See the flag of Nunavut, Canada's newest territory, and find out how to say good day in Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit. Sunset about 9 p.m. on the Tanana River at Nenana on Sunday, April 2, 2000. Photo by Julie Coghill Robins are singing in Anchorage, but in Nenana, the tripod stands firm on the Tanana River ice. A wire attached to a rope runs from the top of the tripod to a contraption in a watchman's tower on shore. Watchmen make sure nobody messes with the tripod.
Anticipation builds as the weather warms.
The ice under the tripod gets slushy, and then the water begins to flow. When water flows on the bank near the watchtower, the time is near. One watchman described it as just like an earthquake, with rumbling and shaking when the ice starts to go. When the ice breaks and the tripod begins to move, the rope raises a 50-gallon drum of rocks to the top of the tower. The action trips another line that releases a guillotine that cuts the main rope to the tripod.