美国国家公共电台 NPR Cemeteries Turn To Swamps As Alaska's Permafrost Melts

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Most native villages in the western part of Alaska are built on permafrost. That's a thick layer of frozen soil. And with climate change, the permafrost has started to thaw¹. In one town, this means their cemetery² is melting. People there are watching the graves of their loved ones sink out of sight. From member station KYUK in Bethel, Alaska., Teresa Cotsirilos reports.

TERESA COTSIRILOS, BYLINE³: Early this fall, after Mary Maggie Otto (ph) passed away, the village of Kongiganak, also known as Kong, celebrated⁴ her life with a four-course feast. People filed into the old high school gym and piled their plates with walrus⁵ meat while children wrestled⁶ by the bleachers. It was crowded. Mrs. Otto was an elder and the de facto marriage counselor⁷ in town. She was beloved. Mrs. Otto's daughter, Betty Phillip, sat in a corner. They put her mother to rest on high ground, she said. But not all of her family in Kong is so lucky.

BETTY PHILLIP: Her dad and my grandpa - he's one of them that's under the water.

COTSIRILOS: Phillip says if she wears the right rubber boots, she can wade⁸ close to her grandfather's grave but can't quite touch his cross. Others tell similar stories. Hanna Jimmie says her parents, aunts, uncles, sister and best friend are all in the cemetery, buried together in a single row. They're under water now.

HANNAH JIMMIE: We're so poor, we can't even do nothing about it.

COTSIRILOS: Roland Andrew, Kong's tribal⁹ administrator¹⁰, is walking through the cemetery. It's a smattering of white crosses on a rust-colored hill about 10 minutes from town. Andrew points to a slanted¹¹ cross that belongs to a friend.

ROLAND ANDREW: When I was planning on starting a band, he was my keyboardist. That's what we were into when he was alive.

COTSIRILOS: That friend passed away in 2005. By then, burials in the cemetery had already been a problem for about a decade.

ANDREW: After we dug down six feet most of them - it created a lake around it.

COTSIRILOS: The swamp that appeared slowly expanded. Now crosses stick out of the sunken ground at odd angles, some of them almost completely submerged in water. As the marker sunk, some of the older wood coffins¹² started to rot. In at least one case, the buried remains¹³ began to surface.

ANDREW: There were some bones. So they put it to higher ground from the lowland area.

COTSIRILOS: Andrew says they're trying to move the graves to higher ground but don't have the money yet. Digging into melting permafrost can weaken it even more. And places where there's been a lot of digging, like a cemetery, can be the first to go. So about 10 years ago, Kong stopped burying its dead.

Cremation¹⁴ is not a part of the culture here. So when it was time to bury Mrs. Otto, her family tried something else. Rather than lowering her body into the ground, her pallbearers placed her casket on a low wooden platform raised about six inches above the ground on blocks. Six men lifted a white, wooden box and placed it over Mrs. Otto's casket, covering it completely. This way of laying people to rest has slowed the swamp's expansion, though it's not clear if it's stopped it.

The cemetery isn't the only part of Kong that's sinking. The entire hill the village stands on is slowly slipping to sea level, too. But Roland Andrew says he's not planning to move. The cemetery in a nearby village is also sinking, and their homes are flooding more, too. They're talking about moving here. For NPR News, I'm Teresa Cotsirilos in Kongiganak, Alaska.

1 thaw   

v.（使）融化，（使）变得友善；n.融化，缓和

参考例句：

• The snow is beginning to thaw.雪已开始融化。
• The spring thaw caused heavy flooding.春天解冻引起了洪水泛滥。

2 cemetery   

n.坟墓，墓地，坟场

参考例句：

• He was buried in the cemetery.他被葬在公墓。
• His remains were interred in the cemetery.他的遗体葬在墓地。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

5 walrus   

n.海象

参考例句：

• He is the queer old duck with the knee-length gaiters and walrus mustache.他穿着高及膝盖的皮护腿，留着海象般的八字胡，真是个古怪的老家伙。
• He seemed hardly to notice the big walrus.他几乎没有注意到那只大海象。

6 wrestled   

v.（与某人）搏斗( wrestle的过去式和过去分词 )；扭成一团；扭打；（与…）摔跤

参考例句：

• As a boy he had boxed and wrestled. 他小的时候又是打拳又是摔跤。
• Armed guards wrestled with the intruder. 武装警卫和闯入者扭打起来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 counselor   

n.顾问，法律顾问

参考例句：

• The counselor gave us some disinterested advice.顾问给了我们一些无私的忠告。
• Chinese commercial counselor's office in foreign countries.中国驻国外商务参赞处。

8 wade   

v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉

参考例句：

• We had to wade through the river to the opposite bank.我们只好涉水过河到对岸。
• We cannot but wade across the river.我们只好趟水过去。

9 tribal   

adj.部族的，种族的

参考例句：

• He became skilled in several tribal lingoes.他精通几种部族的语言。
• The country was torn apart by fierce tribal hostilities.那个国家被部落间的激烈冲突弄得四分五裂。

10 administrator   

n.经营管理者，行政官员

参考例句：

• The role of administrator absorbed much of Ben's energy.行政职务耗掉本很多精力。
• He has proved himself capable as administrator.他表现出管理才能。

11 slanted   

有偏见的； 倾斜的

参考例句：

• The sun slanted through the window. 太阳斜照进窗户。
• She had slanted brown eyes. 她有一双棕色的丹凤眼。

12 coffins   

n.棺材( coffin的名词复数 )；使某人早亡[死，完蛋，垮台等]之物

参考例句：

• The shop was close and hot, and the atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins. 店堂里相当闷热，空气仿佛被棺木的味儿污染了。 来自辞典例句
• Donate some coffins to the temple, equal to the number of deaths. 到寺庙里，捐赠棺材盒给这些死者吧。 来自电影对白

13 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

14 cremation   

n.火葬，火化

参考例句：

• Cremation is more common than burial in some countries. 在一些国家，火葬比土葬普遍。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Garbage cremation can greatly reduce the occupancy of land. 垃圾焚烧可以大大减少占用土地。 来自互联网