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VOICE ONE:
Welcome to THIS IS AMERICA in VOA Special English. I’m Faith Lapidus.
VOICE TWO:
And I'm Steve Ember. Today we travel to the mountains of Wyoming for a trip
to Jackson Hole.
VOICE ONE:
This beautiful valley was named after the 19th century explorer and hunter
David Jackson. After he spent a winter in the area, his friends started to call
it “Jackson’s Hole.
VOICE TWO:
The valley looks like a hole in the middle of the mountains that surround it.
Over time, the name stuck.
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VOICE ONE:
Jackson Hole is about forty-eight kilometers
long. The valley includes the town of Jackson. About eight thousand people live
there. The valley also includes the Grand Teton National Park and much of the
Bridger-Teton National Forest.
Jackson Hole is a popular holiday place. In the summer, people go there to
ride horses, climb mountains, catch fish and take trips on the rivers and lakes.
Many visitors take a trip across the valley on the Snake River. The Snake
Indians once lived near this river. It turns from side to side, like a snake on
the move.
Some visitors bird-watch from sailboats. One of the birds they can see is
America’s national symbol, the bald eagle . Other
people go white-water rafting. Rubber rafts carry them along the fastest parts
of the river. The water moves so fast, it becomes white with foam.
VOICE TWO:
In the winter, people come to Jackson Hole to ski. Jackson Hole Mountain
Resort provides some of the best downhill skiing and
snowboarding in the world.
And there are other kinds of skiing. Some people skate ski; they speed across
level snow. Others enjoy the slower speed of cross-country skiing.
Some people go dog sledding in Jackson Hole. They
get on a sled and are pulled by a team of dogs through the snow. This is one of
the many ways to enjoy the extraordinary mountain views.
Some wealthy people have homes near the ski resort. Other people stay in the
many hotels nearby. Some of these hotels are new and very costly.
In fact, the average sale price of a single-family home in Jackson Hole is
more than one million dollars.
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VOICE ONE:
Visitors to Jackson Hole have many shopping, dining and entertainment
choices.
People can imagine they are in a town in the Old West. At the Million Dollar
Cowboy Bar, instead of chairs, they can sit on saddles as if riding a horse. On
some nights there are dance lessons. People can learn the two-step, a kind of
Western dance.
Or they can eat dinner and listen to live music at the Mangy Moose Saloon.
There, a large dead moose hangs from the ceiling.
At the Silver Dollar Bar, a long table is covered with more than two
thousand shiny silver dollars. If you look carefully, you see that the coins are all
from the year 1921.
Visitors can also enjoy an evening at the Jackson Hole Playhouse. In
the summer, actors perform musicals and other plays. This brightly painted
old theater is one of the oldest wood buildings in town. It has been a
popular entertainment place since the 1950s.
VOICE TWO:
Some of the stores in Jackson Hole sell unusual things, like furniture made
of deer antlers. Antlers are the hard and bony points that grow on the heads of
male deer. These stores sell chairs, lights and other objects made from antlers.
They look more like pointy sculptures than furniture.
Many stores in Jackson Hole sell winter sports equipment and clothing. Some
sell cowboy clothing. C.J. James owns the Jackson Hole Hat Company. Her Web site
describes the cowboy as a "symbol of American independence and strength."
She will sell you a cowboy hat made to fit the exact size of your head. There
are many shapes, colors and materials to choose from.
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VOICE ONE:
Some of the ways of the Old West cowboy are kept alive in
Jackson Hole. In the summer, visitors can go to a rodeo
to see competitions based on traditional
cowboy skills. Some people say it is the truest of American sports.
The rodeo usually begins with a parade of
cowboys and their horses. Then comes the competition. In one event, riders try
to stay on a wild animal for eight seconds. They ride wild horses and large
bulls. The animals try to throw the cowboys to the ground. The cowboys try not
to fall off.
VOICE TWO:
In another event, the cowboy throws a rope around the neck of a young cow.
Then he tries to tie the rope around three of its legs. The cowboy who does this
in the shortest amount of time wins.
Visitors to Jackson Hole can experience different parts of cowboy life.
They can ride horses. They can eat meals cooked outdoors over a fire. In the
summer, they can watch actors dressed as cowboys perform "The Shootout"; This
short Western play has been performed since the 1950s.
VOICE ONE:
Arts and culture are important in Jackson Hole. Each summer, musicians from
around the country perform classical music at the Grand Teton Music Festival.
Musical guests also visit local schools while they are in town.
Each autumn, Jackson holds the Fall Arts Festival. This event celebrates many
examples of visual and performing arts. It also provides many examples of fine
local foods.
VOICE TWO:
Visitors to Jackson Hole can explore the National Museum of Wildlife. When
this museum opened, it was located in the center of town. But soon the museum
space was not large enough to hold the art collection.
In 1994 the museum reopened in a new building made of stone.
It looks like a fortress built centuries ago. The museum contains over two
thousand artworks showing nature and animals.
There are many paintings, photographs and sculptures of antelope, deer,
birds, horses and other animals. The museum says its art celebrates the powerful
connection between animals and humans.
VOICE ONE:
This art shows the natural beauty of the land and its creatures. To see this
beauty in real life, all you have to do is walk outside the museum.
The building sits on a hillside overlooking the National Elk Refuge. The
refuge contains the largest wintering population of elk in the world. It had an
estimated seven thousand elk this season.
The refuge has ten thousand hectares of land. It was started
in 1912 to help protect the local elk population.
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VOICE TWO:
Six kilometers north
of Jackson, Wyoming, is the Grand Teton National Park. Congress created this
park in 1929. In the 1940s the wealthy John D. Rockefeller bought a
great amount of land nearby. Then he gave it to the federal government.
Both Rockefeller and the government added to the park later. Today,
the government controls about 97 percent of all the land in the Jackson
Hole area.
VOICE ONE:
The park is named for the Grand Teton Mountains. These mountains rise
directly from the floor of the valley. They are part of the Rocky Mountains. The
Grand Tetons are about four thousand meters high and sixty-five kilometers long.
Many artists have captured images of these beautiful mountains.
The Native Americans who lived in the area many years ago called the
mountains Teewinot, meaning "many pinnacles."
Fur trappers from Canada had their own idea of what the three largest
mountains looked like. These French-speaking hunters named them “l(fā)es Trois
Tetons-- "the Three Breasts."
VOICE TWO:
The Grand Teton Mountains were formed about ten million years ago. This makes
them some of the youngest mountains in North America. The Appalachian Mountains
in the eastern United States, for example, are about two hundred million years
old.
Many of the lakes around the Grand Tetons were formed
millions of years ago by slow-moving sheets of ice. Some small glaciers
are still active in the
mountains.
VOICE ONE:
People come to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, from around the world to enjoy the best
of cowboy and mountain culture. If you ever go, just don’t forget your cowboy
hat.
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VOICE TWO:
Our program was written by Dana Demange and produced by Caty Weaver. I’m
Faith Lapidus.
VOICE TWO:
And I’m Steve Ember. Read and listen to our programs at
voaspecialenglish.com. And join us again next week for THIS IS AMERICA in VOA
Special English.
bald
eagle : 禿頭鷹
downhill : of,
relating to, or constituting skiing down a slope（下降滑雪的）
dog
sledding :
狗雪橇
rodeo : a public competition or
exhibition in which skills such as riding broncos or roping calves are
displayed（放牧人競(jìng)技會(huì)；一種展示騎馬或套牛等技巧的公開(kāi)競(jìng)持或表演）
glacier :
冰河
