Word: tanana
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...last week the roar of ice-littered water had died away along most of Alaska's great rivers; the Tanana, the Yukon, the Porcupine, the Kuskokwim foamed ice-free through the hundreds of miles of evergreen wilderness. Even north of "the Circle" the ground had thawed. Hundreds of thousands of obliging salmon ran in Alaska's larch-green coastal waters. The Arctic ice pack would soon move sullenly offshore. The sun stayed in the skies at night, and green things burst into leaf and blossom with hothouse frenzy. Alaska's short, violent summer had begun...
Spring came to interior Alaska with a crash, a splash and $108,000. As in 28 previous years, last week's icebreak on the Tanana (rhymes with Anna gnaw) River was big news. To the lucky sourdough or trapper who guessed the day, hour and nearest minute the ice went out would go a record $108,000. And like other big news, Alaskans knew they would hear it first from Fairbanks radio station KFAR, whose special events crew was camped at Nenana (rhymes with keen Anna), 150 miles south of the Arctic circle...
...spare time built the Queen Beaver, a 19-ft. canoe made of Sitka spruce and canvas. In July 1942 they shipped the Queen north to Fairbanks, loaded her with $93 worth of canned foods and sacks of beans and flour, pushed off down the Yukon's Tanana tributary. The great river, first explored by Russians and men of the Hudson's Bay Company, rises in Canada's Yukon Territory and flows north west 2,300 miles into the Bering Sea. Bud and Connie planned to course down to within 200 miles of its delta...
Everyone knew the big day had come. The excitement even awakened the Male-mutes that snooze on the boardwalk before the town's false-front stores. There was open water under the big railroad bridge half a mile upstream; that meant the Tanana River jam was breaking...
...TANANA ICE BREAKS" gets blacker type in the Fairbanks News-Miner than a 2,000-plane raid on Germany. The Ice Pool is big business. Since it is a lottery and cannot use the mails, ballots are flown or mushed by dog team to remote settlements. Since February, as for 27 years past, thousands of Alaskans have guessed the day, hour and minute that the ice would break, backed their hunches at $1 a throw. Last week eleven tickets (at $10,000 each) tied for the winning minute...