国家地理:不再冻人的五大湖(5)

For Leavitt, 38, the ice has always been a place to bring her life into focus.

对38岁的拉维特来说，冰面一直是她关注的东西。

When her family would drive from downstate Michigan to visit her grandparents, who owned the lakeside camp at the time, Leavitt would layer on warm clothes, collect a cooler of minnows from the bait shop, and walk out onto the ice as far as she could. She'd crank her hand-powered auger, cut a channel through the thick ice, and open a portal to the quiet underwater world.

当她的家人从密歇根州南部开车去看望她拥有湖边营地的祖父母时，拉维特会套上防寒服，从鱼饵店买一箱小鱼，然后尽可能地走到冰面上。她会转动她的手动钻孔器，在厚厚的冰层上钻出一条水道，打开通往宁静水下世界的大门。

The old-timer at the bait shop had handed her a rod -- a scant three feet long, designed for ice fishing -- off the wall the first time she'd gone in there. He showed her how to tie a lure, and how to tip the rod up and down to make the lure and minnow glitter in the water's depths. That first rod hangs on the wall of her shanty to this day.

鱼饵店的老前辈给了她一根钓竿--不到三英尺长，是专为冰上钓鱼设计的--她第一次去的时候，老前辈是从墙上把鱼竿拿下来的。老前辈会教她如何系鱼饵，以及如何上下摇动鱼竿使鱼饵和小鱼在水中闪闪发光。这是她的第一根鱼竿，一直挂在她小屋的墙上，直到今天。

Back then, when she was just a kid, it was a simple affair. She'd bring what little equipment she had out to the ice, perch on an overturned five-gallon bucket, and sit there for hours, tipping the nose of the rod up and down like a conductor's baton, calling to the symphony of fish below. She didn't catch much. But the feel of it -- the clouds skidding overhead, the water changing colors below her feet, the wind swishing past -- got locked into her brain as the essence of winter.

那时的她还是个孩子，这是一件很简单的事情。她会把她仅有的一点点装备带到冰面上，坐在一个翻过来的五加仑水桶上，在那里坐上几个小时，像摆动指挥棒一样上下摆动钓竿的前端，对着水下的鱼儿的唱着交响乐。她的收获并不多。但是那种感觉--头顶上的云在飘动，脚下的水在变换颜色，风在她耳边呼啸而过--这些冬天的气息深刻入了她的脑海里。