| Summary: | Are Laying Wager On Date When Ice Will Quit River: Dawson Residents Bet On Breaking Up -- Usually Hits In May. ARE LAYING WAGER ON DATE WHEN ICE WILL QUIT RIVER Dawson Residents Bet on Breaking Up —, Usually Hits in May. DAWSON, Y. T., March 1. -- (By Mail.) -- Dawson residents already are laying wagers on the exact time of the annual spring breakup of ice in the Yukon river, considered by all the most important date in the calendar in this section of the sub-Arctic. May has always been the month of the breakup. Every year, since the gold days of '98, dollars have changed hands in pools organized by Dawson people who back with money their guesses as to the exact minute of the hour they think the river will move. Usually the pools are made up of on the minute of the Hour. The man holding the "winning minute" takes the 60. Sometimes raffles are hinged on the breakup. Once a man won a house and lot in such a raffle. All Dawson stands on the river bank here when the break Is expected. 'Weeks before, a stake Is set in the Ice in the river and a cable attached to the stake Is connected with a clock and a steam whistle in the power plant on shore. When the ice moves the stake the cable blows the whistle and stops the clock. One year the cable broke and bets were declared off. Usually all the other whistles and all the bells in town take up the echo of the power plant whistle tied to the stake. Up and down the big valley the echoes are carried, for, once the ice is broken. Dawson knows that the long winter is over and that soon steamboats will be coming down the Yukon from White Horse with fresh supplies and mail from the far away outside world.
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