom he lived – and the impact they had on his own life.