Anchorage Daily News

FAIRBANKS -- If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the folks who run the Nenana Ice Classic should be feeling pretty good right now.

After passing through Nenana during an Alaska vacation last summer, Peter Sullivan stumbled across the venerable contest. He was immediately struck by the idea of a lottery that kept track of when melting ice signaled the arrival of spring.

"I thought it was fabulous," said Sullivan, who traveled throughout Alaska by RV with his wife Holly. "As soon as we left town I thought we could do that in our area."

Sullivan lives next to Chautauqua Lake in North Harmony, N.Y., and watches out his window each year as the lake freezes and thaws. But this year, he did something a little different -- he placed his own tripod on the lake as an experiment to see when it tumbled over.

Next year he plans to add a timer, and has hopes that it will lead to something bigger -- an upstate New York version of the Ice Classic. Sullivan said he's had good feedback for his plan, which would supply money to charities that help clean up the weedy 20-mile-long lake. A local business college has offered to keep the books for the event.

"I think everybody'll see it and start talking," Sullivan said.

The Nenana Ice Classic is a 93-year-old Alaska tradition. Each winter, thousands of people buy tickets to guess the exact date and time the Tanana River ice will go out in Nenana. A tripod on the ice trips a timer when it falls through the ice or tips over.

The Ice Classic jackpot this year was $283,723, which was split by two winners who guessed the correct time.

It's not the first time that the Ice Classic has inspired visitors.

Cherrie Forness, the manager of the event, said there are a few other communities that have held their own version of the Ice Classic. A town in Vermont hosts its own ice-thawing contest each spring, and she said a town in Wisconsin starting making similar plans a few years ago.

"I get calls from people occasionally wanting to know how it all works because it interests them and they want to do something similar in their community," Forness said.

Sullivan said he needs to wade through some gaming and environmental regulations in New York state to make his plan work, but is hopeful it will be up and running within a few years.

The semi-retired investment advisor quit working full-time in 2007 -- before the financial markets collapsed -- so he has some time to devote to the project.

"If my timing is as good with this ice classic, it'll be perfect," he said with a laugh.

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