Evening capital news. (Boise, Idaho) 1901-1927, 1916-09-17


beginning of the running OF. the ice. 1t de-
cides all bets, and after it all bets are off. At
the time the clock stops a steam whistle is
blown, and every one knows the hour and
minute Of the running The usual date is
about May TO- the time when corn is planted
in the middle states Last spring it was ear
lier The clock stopped May 3, at three
minutes past 10, and the ice moved down
stream the length of city block and
damned, the water rising behind it and over
flowing the beach in front OF the town"
"The usual betting pool at Dawson has so
subscribers the captain continued, land the
amount each puts in is SIS; or it may be as
high as 500, so that the pool as whole may
have as much as $6O00 After a pool has
been formed, 90 slips Of paper, bearing the
numbers from | to 90, are put in a hat. Each
number represents minute of the hour, and
the man who gets the minute shown by the
stopwatch as the flood reaches Dawson is
given the purse. Bets are also made on the
day Of the month and week, and upon the
hour of the day, at which the whistle will
blow. In 1914 the engineer on the steam
ship Sarah invested 81 in $500 pool, and
won it all. That was day. hour and minute
pool. He guessed the time right to the min
ute There are also many individual bets.
The crowds gather on the banks of the river
as the ice shows signs of breaking and watch
the pole AS the whistle blows the city goes
mad.
"The same betting goes on at Fairbanks.
The time there is the exact minute the ice
tears away the bridge across the Cinema
river in the heart OF the town. 1t does that
every spring, breaking the posts as though
they were matches. Among the bets OF last
year was one made at the Tanana club for a
hundred-dollar dinner to be given to the
crowd. Tom MCGOWAN was the loser and
he gave the dinner"
find there is difference of opinion as to
the Alaska winters. All are not as enthusi-
astic about the delights of the cold and the
darkness as those l have quoted.
Il tell you the winters are awful said
one of the women Of Fairbanks. These
people say they enjoy life when the ther-
mometer is 20 or 80 degrees below zero, and
that it is not cold. | tell you it is cold al
though the still air does not make it SO
bitter.
"When it is more than 20 below we
women stay in the house, and the men as
much as they can We work by artificial
light for the most of the day, and when
spring comes every one is peaked and death
like. and our compexions are pale. With
the coming of the long days our color re-
turns and in summer we are as healthy and
rosy as can be imagined
and then the long dark days rack your
nerves almost to breaking! You get tired OF
Yourself and your friends and want some
thing new i'll the way OF amusement. You
sleep as long as you can and pay little atten-
ton to hours. All parties are held late, and
they often last far into the night. And then
the trouble OF entertaining! Every one has
the same supplies, and the same canned
stuffs to select from You go to your pan
try and look at the shelves i'll despair. 1t is
hard to know what to serve
Another Alaskan talked to me about flu
nerals. Said he:
1T is difficult to bury your dead in land
where the prehistoric ice lies only two feet
under the moss, and where you have to
build fires to thaw the ice-frozen gravel be-
meath. In winter you sometimes have to
chop the graves out of the ice. There is no
need of brick walls or cement. The coffin is
laid in its ice tomb, the earth shoveled back,
and soon all is frozen solid again. The dead
buried in the winter remain frozen for an
indefinite period, and when taken up years
later look just as in life. The ice has turned
them as it were, to statues of marble"
close this letter with one of,the effusions
Of 4 nnet Of the klondike.