July 24, 1902 – “The upheaval of the ice that binds the Yukon is always fascinating and exciting, but no greater and more spectacular scene in connection with the breaking has been chronicled than that at Five Fingers Rapids several days ago, The high, rocky pillars that stand as barriers at the rapids choked with ice, and for days sustained a weight of hundreds of thousands of tons of ice and blockaded water, which, when it broke, tore through the gorge with terrific force and at a speed of thirty miles an hour in wildest tumult.

There is no telling what might have been the result had not the government blasted the keystone of ice from the lower portion and opened the gorge. Captain Jack Williams, of the White Pass Company, fired the charge which opened the jam. He was standing in front of the ‘Fingers,’ and on a piece of ice when the telling shot was fired. With unexpected suddenness the great mass of blocked matter forced the situation, and Williams was sent swirling down the stream before the cracking, maddening tumult of escaping waters and chaotic ice floes. Fortunately, he was swept to the base of one of the cliffs, and there found a narrow niche in which to cling.

He seized the projecting wall and sprung to the niche, and with his back turned to the bluff and facing the wild procession of the elements, he stood in fear and trembling. One solid hour he stood on that rock and the grinding, crunching and plunging ice went past him in merciless roar.”

(The Philadelphia Times – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)