Nenana Ice Classic

What the Ice Classic is

The Nenana Ice Classic is Alaska's great guessing game: pick the exact minute the Tanana River ice will break up at Nenana, and the closest guess takes the jackpot. It began in 1917, when a crew of Alaska Railroad engineers put up about $800 in bets on when the river would go. (An informal pool among a handful of locals goes back to 1906, but the unbroken year-by-year record starts in 1917.) It has run every spring since — 110 of them and counting.

Each winter a striped wooden tripod — four legs, despite the name — is planted in the river ice between the highway and railroad bridges, about 300 feet from shore, and frozen in place. A line runs from the top of the tripod to a clock on the bank. When breakup carries the tripod about 100 feet downstream, the line trips and the clock stops. That stopped clock, read in Alaska Standard Time, is the official winning time.

In 2026 the tripod went out on May 4 at 6:58 p.m., and the $144,749 jackpot was split by two winners who had guessed the exact minute. The record jackpot is $363,627, in 2014. The Classic is a charitable gaming nonprofit — proceeds go to volunteer and nonprofit organizations.

Tickets are $3 each, on sale February 1 through April 5, and you must be 18 or older to buy one. For tickets, rules, and this spring's ice measurements, go straight to the official Nenana Ice Classic site.

The river at Nenana usually freezes over between October and November, and by the start of April the ice averages about 41 inches thick. The Classic posts ice-thickness measurements on its site through the spring — worth watching as breakup gets close.

Breakup is drifting earlier

The record says so plainly. Split the 110 years down the middle: over 1917–1971, the middle of the record falls on May 6; over 1972–2026, it falls on May 1 — about five days earlier. The last twenty springs (2007–2026) center on April 29.

Any single spring still swings widely: the same record holds breakups as early as April 14 (2019) and as late as May 20 (1964 and 2013).

Every breakup date since 1917

One date per spring, newest first — the calendar day the ice went out and stopped the clock. The contest pays on the exact minute; the ice record only needs the day.