参考译文

育空淘金潮：报纸说这是致富的捷径

今天，我们向你讲述在加拿大一个叫育空地区发现黄金的故事的第二部分。

我们讲了有数以千计的人涌向阿拉斯加，准备到加拿大去实现他们致富的梦想。

上周，我们向你讲述了有三个人是如何在加拿大西北部的育空河流域发现大量黄金，他们的发现开启了人们涌向美国的阿拉斯加，并准备穿过加拿大边境去淘金的浪潮。历史学家认为，大致有二、三万人涌向这一地区。报纸大量发表有关淘金的故事，这些故事说，到那淘金是很容易致富的，你到了那个地区后，你所有做的一切就是拾起地上的黄金。书籍和杂志也告诉人们如何到这一地区，以及如何寻找黄金的最好办法。然而，这些信息中绝大多数都是虚假的，淘金并不容易，这是一项在极端恶劣的环境中非常艰苦的工作。

第一艘满载淘金者的轮船于1897年7月26日到达阿拉斯加的斯卡格威港，这些淘金者非常幸运，因为他们到达这里的时候正是夏季，气候温暖。然而，他们发现，在斯卡格威没有可居住的地方。绝大多数人不得不用布料搭建临时的住房。斯卡格威是一个很小的港口小镇，这里没有什么商店，而且东西都非常昂贵。

同时，斯卡格威这里犯罪猖獗。有一个犯罪首领叫杰斐逊.伦道夫.史密斯，他被人们称为“肥皂水”史密斯，他想尽一切办法从那些前往淘金路上的人身上赚钱。他所采用的办法中有一个，现在看来很可笑：肥皂水史密斯贴出一张广告，该广告说，一个人只要交五美元，就能够给家里发一封电报，告诉家人他们已经平安到达斯卡格威。但这些发电报者并不知道所谓有电报局的电线只是延伸到附近的森林中，这里并没有真正的电报局。这是肥皂水史密斯从那些经过斯卡格威的人身上赚钱的骗局。

绝大多数淘金者想尽快到达发现金矿的地方，然而，加拿大政府要求每个到加拿大的人必须携带足够一年使用的补给，这可是大约九百公斤的东西呀。每个人必须携带食物、衣服、工具和在一年中生活所必须的一切。在育空地区没有商店，这里也没有食物可买。能够随船一起将一年的补给带来的人是幸运的，有些人只能在斯卡格威购买他们所需要的补给，为此他们不得不以非常高的价格购买他们之所需。

当他们准备好所需的补给后，这些淘金者随即面临进入加拿大的极端困难的行程。他们首先面临的问题是必须翻越一座高山。他们翻越这座高山有两条路：怀特路和切克特路，他们只能在这两条路中任选一条。每个淘金者开始将他们的补给从山底一点点向上运，这一进程是非常缓慢而艰辛的。有一个名叫佛瑞德.杜威的淘金者，他给回家的朋友们写信说，他用了两周的时间才把补给从斯卡格威运到了山脚下，他在信中写到，他的身体受到了伤害，因为搬运这些补给实在是太难了。

随后，这些淘金者还必须将他们的补给运过大山。有些人经过三十多次的往返，才将这些补给全部运过山顶，但有些人看到这么座高山，他们放弃了，他们把他们的补给卖给其他人，然后返回斯卡格威。这座山的山顶是美国与加拿大的交界处。加拿大官员称量每一个人的补给，如果谁的补给不够份量，那么这个人就会被遣送回去，这些人没有资格进入加拿大。

一个淘金者如果成功地翻越了这从大山，那么他仍将面临最困难、最危险的行程。两条翻越山顶的路都在英属哥伦比亚的班尼特湖附近终止，从这到发现金矿的道森市还有九百公里的水路，他们必须乘船从育空河走，但这里并没有提供船运的服务。每个人或每个小群体不得不自己建造船只，他们砍伐树木来建造船只。在短短的几个月内，这一地区的一些森林都被砍光了。夏天很快就过去了，而冬天随即而来，淘金者还在建造他们的船只，育空河就结冰了。这一地区的冬天非常寒冷，气温经常会降到零下六十摄氏度。如此寒冷的天气能把没有什么防寒的人在几分钟内给冻死。

美国作家杰克.伦敦就是这些淘金者之一，他因撰写了他到阿拉斯加和加拿大的经历而闻名。他写了一部短篇小说，这部短篇小说也许最好地阐述了淘金者所面临的可怕环境，这部短篇小说是《The White Silence》(《寂静的白色》)。在这部短篇小说中，伦敦先生解释了这极度严寒是如何让这个世界变得死气沉沉的，这引起了人们奇怪的想法。他说，这冰封的世界所带来的严寒和寂静增加了人们对死亡的恐惧。这种严寒能够让人害怕他们自己的声音。这部短篇小说还讲述了一个遭受意外的人可能发生的情况，在金矿地区没有医生，受伤严重的人只能等死。杰克.伦敦的许多小说真实地反映了1897年淘金者所经历的艰辛是多么的残酷。

