DAWSON CITY – The IODE’s ice pool tripod was a bit reluctant to get moving Tuesday.

The cable attached to the clock on the Dänojà Zho Cultural Centre snapped at 1:25:48 p.m., establishing the time, but the tripod didn’t seem to want to move.

Paul Gowdie, visiting on behalf of Parks Canada, was there when the cable stopped the clock, but said nothing seemed to happen after that.

Glenda Bolt, the centre’s manager, suspects the slowly-rising water of the Yukon River tilted the pan on which the tripod was resting just enough to cause that to happen – but not enough to move things along.

Like a number of other people, Bolt had suspected that this particular pan, which has had water flowing on both sides of it since late last week, was actually grounded due to the low water level.

A number of other stationary pans up and down the river testify to this possibility.

Nevertheless, the clock had stopped, so she ran inside to notify the fire department and to send out a mass email.

That took perhaps five minutes. By the time she returned to the walkway on the river side of the centre, the tripod had begun to move, very slowly.

The siren sounded and the public began to gather along the upper dike trail to watch the event.

There wasn’t much drama. Sarah Lenart, who posted some video from the lower bank, where she would have been standing in water at this point in a normal year, said it was one of the tamest break-ups she has ever seen.

The IODE’s Janice Cliff arrived with some helpers shortly after the crowd had gathered, and they unlocked the clock to reveal the time to the world.

Cliff posed for the traditional shot with the clock against the background of the river, and IODE members headed off to check the ticket stubs and find out who won this year.

Later in the day, Cliff said it was too soon to announce the winner of the $4,100 prize, raised from the sale of 4,592 tickets.

“We are still waiting to announce a winner as we consult with our membership and Lotteries (Yukon) to determine if we will count the seconds this year, as it is very close between two tickets,” she said.

“There are no tickets that guessed either 1:25 or 1:26, so we are now determining the closest guess to the actual time.”

Early this morning, Cliff issued the following statement:

“The winner of the IODE 2018 Ice Guessing Contest is Kayden Knutson from Dawson City with a guess of 1:28 on May 8th.

“After consulting our membership, our Lotteries licence, and our extensive archives for past practices when there is not an exact guess, we determined the need to count the seconds in this year’s contest.

“We will examine the language in next year’s contest to either round up or eliminate the second hand on the clock,” Cliff said.

Knutson will receive a $4,100 cheque, and the IODE will distribute an equal amount back into the community.

May 8 has been break-up day a number of times, beginning in 1898 and continuing in 1900, 1924, 1951, 1973, 1981, 1984, 1992, 1999 and 2001.