The Ever-Changing Story Of Ice Bridges In The Yukon
“The Dawson City ice bridge is located at the George Black Ferry crossing of the Yukon River – the ice bridge links the district of West Dawson to the main part of Dawson City east of the river (acting as a replacement to the ferry during the winter).
Yukon Government
“The ice bridge is 400 m in length and its width is typically about 60 m. The bridge has been operated since the 1960s by the Yukon Government (YG). It accommodates light traffic across the river as well as heavy-haul equipment that services the mining industry.
“There is no overlap between the ice bridge and ferry operations, i.e. there are time windows during which river crossing is not available. The ice bridge opening dates vary considerably, from early November to early February. Bridge closure usually occurs between the end of March and mid-to end of April. A gradual decrease of the yearly operational lifespan has been reported, i.e. 1.75 days/year since 1995.”
For the first couple of decades after we moved to Dawson, it was always certain that there would be an official ice bridge of some sort to link the town to West Dawson and Sunnydale.
Sometimes the river didn’t freeze at that spot and other crossings, still official, were created both south and north of the traditional site.
The thing about that report is that it appeared after the second year in a row (2016-17 and 2017-18) when open water at the ferry crossing meant no official ice bridge could be made. As it did not propose any real solutions (i.e. – a bridge?), it was no surprise when the same thing happened in 2018-19.
People still got back and forth, using DIY crossings – mostly to the south – created by handy locals. But these were never officially sanctioned, which prevented the government from being held responsible if there were any mishaps. Nobody died, but there were some necessary rescues.
This was followed by a few normal years. Though late in forming, the crossings were back and those who need them breathed a sigh of relief.
Then it got worse.
2023-24 was an exceptionally bad winter for ice bridges. The open water stretched from the confluence of the Klondike and Yukon rivers to about 10 km downstream, and was hundreds of metres wide all winter.
There were eventually snowmobile trails following the alternative southern routes, but crossings took 45 minutes to an hour and were considered to be potentially hazardous by the people in charge of search and rescue missions.
So this year when the George Black Ferry was taken out of the water on October 16, and when there was no ice at all showing on that date, there were a number of bitter comments made on various Facebook posts.
People who live on the west side are used to laying in supplies for an extended length of time, but they’d like that to start as late as possible and be as short as possible. After all, there is food, fuel and fresh water to be considered, not to mention the fact that some of these people need to get to work.
There are people whose memories reach back to when it was not unusual to be driving back and forth near Halloween and sometimes into November. If I doubted those anecdotal references, Facebook recently popped up several “your memory” photographs that I had taken around those dates more than a decade ago.
So, Westies were peeved when the ferry was removed before the ice arrived.
As it happened, however, the first healthy signs of ice accumulation materialized on October 19 and increasingly large pans of ice continued to flow by the town until November 3, creating some cause for optimism.
On November 4, most of the ice disappeared, revealing a distressing width of open water right where no one wanted to see it, and it seemed to get wider for the next couple of days, wide enough that people were able to use canoes and other small boats to aid in resupply runs.
More fresh ice began to appear on November 7, and became quite a heavy flow by November 9, which is when I began to write this article. However, it didn’t jam downstream, which it needs to do in order for it to stop moving in front of the town.
But the river is capricious of late, and when I checked it again, after this morning’s Remembrance Day service, there were large pans of ice alternating with stretches of open water. What a tease!
So, as of this writing, the chances that there will be an official crossing this year remains uncertain and may not even be clear by the time this sees print.
