國家地理:融化的北極正使一場新的冷戰(zhàn)升溫(7)

On King William Island, the rangers traveled west in a long line of snowmobiles. Some pulled wooden sleds, heavy with food, camping gear, and military equipment. I joined the procession on a borrowed machine, and after several frigid hours driving into the enormous night, we reached a frozen lake called Kakivakturvik.

在威廉國王島，騎警乘坐著雪地車一路向西。有些人拉著滿載食物、露營裝備和軍用裝備的雪橇。我坐在一個借來的機器上面，加入了他們，在寒冷的黑夜里開了幾個小時后，我們終于到達了一個叫做卡齊瓦圖維克的凍湖。

In bright beams of headlamps and headlights, the rangers scattered over the lake and began setting up large canvas tents on the ice. Caribou skins and tarps were dragged in, then foam mattresses, sleeping bags, coolers filled with food.

在各種頭燈的光線中，騎警在湖面上四散開來，開始在冰面上用帆布搭建帳篷。先搭好馴鹿皮和油布，在放泡沫墊子，睡袋，冷卻器里塞滿食物。

Soon the tents glowed with lantern light and whispered with the sound of kerosene stoves. Steaming cups of tea were passed around, a few stories shared about favorite sled dogs, and then it was back outdoors. In small groups the rangers fanned out over the lake, chopped holes in the foot-thick ice, and dropped fishnets into the black water.

很快帳篷里亮起了燈，伴著煤油灶發(fā)出的聲音響起了人們低語。裝著熱茶的杯子被四處分發(fā)，人們講著最愛的雪橇犬的故事，聲音傳到了帳篷外。騎警們呈扇形分小組坐著，在一足深的冰面上鑿好窟窿，再把漁網(wǎng)扔進黑色的水里。

Across the Canadian Arctic, ranger patrols mix military exercises with traditional activities such as hunting and fishing that are still a necessary part of life in the far north. Over the next several days Marvin's group tried to balance these with the martial stuff of navigation drills and training on GPS devices.

在加拿大的北冰洋沿岸，騎警們巡邏的時候還會做各種訓練，以及諸如打獵、釣魚這樣的傳統(tǒng)活動，這些在遙遠的北方仍是生活必不可少的一部分。在接下來幾天，馬爾文的隊伍想把這些跟他們的軍事活動平衡一下，比如導航鉆孔和用定位設(shè)備訓練。

Strong winds hurtled off the frozen sea, and thick fog and clouds hung low over the tundra. The temperature rose toward freezing a couple of times, then fell again and stayed far below zero. All this was typical for late November, and soon our lives collapsed into the small white and gray world around camp.

強風席卷過冰凍的海面，濃霧和烏云沉沉的壓在冰原上空。結(jié)冰的時候溫度幾次上升，然后再次落到零度以下。這是11月的典型特征，很快我們的生命就會終結(jié)在小小的白色或者灰色的帳篷周圍。