到冬天结束时，班尼特湖区四周出现了一个很大的临时城镇，这座临时城镇有一万多人，他们正等着冰融化，以便能够继续他们前往金矿的行程。在1898年3月28日，育空河可以行船了，冰正在融化。这一天，有七千艘船只开始驶向道森。许多淘金者在航行中没能幸存下来，所有的船只都必须通过一个叫怀特霍斯险滩，这里的水流非常湍急和危险，许多船在此翻了，许多淘金者因此丧命。

最后，幸存下来的淘金者到达了道森市，道森市在没有发现金矿之前还只是一个小村庄，在发现金矿后很短的时间内它就成了一座大城市，店铺和旅馆很快就建起来了，物价飞涨。有一位名叫米勒的人带了一头母牛到道森，他将不到四公升的牛奶以三十美元的价格卖出，此后，他的一生被人称之为“母牛米勒”。淘金没有让他富裕，而他出售牛奶却大发其财。许多人纷纷效仿，他们在美国购买补给，运到道森，再将这些补给以极高的价格出售给淘金者。

这些淘金者很快就知道了，这一地区最有价值的土地已经被他人所拥有了，于是许多人放弃了，他们返回家乡，而有些淘金者则在其他地区继续寻找黄金，有些人为那些找到黄金的人工作。专家们说，在克朗代克淘金潮中大约有四千人发了财。有些人组建起了公司开始购买在这一地区土地。一些大公司利用大型的机器设备开采黄金。在这些公司中有一家公司开采黄金获得利润一直持续到1966年。历史记录表明，在道森地区周围仅仅四年就开采出价值达5100万美元的黄金，这些黄金在今天值十亿美元。

浩浩荡荡的育空淘金潮到1899年结束了，当许多淘金者离开时，在另一个地方发现了巨大的金矿的消息迅速传开了----在阿拉斯加的诺母发现了金矿。数以千计的淘金者又涌向了诺母。1902年，在阿拉斯加的另一个地方又发现了黄金。今天，当人们到克朗代克地区旅游时仍然能够发现少量的黄金，你所发现的黄金并不多，但已经足够让你体会一百多年前淘金者的那种狂热。

简评：

人为财死，鸟为食亡，千古不易。

被沙石掩埋而死的人，人们都会非常气愤；而被黄金掩埋而死的人，却被众多人所羡慕。同样都是死，因何有此差别呢？沙石是石，那么黄金就不是石吗？其实黄金也是石头。

如果黄金去掉其作为货币的功能外，它的价值可能真的不如普通的沙石，它之所以珍贵就在于其稀有。

以命求财，悲哀!

Yukon Gold Rush: Newspapers Said It Was Easy to Get Rich

Today we tell the second part of our story about the discovery of gold in the area of Canada called the Yukon.

We tell about the thousands of people who traveled to Alaska and on to Canada hoping that they would become rich.

Last week, we told how three men discovered huge amounts of gold near the Yukon River in northwestern Canada. Their discovery started a rush of people traveling to the American territory of Alaska and across the border to Canada. History experts believe that between twenty and thirty thousand people traveled to the area. Newspapers printed stories that said it was easy to become rich. All you had to do was pick up the gold from the ground. Books and magazines told how to travel to the area and the best method of finding gold. However, most of this information was false. It was not easy to find gold. It was extremely hard work under very difficult conditions.

The first ship carrying the gold seekers arrived in the port town of Skagway, Alaska, on July twenty-sixth, eighteen ninety-seven. These people were very lucky. It was summer and the weather was warm. However, they found few places to live in Skagway. Most people had to make temporary houses out of cloth. Skagway was a very small port town. It had very few stores. And everything was very costly.

Skagway also had a crime problem. One of the chief criminals was a man named Jefferson Randolph Smith. He was better known as "Soapy" Smith. He did his best to take money from men who were on their way to seek gold. One method he used seems funny, now. Soapy Smith had signs printed that said a person could send a telegram for five dollars. Many people paid the money to send telegrams to their families back home to say they had arrived safely in Skagway. But they did not know that the telegraph office wires only went into the nearby forest. It was not a real telegraph office. It was a lie Soapy Smith used to take money from people who passed through Skagway.

