Annual Nenana Ice Classic river breakup guessing game ends with an icy splash

The ice on the Tanana River went out in Interior Alaska on Monday evening, stopping the clock in the century-old Nenana Ice Classic river breakup guessing game.

A 30-foot-tall wooden tripod, which is placed every year in early spring on the ice upriver from the Nenana tributary, is connected to a clock that stops once the ice goes out.

A few false alarms over the last few days helped build the suspense.

The tripod tipped onto its side and became partially submerged on Sunday morning, but stayed in place for the rest of the day. Then on Monday afternoon, a sunny, windy day, an initial siren went off as big chucks of ice and water swelled around the tripod. But the clock — which only stops when the tripod actually travels down the river — kept ticking.

Finally, at 5:01 p.m. Alaska Standard Time on May 8, a rushing current of water and giant ice chucks pulled the tripod down the river, stopping the clock and ending the game. The tripod clock is an hour behind local time because it is not on daylight saving time, and showed 4:01 p.m., which is the official winning time.

This year’s tickets for the 107th Ice Classic cost $3.00 each. Proceeds went into a $222,101 jackpot that will be split among the bettors who guessed the exact date, hour and minute when the clock stopped — or the next closest minute on either side if no one guesses exactly.

Organizers said winners will be announced publicly in a few days. Checks are scheduled to go out on June 1, they said. In 2022, the clock went out at 6:47 p.m. on May 2, and 18 winners received $9,716.72 each.

The event is part of a yearly river breakup that signals the end of winter and beginning of spring. For most of the state’s major rivers, breakup was delayed this year by one to two weeks after a particularly cold April.

[Forecasters flag increased flooding risk during Alaska river breakup this year]

A popular Facebook page called the Nenana Ice Classic Fanpage hosted a livestream event Monday that lasted over six hours, and was broadcast to the page’s 19,000 followers from all over the world. Moderators answered questions submitted by viewers, shared bits of knowledge about the event’s history, and expressed condolences to those who watched their time guesses pass by.

The game originated in 1917 when a group of railroad engineers bet a total of $800 trying to guess the precise date and time when the Tanana River would break up.

Since then, the earliest breakup date was April 14, and the latest was May 20.