Twitchell and his wife, Bertha, are raising seven children in their small home in Kasigluk, a village of about 450 people in Southwest Alaska. These days, their house is sinking. One side is so sunken into the wet, marshy ground that when neighbors walk past the kitchen window, all the Twitchells can see are their knees. The Twitchells aren’t sure how much longer this house will be standing.
特维切尔和他的妻子贝尔莎在阿拉斯加西南部一个约有450人的村庄卡西格拉克的小家中抚养七个孩子。这些天，他们的房子正在下沉。（房子的）一边深深地陷在潮湿的沼泽地里，当邻居走过厨房的窗户时，特维切尔只能看到他们的膝盖。特维切尔一家不确定这所房子还能坚持多久。
Like the Twitchells, families in Alaska Native communities across the state are in a race against time. Human-caused climate change is warming the region and melting the frozen mixture of ice, rock and dirt that forms the base for much of the landscape. That’s weakening everything from homes and schools to water and sanitation (公共卫生) systems. Alaska Native communities have been raising the alarm for years, warning that melting permafrost (永久冻土) and erosion (侵蚀) threaten their ability to stay on the land where their families have lived for generations. Now, officials say, the issue has reached a breaking point.
与特维切尔一家一样，全州阿拉斯加原住民社区的家庭也在与时间赛跑。人为造成的气候变化正在使该地区变暖，并融化了构成大部分景观基础的冰、岩石和泥土的冰冻混合物。这削弱了从家庭、学校到供水和卫生系统的一切。多年来，阿拉斯加原住民社区一直在发出警报，警告说永久冻土融化和侵蚀威胁到他们留在家人世代居住的土地上的能力。现在，官员们说，这个问题已经到了一个临界点。
The simplest solution for the Twitchell family would be to move across the river. Nearly everyone in Kasigluk agrees that the best solution is for the families to move across the river to Akula. The question is how to pay for it — especially in a village, and region, where much of the community lives below the poverty line.
对于特维切尔一家来说，最简单的解决方案就是搬出这条河。卡西格拉克几乎所有人都同意，最好的解决方案是让这些家庭过河搬到阿库拉。问题是如何支付——尤其是在一个村庄和地区，那里的大部分社区生活在贫困线以下。
For most people, moving across the river would mean building a new house. Like much of rural Alaska, Kasigluk has a severe housing shortage, and most of the threatened homes have deteriorated too much to relocate. But building in rural Alaska is extremely expensive. There are no roads connecting Kasigluk to the nearest town. The community relies on planes and snowmobiles to travel in winter, or boats in summer. Most supplies and construction crews have to come by plane or boat.
对大多数人来说，搬过这条河就意味着要盖一栋新房子。与阿拉斯加大部分农村地区一样，卡西格拉克的住房严重短缺，大多数受威胁的房屋已经严重恶化，无法搬迁。但在阿拉斯加农村地区建造房屋极其昂贵。卡西格拉克与最近的城镇之间没有公路连接。该社区冬天依靠飞机和雪地摩托出行，夏天则依靠船只出行。大多数物资和施工人员必须乘飞机或船来。
The traditional council has spent years working on a way to get residents to the safer side of the river. But they’re constantly struggling with the complicated process, running up against a lack of funds and dealing with red tape (繁文缛节). “It’s pretty stressful,” official Nickefer Kassel said. “At times it feels like everything is in a stall. It’s frustrating.”
传统的委员会花了数年时间研究如何将居民带到河的安全一侧。但他们不断地在复杂的过程中挣扎，面临资金短缺和繁文缛节。官员尼克弗·卡塞尔说：“压力很大，有时候感觉一切都停滞不前。这很令人沮丧。”
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