This year there has been ice on the Yukon since October.  Around here ice is about two feet thick in the center of the river.  This close to the open ocean the river level is affected by the tides so the surface of the ice moves up and down.  The movement is imperceptible but the difference between high and low is sometimes as much as three feet.  The surface of the river is a solid sheet of ice all the way across so somewhere something has to give as it rises and falls.

       The point of weakness is usually parallel to the bank several feet from the shore.  Long cracks, running along the river open in the ice, never more than an inch wide, as the thick center ice breaks from the thinner ice held fast to the land.  Water from below will seep up through the fissure and flood onto the surface then freeze, creating a new thin layer of ice.  Sometimes the surface of the new water will freeze but then the unfrozen water recedes back through the crack leaving a glassy thin ice layer suspended an inch above the more solid foundation layer.  Stepping on this feels and sounds like walking across a floor littered with fine crystal dishes. 

     On the coldest of days the water freezes before it gets to the surface and the cracks suture themselves pretty quickly.  Sometimes a crack will make a jagged dash across the center of the river.  In the cold of winter that’s nothing to worry about because the ice on both sides of the crack is still feet thick.  No chance of falling through. 

     During one of these tide changes I can lay on the river and listen to groans and creaks.  Sometimes there’s a snap.  It sound a little like the whale songs I’ve heard on television.