{"id":85792,"date":"2022-05-12T22:30:00","date_gmt":"2022-05-13T06:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/alaska-science-forum-alaskas-big-river-breaks-up-at-eagle\/"},"modified":"2022-05-12T22:30:00","modified_gmt":"2022-05-13T06:30:00","slug":"alaska-science-forum-alaskas-big-river-breaks-up-at-eagle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/alaska-science-forum-alaskas-big-river-breaks-up-at-eagle\/","title":{"rendered":"Alaska Science Forum: Alaska’s big river breaks up at Eagle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\t\t\t\t

By Ned Rozell<\/strong><\/ins><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

EAGLE, ALASKA — While most of the town was sleeping, the ice slipped out.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Breakup happened on the Yukon River here at its first settlement in the United States at around 2 a.m. on Saturday, May 7, 2022. That’s when meltwater rushing from side creeks into the colossal groove of the Yukon lifted a winter-hardened sheet in front of the town.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

The shell of ice fractured. A torrent of the cold, brown river water shoved the shards downstream.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

Some of that ice — including a football-field size spread with a snowmachine trail still imprinted on top — settled on gravel downstream of town at the mouth of Mission Creek. Most of the jigsaw pieces continued downstream, shrinking every second while exposed to relatively warm water and above-freezing air.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

This year featured a gentle breakup here, with no ice-jam flooding at the town of Eagle, nor 12 miles downriver, where Andy Bassich reported all was well at his homesite. More pulses of ice were to come — like the bank-to-bank icebergs set to arrive from Dawson City a few days later — but the first stage of breakup was somewhat benign.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

The Eagle townspeople were relieved as they drove their cars and trucks to Front Street to stare at a mesmerizing conveyor belt of moving ice.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

\"A<\/a>

A bench in the town of Eagle, Alaska, provides a Yukon River view on May 7, 2022, a few hours after the river ice broke up. (Courtesy Photo \/ Ned Rozell)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

“This is what we were praying for,” said Sharon Hamilton, who has lived in this town of about 110 people for many years.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

In 2009, she said, her and husband Steve’s Chevy Prism then idling on Front Street would have been under a mountain of ice. That year, the worst flood in Eagle’s recorded history pushed 6-foot thick chunks into the town’s waterfront buildings, shoving some off their foundations, tethered to land by their power wires.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

John Borg, who had driven his Toyota Corolla down to Front Street with his wife Betty, was also glad to see the river moving freely.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“At least it’s not sitting here backing up,” he said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

\"John<\/a>

John Borg of Eagle, Alaska, looks out on the Yukon River on May 7, 2022, a few hours after the ice sheet broke up and much of the ice moved to the shore. Courtesy Photo \/ Ned Rozell)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

Borg, who came to Eagle in the 1960s, was referring to the happy outcome that pieces from the giant fractured sheets had not stacked in a tight bend about 6 miles downstream.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

When all those chunks restrict the flow of the river, water rises fast behind the barrier. Ice-jam floods occur somewhere on the Yukon’s 2,000 winding miles every spring. At the time of this writing, ice had jammed 6 miles downriver of the town of Circle, about 160 miles from Eagle.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

In Eagle, as all that ice born of Alaska’s and the Yukon Territory’s cold winter air floated past, Borg overheard someone lament the fact that he had slept through the initial ice movement — the peak drama of that year’s breakup.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

“After all these years of watching, I’ve never seen the (first) movement of the ice,” he said. “There’s always next year.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t

• Since the late 1970s, the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute has provided this column free in cooperation with the UAF research community. Ned Rozell is a science writer for the Geophysical Institute. <\/em><\/p>\n\t\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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