Northwest History. Aviation 8. Contest, United States.

• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1938
• Subjects: breakup of Alaska ice; Nenana; unusual weather; frozen stream; Yukon; snowfall; waterfalls; river; channels; skiing; sledding; Tanana river; Northwest; Pacific > History > 20th century; Aviation; Pacific; Alaska
• Online Access: http://content.libraries.wsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/clipping/id/86722

Guessers At Date Of Break-Up Of Alaska Ice Are Bothered. Guessers at Date of Break-Up of Alaska Ice Are Bothered NENANA, Alaska, April 1. (/P) -- Unusual weather has Alaska's guessers in the annual Tanana rive ice break-up all crossed up this spring. Annually, thousands attempt to guess nearest the day, hour and minute the spring freshets loosen the frozen stream here and send it jamming and thundering down north into the Yukon. But the ice is twice as thick as usual, and there is only a quarter the normal snowfall to melt and carry it away. Test holes show 38 to 48 inches of ice hereabouts, extremely thick and due to the protracted cold spell in January and February. The river froze at an extremely low level last winter -- nine feet below the wharf mark at which it went out last May 12 at 8:04 a. m. (10:04 a.m., P. S. T.) And there is no three-foot blanket of snow in the near-by hills to make spectacular waterfalls onto the ice and cut it full of channels. The hill across river from here virtually is bare; there was no good skiing or sledding and wood haulers used trucks instead of bob-sleds all winter.