I’ve talked a lot about spring without talking about what it really “means” here in Alaska.  As you can imagine we don’t have much of a spring season; March doesn’t come in like a lion and go out like a lamb or anything like that...March is solidly in the "winter" category.  In Fairbanks we go from winter to summer, usually with a two-week period of some combination of sun, rain, and wind between April and May, and that counts as “spring”.  We don’t even call it spring – we call it “breakup”.

During breakup everything in Alaska – you guessed it – breaks up: ice and snow begin melting at a rapid rate as the days stretch longer (18 hours 30 minutes today, 13 May; sunrise was at 4:33 AM and the sun will set at 11:04 PM tonight).  We are gaining about seven minutes a day as we approach the summer solstice on 21 June.

We even celebrate breakup with a huge, statewide lottery called the Nenana (Nee-NAN-uh) Ice Classic.  “The Classic” began in 1917 when a group of railroad workers placed a bet on when the ice on the Tanana (TAN-uh-nuh) River would break up, signaling spring.  That first pot was $800; the two 2009 winners split a pot totaling $287,723.  

Today the exact time of break up is determined by a tripod that is erected in the ice of the Tanana River, 300 feet from shore.  When the ice breaks and the tripod falls the timing clock stops and spring begins.  As I already mentioned, we recently had a full week of very warm temperatures and the tripod went out (relatively early) on 1 May at 8:41 PM AKST.  One of the tickets I bought was for 1 May but my guess was something like 11 AM AKST.  Damn.  Tickets for the classic are $2.50 each and you can enter as many guesses as you like - I even sent my dad some for his birthday!

This is probably the most aggressive spring I’ve experienced in Fairbanks.  Last year at this time there was a lot more snow left on the ground, and we were not getting week-long stretches of temperatures in the 60s and 70s.  In addition to the early-onset spring fever a big, fast breakup brings, there are harsh realities for residents of Alaska’s Interior, particularly the village-dwellers.  As river ice breaks up it doesn’t melt but instead becomes part of the moving river, and as rivers overflow with melt-off the ice becomes even more dangerous, encroaching on towns and in some cases, destroying them.  The early breakup has been devastating for villages on the Yukon River.  It started in Eagle (pop. 70) and has moved on to other villages such as Stevens Village (pop. 80), and Tanana (pop. 300) which is currently undergoing evacuation.

It’s been difficult to read the news lately as one village after another succumbs to the ice on the Yukon.  Everyone in Alaska has one eye on the news all day long and many of my conversations have been about which village is evacuating, which has started the cleanup, or where donations should be directed for those who are in (or are coming to) Fairbanks while they figure out what to do next.  Even the regular Daily News-Miner feature, “Athabascan Word of the Week” was about river ice.

If you don't normally click through to read the links I post I would encourage you to do so today.  I think the photographs of what the ice is doing to the villages are sobering and they give you a good idea of how Mother Nature operates up here, though (as always) a photograph is a poor substitute for the real thing.  I cannot imagine what it's like to see a crush of river ice destroy everything you own.  I know that the move and the road trip and the wedding are putting me in a more reflective place than usual, but it's hard for me to really imagine that.  I know a guy who had a house and now he doesn't.  Woosh.  Gone.

No wonder we don't call it "spring".