Festival of Whales in Alaska

阿拉斯加的鲸鱼节

　　西方的节日很多，象圣诞节、感恩节、愚人节等等都是为我们所熟知的节日，甚至在这些日子，我们也要庆祝一下呢！但大家听说过鲸鱼节吗？我想知道的人很少了。因为它只是爱斯基摩人的节日，预示着丰收和喜庆，就象我们庆祝中秋节一样。只不过他们的丰收果实是鲸鱼……

On the edge of the Arctic Ocean at Point Barrow, several fur-clad Eskimos gaze intently at a narrow area of blue water between the ice floes where a great creature of the sea comes closer and closer. They watch anxiously as she surfaces, blows a stream of water into the air and disappears, only to surface later a little nearer.

* fur-clad：fur是"皮毛"、"皮衣"的意思，clad是"穿着"、"覆盖"的意思，fur-clad Eskimos 就表示"穿着皮衣的爱斯基摩人"。是呵，Alaska的气候和Greenland相差无几，人们出来活动当然要穿皮衣了。
* floe：是"大片浮冰"的意思。
* she：当不知道动物的性别时，按照英语国家习惯，应称作she。

Finally the huge 30-ton bowhead whale comes up almost close enough to touch. One man rushes toward him with a harpoon gun. He thrusts the gun hard against the whale's side and explodes a cartridge that goes through the bowhead's skin. The mammal dives again but in a few minutes he floats, belly upward, to the surface of the sea.

A man raises a flag on a nearby pole to signal the catch. By the time the boat crew has towed the carcass to the edge of the ice, villagers are streaming toward it. Villagers grab the line around the fluke of the whale and haul away with shouts and laughter. Slowly the carcass, more than four times the weight of a bull elephant, appears on the ice to be cut up, dragged to the village and stored in pits in the permanently frozen ground.

* tow："拖"、"拉"的意思，那么大的鲸（有四头大象那么重），得多少人才能拉的动呀？不过，水有浮力，可能并不象我们想象的那么困难。
* carcass：动物的尸体，尤其指屠宰后去掉内脏和头的畜体。例如carcass meat就是指鲜肉，而不是罐头肉canned meat或咸肉bacon。
* fluke："鲸尾的叶"、"鲸的尾片"的意思，另外，fluke还表示"侥幸的成功"、"偶然的机会"等意思。也许是因为我们很少有机会得到鲸的尾片，才引申来这个意思--I'm not sure。不妨这样联想，帮助你记住这个词。
* bull：我们都知道bull是"公牛"的意思，而实际上，很多雄性动物也都用这个词来表示。如：bull elephant指"公象"，bull-calf指"小公牛"；差点忘了，bull-calf也指"笨人"、"傻瓜"。呵，"小公牛"听了会很不高兴的。s