A grocery list is a very individual thing. No two shoppers fill their carts exactly the same way.
But between Feb. 1 and April 5 each year, there’s one item thousands of Alaskans all buy — tickets for the annual Nenana Ice Classic.
“You’ve got those that buy it every year,” said Nicole Bittick, who works at the customer service desk at the Three Bears store in Kenai. “We have a few people who are new to the state, so they’re like, ‘Oh what is this?’ And they’re really drawn to that big red tin and the tripod there. We get to explain what’s going on, it’s just really fun.”
The Kenai store is one of the local vendors for ice classic tickets. Each ticket is one guess for when the ice on the Tanana River in Interior Alaska will break, moving the tripod that’s planted inside the ice and stopping the clock inside.
Guessers had until Tuesday to guess exactly what date and minute they think the clock will stop. And Bittick said some shoppers have taken their guessing really seriously.
“Three hundred and sixty four tickets,” she said. “That is a lot. That is our biggest one sale that I’ve seen. That was just a couple of days ago.”
That’s more than $900 in tickets. Each guess costs $2.50 and money gets divided between a jackpot for winners and several charities.
RELATED: John Oliver sends man in polar bear suit to Nenana, pledges $10K to Food Bank of Alaska
At the Kenai store, there’s an eye-catching red can near the front where people can drop off their guesses. It’s one of more than 200 scattered around the state.
But the Alaska tradition hasn’t always been so big. Ice Classic manager Cherrie Forness said the betting started over a century ago while workers were laying train tracks on the frozen tributary.
“Back in the early 1900s, the state was planning on building a railroad bridge across the Tanana River,” Forness said. “So some engineers that were down surveying for that railroad bridge decided to make bets on when they thought the Tanana River would break up.”
The first official year, the classic sold 800 tickets for a dollar apiece.
Today, the Nenana Ice Classic is a nonprofit with dozens of staff.
When collecting the tickets, Forness said, staff first weigh the 200-plus cans to gauge about how many tickets each contains.
“And then from there it goes to the sorters,” she said. “We hire — I don’t know how many people we hired this year. It’s probably close to 70 this year just for sorting.”
From there, tickets are arranged and then entered into a digital database. Staff print that list and check it with the tickets up to three times to make sure there are no errors, before putting tickets on shelves that correspond with their cans.
Once the ice breaks, staff go to the database and find the cans with the correct times before pulling and checking the paper tickets themselves.
It’s a big undertaking. Forness works on the classic between November and June each year. She’s been doing it for 26 years. But this season will be her last.
“I love my job,” she said. “I really don’t want to retire. But it’s time.”
She said she loves waiting for the ice to go out every year and watching what happens to the tripod when it gives.
“Sometimes it tips over,” she said. “Sometimes it floats in toward the bank. Sometimes it just floats out a little ways, downriver a little ways and gets stuck in an ice jam. It’s always different.”
Forness doesn’t know yet how many tickets they’ve sold this year. She gets a clue when she hears from ticket agents that they need more. She said that’s already happened this year.
“So that’s a good sign that ticket sales are going fairly well,” she said.
Once the organizations know how many tickets they’ve sold, they pay their expenses and determine the jackpot. The jackpot in 2021 was $233,591.
Whatever’s left over, they send to charities and scholarships in Nenana and around the state. Forness said the money goes to basketball camps, food banks and public radio.
Bittick said she’s already sold a lot of tickets at Three Bears.
“Our store has sold just over 1,000,” Bittick said. “1,040 tickets this year.”
The tickets were picked up Tuesday night and then headed to Nenana for processing.
As for when the winners are announced — well, if we knew that, there wouldn’t be much of a competition at all.
[Sign up for Alaska Public Media’s daily newsletter to get our top stories delivered to your inbox.]
