您现在的位置: Language Tips> Audio & Video> Special Speed News  
   
 





 
Exploring the Finger Lakes and Lake Champlain
[ 2009-01-06 11:13 ]

 

Download

Champlain borders the states of New York and Vermont as well as Quebec, Canada. The Finger Lakes are in central New York.

VOICE ONE:

Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I’m Barbara Klein.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Steve Ember. This week on our program, we tell you about Lake Champlain and the Finger Lakes in the northeastern United States.

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

Lake Champlain borders two states, New York and Vermont, and Quebec, Canada. Many people like to vacation at this freshwater lake. They enjoy sailing and fishing, water skiing, swimming, or just sitting at the water’s edge, daydreaming. The waters can look so still and blue, like a painting, though they can also become rough with waves when the wind blows.

VOICE TWO:

Much of the area around Lake Champlain has a country feeling. Nearby are woods where people can hike. In the fall, visitors can watch the sugar maple trees surrender their colorful autumn leaves.

Many animals and birds live around Lake Champlain. Road signs warn drivers to watch out for moose, big animals that can walk into the road.

Visitors at the lake also keep their eyes open for "Champ." Champ is like an American Nessie, the sea monster that supposedly lives in Loch Ness in Scotland.

VOICE ONE:

Over the years there have been reports of some thing in Lake Champlain. A 1977 photograph only fed the mystery. In the distance it shows what appears to be a large creature in the water. Champ can also be found helping the local economy by appearing on souvenirs like T-shirts and coffee cups.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Lake Champlain is a long, narrow body of water. The lake is 193 kilometers long and 19 kilometers at its widest. It reaches a depth of 122 meters.

The lake flows north from Whitehall, New York. Over the Canadian border it makes its way into the Richelieu River in Quebec. The Richelieu joins the Saint Lawrence River which feeds into the Atlantic Ocean at the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.

Lake Champlain lies in a valley between the Green Mountains of Vermont and the Adirondack Mountains of New York.

A number of communities are near Lake Champlain. The largest is Burlington, a city of 38,000 people in Vermont.

VOICE ONE:

Lake Champlain has more than 70 islands. One island in Vermont, Isle La Motte, is known for its prehistoric geological formations. The Chazy Reef on the island contains coral, like a reef in a warm, tropical ocean.

Scientists say this is because when the Chazy Reef began to form hundreds of millions of years ago, it was in the southern half of the world. Then the plates that form the surface of the Earth began to move around and gave the reef a new home.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Lake Champlain is named for the French explorer Samuel de Champlain who first saw it in 1609.

In the 1700s, the Champlain Valley became a battleground in the French and Indian War, also known as the Seven Years' War. French troops in Canada built a fort to control passage to the lake as a defense against British troops moving north. The French named it Fort Carillon. But in 1759, the British took control of the fort and renamed it Ticonderoga.

Troops from the English colonies that would become the United States supported the British army in the war. But later, during the American Revolution, colonial troops fought against the British at Fort Ticonderoga.

And later still, during the War of 1812, the Americans defeated the British in the Battle of Lake Champlain. The defeat not only ended British demands for territory in New England. It also put an end to British hopes of controlling the Great Lakes area.

VOICE ONE:

The Great Lakes are Michigan, Erie, Huron, Superior and Ontario. Champlain is smaller than any of them. But in March of 1998, it joined the list -- Congress declared Champlain the 6th Great Lake.

This was because of efforts by Patrick Leahy, a senator who has represented Vermont for more than 30 years. Senator Leahy was trying to get research money for Lake Champlain from the National Sea Grant Program. This program operates under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The program pays for water research at universities that border either the oceans or the Great Lakes. So Senator Leahy got the words "Great Lakes including Lake Champlain" into the bill.

Many people in Midwestern states that border the Great Lakes were not at all happy. John Glenn, the former astronaut who was then a senator from Ohio, put it this way: "I know the Great Lakes. I’ve traveled the Great Lakes. And Lake Champlain is not one of the Great Lakes."

