The "Breaking Up" of the Yukon 



271 



Destruction wrought by the Ice Floe. Photo by Major Greene 



tame affair. By the first of May the days 

 have become long and the sun hot, and 

 soon the snow, which has been growing 

 scarcer and dirtier, has mostly disap- 

 peared. How strange, then, that the gen- 

 eral appearance of the great, silent river 

 has changed but little ! Its torpid, frozen 

 length stretches along between banks al- 

 ready green and fresh with budding 

 leaves and spring flowers. 



As May advances, every small stream 

 contributes its share of a mighty volume 

 of water ; and then, following along 

 either bank, a narrow stream covers the 

 shore ice. Meanwhile the main body of 

 ice lias been raised several feet by the 

 swollen flood beneath it; and that, with 

 the gnawing action of the water along the 

 bank, at last loosens the hold of the ice 

 upon the shore. 



Apparently ready to move, the ice may 

 not start for days ; but finally the rising 

 tide will carry away a section from the 

 main body, and then the demolition be- 

 gins. A dark pile of refuse out on the 

 ice, or other reference mark, is seen to 



move, and a shout from a watcher brings 

 every human being to the river bank to 

 witness the rare spectacle. 



At first the great body of ice, five feet 

 thick and a half mile wide, moves down 

 intact ; but soon a bend is reached, or the 

 channel divides, and, with a mighty roar 

 that can be heard for miles, this great 

 mass is shattered. Blocks of ice weighing 

 many tons each rear and dive and grind 

 and roar like huge monsters in a deathly 

 panic. They crash into each other, gouge 

 out and carry away yards of the river 

 bank, and crush any obstructions in their 

 path. At the meeting of every bend or 

 shallow immense chunks are forced by 

 their fellows far up on the bank and in 

 places form piles as high as a house. 

 When once out on the bank and free 

 from the seething flood, these great ice 

 chunks, lying on the warm earth in the 

 hot sunshine, seem as strangely out of 

 their element as fish thrown out upon the 

 burning sand to die. There they lie until 

 they become whitened bundles of slender 

 lance-like crystals whose invisible bonds 



