Tripod placed in Yukon River ice will stop a clock via tripwire when the river begins to break free The IODE’s Ice Pool Tripod is on the ice in the Yukon River, just a few hundred metres from the Dänojà Zho Cultural Centre, attached by a tripwire to the clock on the side of that building, and ready for the ice to start moving to pull the wire and stop the clock. This could happen as early as April 23 (2019), or as late as May 28 (in 1964). The cable attached to a clock at the cultural centre usually manages to stop the clock to mark the time, but there’s always someone out there watching in case that doesn’t happen, as it didn’t three years ago. River watchers keep pacing the dike along the river as the date gets closer. Last year the clock was stopped at at 4:50 p.m. on Sunday afternoon, April 28. Tickets are available in Dawson and will soon be available online on April 1 at www.iodedawson.com. Tickets are $3 each or a book for $30. To buy individual tickets, please visit one of the many businesses in Dawson that are selling tickets. Online, tickets are only available by the book. You can buy tickets up until midnight on April 15. In the past the deadline for buying tickets was April 23, but there was one year when the breakup almost happened before the deadline and so the IODE was forced to move the date back 10 days, just in case. In two later years, 2016 and 2019, April 23 was actually the breakup date. Climate change even has an impact on lotteries and dog sled races. Five-thousand tickets are printed at $2.00 each and the prize money is half of the total sales (or $999, whichever is larger), with the remainder of the funds going to a variety of local causes, including the Dawson Women’s Shelter, the local Learning Disabilities Association of Yukon (LDAY) programming and Dawson’s Food for Learning program, and including a RSS high school scholarship. Some manner of breakup ice pool has been operating in Dawson since the gold rush, but the local chapter of the IODE has been running the event since 1940, and even managed to keep it running in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic. Anyone wanting to improve their chance at picking the day, hour and minute can check out the historical data at www.iodedawson.com. The trend is towards being late in April or early in May. Dan Davidson taught in Beaver Creek, Faro, and Dawson from 1976-2008. Since 1977 he has been writing reviews, news and commentary for the Whitehorse Star and What’s Up Yukon, and recently for the late Yukon Star. In 1989 he helped to found the Klondike Sun, which he edited for 31 years, and remains on its board of directors.
Guess when Dawson City’s ice will shift and win cash from fundraiser
