Ice Watch

Ice Watch

The Housatonic River is one of Connecticut’s prime natural resources, but in the town of Kent, it also works for the fire department.

Each winter since 1978, Kent’s volunteer department has used a section of the waterway that meanders from western Massachusetts to Long Island Sound to generate money for its coffers, as well as to provide a jackpot for an astute—or lucky—guesser.

For $2, entrants pick a day and time they think the ice will break up on the river, assuming the river freezes over as it usually does—with the closest guess splitting the pot with the fire department. The local Ice Watch was the idea of the late John Greene, longtime editor of the Kent Good Times Dispatch, and was fashioned after an event he’d heard of in Alaska.

Veteran firefighter Arthur Seabury, 90, oversees the project. He’s devised an intricate system consisting of a tripod, a clock, and a cable that records—by registering movement—the precise moment the ice breaks up. That can be anytime in late winter or early spring, but often it happens in February or March.

That moment depends on the temperature, or a rainfall that makes the river rise, but it can be dramatic. When it goes, the ice buckles, cracks, and snaps, the surface becomes jumbled and chaotic, and floes begin to break off and float away, bashing into solid ice farther downstream. The fire department has gotten good at gauging the weather and alerting the town on the most likely day, and the breakup sometimes attracts a crowd, including a Dispatch reporter.

“The contest is a very good provider of money and a good way to keep the department in the limelight,” says Seabury, who no longer responds to fire calls but remains on the department’s roster. The pot has gone as high as $7,000.

Occasionally, though, the Housatonic doesn’t cooperate. A warmer-than-normal winter last year kept the river from completely freezing over—and also kept the pot low. A random drawing held by the department in the spring picked the ticket of George Deakin of Milford, who split the $1,280 pot with the fire department.

Kent (pop. 2,858), in northwestern Connecticut, is served by the Housatonic in more predictable ways as well. During the summer its waters provide whitewater canoeing, kayaking, tubing, boating, and swimming. For the expert, Rattlesnake Rapids in Falls Village, 20 miles north of Kent, and at nearby Bulls Bridge, offer challenging whitewater runs. Hikers on the Appalachian Trail also enjoy views of the river as the trail parallels it for five miles between Kent and the town of Cornwall Bridge (pop. 1,278), the longest stretch of river walk between Georgia and Maine.

Bulls Bridge, one of the state’s two covered bridges still open to traffic, crosses the Housatonic a few miles south of Kent. George Washington was purported to have traversed the river at this site in 1731, just before the span was erected. Legend has it his horse fell in, resulting in a rescue.

While Kent has a number of craft boutiques and art galleries, for many the lure of the town is its natural beauty: Kent Falls State Park with its dramatic cascading waterfall is renowned. The Housatonic attracts anglers to some of the best fly-fishing in the region. Bald eagles are beginning to nest along some stretches of the river again, and hikers taking a break from the Appalachian Trail are common during the summer.

But some just come for the ice watch. For the last 20 years, Bonnie and Dennis Andres have traveled the 25 miles from Torrington (pop. 35,202) each winter to place their bets.

“It’s such a neat idea,” Bonnie says. “I always guess Feb. 24 at 6:55 p.m., the day and time of my birth. It’s a good winter activity. We don’t ski or snowboard. We just buy tickets.”

Ruth Epstein lives in Kent where she watches the ice as closely as anyone.

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