VOICE TWO:

Still, there are similarities. Lake Champlain has wildlife and rock formations that are similar to or even the same as the Great Lakes. All 6 were formed from the same huge piece of ice. And all 6 flow into the Saint Lawrence River in Canada.

Lake Champlain also has the same kinds of environmental problems, including pollution and nonnative sea life, as the Great Lakes.

VOICE ONE:

For people in the Champlain area, having it declared a Great Lake was great news. They saw it as a chance to get more help for the lake’s problems, and more national attention for the area.

But the measure that declared Lake Champlain a Great Lake lasted less than 3 weeks. The angry reaction from the Midwestern states succeeded in killing it. Vermont, however, still won the right for its researchers to ask for money under the National Sea Grant Program.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

In central New York state, there are 5 lakes that look like fingers on a map. Their names come from American Indian culture: Seneca, Cayuga, Keuka, Canandaigua and Skaneateles.

These are the five major Finger Lakes. Cayuga Lake is the longest among them. But Seneca Lake is the biggest and the deepest, at almost 200 meters.

Compare that to the 9 meter depth of Honeoye Lake. Honeoye is among what are considered the 6 minor Finger Lakes in central and western New York. The others are Owasco, Otisco, Canadice, Hemlock and Conesus.

VOICE ONE:

Most of the 11 lakes contain cold water fisheries like trout as well as bass and other warm water fishing.

The Finger Lakes area is home to industries and large cities like Syracuse and Rochester. But there are still many farms. And the area has a large number of grape vineyards and wine producers.

VOICE TWO:

Several colleges and universities are in the Finger Lakes area. They include Ithaca College, Colgate University and Cornell University.

Cornell honors Cayuga Lake in its school song, which begins: "Far above Cayuga’s waters / With its waves of blue / Stands our noble alma mater / Glorious to view.”

(MUSIC)

VOICE ONE:

The first people to view the beauty of the Finger Lakes were the Indians. The Iroquois believed that the Great Spirit formed the lakes. The Great Spirit was closely linked with nature.

VOICE TWO:

Science tells us that a large body of ice moved across the land. The last glacier covered large areas of what is now the northeastern United States about 2000 years ago. The glacier moved south and then north again.

In doing so, it moved through many river valleys. It made the valleys deeper and wider than they were before. Then the ice started melting and moved north again. The glacier left huge amounts of soil and rocks in what scientists call the Valley Heads Moraine. A moraine is a landform created by all the material carried and left by a glacier.

VOICE ONE:

The Valley Heads Moraine prevented old rivers from flowing south, as they had before. This left the valleys filled with water. And this is how scientists say the Finger Lakes came to be.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Our program was written by Jerilyn Watson and produced by Caty Weaver. I’m Steve Ember.

VOICE ONE:

And I’m Barbara Klein. Transcripts and MP3s of our programs can be downloaded at voaspecialenglish.com. Join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English.

 

(Source: VOA 英语点津编辑)

 

 
英语点津版权说明:凡注明来源为“英语点津:XXX(署名)”的原创作品,除与中国日报网签署英语点津内容授权协议的网站外,其他任何网站或单位未经允许不得非法盗链、转载和使用,违者必究。如需使用,请与010-84883631联系;凡本网注明“来源:XXX(非英语点津)”的作品,均转载自其它媒体,目的在于传播更多信息,其他媒体如需转载,请与稿件来源方联系,如产生任何问题与本网无关;本网所发布的歌曲、电影片段,版权归原作者所有,仅供学习与研究,如果侵权,请提供版权证明,以便尽快删除。
相关文章 Related Story
 
 
 
本频道最新推荐
 
Walking in the US first lady's shoes
“准确无误”如何表达
英国新晋超女苏珊大妈改头换面
猪流感 swine flu
你有lottery mentality吗
翻吧推荐
 
论坛热贴
 
别乱扔垃圾。怎么译这个乱字呀?
橘子,橙子用英文怎么区分?
看Gossip Girl学英语
端午节怎么翻译?
母亲,您在天堂还好吗?