Most of the gold seekers wanted to quickly travel to the area where gold had been discovered. However, the Canadian government required that each person had to bring enough supplies to last for one year if they wanted to cross the border into Canada. This was about nine hundred kilograms of supplies.  Each person had to bring food, tools, clothing, and everything else needed for one year. There were no stores in the Yukon. There was no place to buy food. People who brought their supplies with them on the ship were lucky. Others had to buy their supplies in Skagway. They had to pay extremely high prices for everything they needed.

When they had gathered all the supplies, the gold seekers then faced the extremely hard trip into Canada. Their first problem was crossing over a huge mountain. They could cross the mountain in one of two places -- the White Pass and the Chilkoot Pass. Each gold seeker began by moving his supplies to the bottom of the mountain. Their progress to the mountain was painfully slow. A man named Fred Dewey wrote to friends back home that it took him two weeks just to move his supplies from Skagway to the mountain. His wrote that his body hurt because of the extremely hard work.

Then the gold seekers had to move their supplies up the mountain. Some men made as many as thirty trips before they had all of their supplies at the top. But others looked at the mountain and gave up. They sold their supplies and went back to Skagway. At the top of the mountain was the United States border with Canada. Canadian officials weighed the supplies of each man. If the supplies did not weigh enough, the men were sent back. They were not permitted to cross into Canada.

A gold seeker who had successfully traveled up the mountain still faced the most difficult and dangerous part of the trip. Both trails up the mountain ended near Lake Bennett in British Columbia. From there it was almost nine hundred kilometers by boat down the Yukon River to the town of Dawson were gold had been discovered. But there was no boat service. Each person or small group had to build their own boat. They cut down many trees to build the boats. Within a few months, some forests in the area were gone. The summer quickly passed and winter began. The gold seekers were still building their boats. The Yukon River turned to ice. Winter in this area was extremely cold. The temperature often dropped to sixty degrees below zero Celsius. The cold could kill an unprotected person in just a few minutes.

American writer Jack London was among the gold seekers. He became famous for writing about his experiences in Alaska and Canada. He wrote a short story that perhaps best explains the terrible conditions gold seekers faced. It is called "The White Silence." In the story, Mister London explained how the extreme cold made the world seem dead. It caused strange thoughts. He said the cold and silence of this frozen world seemed to increase a man's fear of death. This cruel cold could make a man afraid of his own voice. The story also tells what could happen to a person who had an accident. There were not many doctors in the gold fields. A seriously injured person could only expect to die. Jack London's many stories truthfully explained just how hard it was to be a gold seeker in eighteen ninety-seven.

By the end of winter, the area around Lake Bennett was a huge temporary town of more than ten thousand people. They were all waiting for the ice to melt so they could continue on to the gold fields. On May twenty-eighth, eighteen ninety-eight, the Yukon River could again hold boats. The ice was melting. That day, more than seven thousand boats began the trip to Dawson.  Many of these gold seekers did not survive the trip on the Yukon River. All of the boats had to pass through an area called the White Horse Rapids. The water there was fast and dangerous. Many boats turned over. Many of the gold seekers died.

At last, the remaining gold seekers reached the city of Dawson. Dawson had been a small village before the discovery of gold. It became a big city within a short time. Stores and hotels were quickly built. The price of everything increased.  One man named Miller brought a cow to Dawson. He sold the milk for thirty dollars for a little less than four liters. For the rest of his life he was known as "Cow Miller." He did not get rich seeking gold. But he made a great deal of money selling milk. Many people did the same thing. They bought supplies in the United States and moved them to Dawson. Then they sold everything at extremely high prices.

The gold seekers quickly learned that most of the valuable areas of land had already been claimed by others. Many gave up and went home. Some gold seekers searched in other areas. Others went to work for people who had found gold. Experts say about four thousand people became rich during the great Klondike gold rush. Groups of men formed large companies and began buying land in the area. The large companies used huge machines to dig for gold. One of these companies continued to make a profit digging gold until nineteen sixty-six. History records say that in only four years the area around Dawson produced more than fifty-one million dollars in gold. This would be worth more than one thousand million dollars today.

The great Yukon gold rush was over by the end of eighteen ninety-nine. As many of the gold seekers began to leave, news spread of another huge discovery of gold. Gold had been found in Nome, Alaska. Thousands of people rushed to Nome. Gold was later discovered in another part of Alaska in nineteen-oh-two. Today, people visiting the area of the great Klondike gold rush can still find very small amounts of gold. The amount of gold is not much. But it is enough to feel the excitement of those gold seekers more than one hundred years ago.

 http://www.21voa.com/path.asp?url=/200902/se-EXP-Klondike-Part-Two-11feb09_0.Mp3