ALASKA: Ice Bets

In Alaska in winter and spring, everybody talks about the weather and nearly everybody does something about it. Midstream in the ice-locked Tanana River at Nenana, a Government railroad junction, some 60 mi. southwest of Fairbanks, a 25-ft. pole stands upright, frozen fast. “Nenana Ice Pool” reads a sign that it holds aloft. From the pole a wire runs ashore to the trigger of a time clock. During the early spring, Alaskans pay $1 for a chance to guess the exact day, hour and minute that the ice will move far enough down the Tanana to take up the 100 ft. of slack in the wire and trip the time trigger. To the winner of this elemental lottery, begun in 1917, goes the pool.

Last week as the temperature rose steadily, the Tanana ice-jam began moving, drawing the wire taut. At 8:04 p. m. May 12 the trigger was tripped, the clock stopped, making Mervin E. Anderson, 31-year-old Fairbanks bus driver, whose guess of 8:02 p. m. was nearest correct, some $75,000 richer. Day before Guesser Anderson split with another guesser the $3,500 first prize in another similar pool based on the movement of ice in the Chena River at Fairbanks.