As the youngest of four, Rowley always had a playful, ambitious edge; which only helped his future highly demanding career.

He met his wife Diana at the Royal Geographical Society in Cambridge, where she was a student editor, and after many failed accounts on asking her to go out on a date with him, she finally gave in and they were inseparable from that day forth.

Because of his work with the Inuit and Dorset peoples, Rowley had a large island and river in the Arctic named after him.

He served in the Canadian Army in World War II and received the Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1945.

[3] He was made an honorary member of the American Polar Society in 1985, due to his countless advancements and discoveries in the field.