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Thousands of reindeer plod across the frozen far reaches of northwestern Canada.
数千只驯鹿艰难跋涉，穿越加拿大西北部冰封的偏远之地。
In the slow-moving scrum, the animals' bodies almost disappear under a cloud of vapor as warm breath collides with cold air.
鹿群比肩接踵缓慢行进，随着温暖的吐息与寒冷的空气碰撞，它们的身躯几乎隐没在阵阵雾气之下。
A forest of antlers seems to dance in the mist.
鹿角筑成的森林似乎在雾中起舞。
Glimpsed from afar, the migrating herd looks like one long, sinuous streak of brown painted across the snow-white canvas of an Arctic landscape.
远远望去，迁徙中的鹿群如同一道绵长且蜿蜒的棕色条纹，涂抹在如画布般的北极雪白大地上。
In the distance are four Inuvialuit herders on snowmobiles, armed with rifles and keeping watch.
远处有四名伊努维亚卢特牧民，他们驾驶雪地摩托车、携带步枪并时刻监督着。
They are alert, attuned to the rhythm of hooves falling on frozen earth, and on this crisp morning their job is to escort the reindeer to their calving grounds -- but in a grander sense, they are also helping to write a new legacy for this storied herd.
他们十分警觉，能够敏感辨别出鹿蹄落在冰封大地上的节奏，而在这个寒冷的早晨，他们的工作是将驯鹿护送到产犊地--但从更宏观的意义上来说，他们也正在帮助这个拥有精彩历史的驯鹿群书写新的传承。
"They're really smart animals," said Douglas Esagok, whose seven winters working with the reindeer make him among the most experienced of the Indigenous herders.
道格拉斯·埃萨高克说：“它们是非常聪明的动物。”他已经与驯鹿相处七个冬季，这使他成为经验最丰富的原住民牧民之一。
"I'm always talking to them when I'm moving them. It kind of calms them down, when they recognize my voice or the sound of my snow machine."
“我驱使它们前进的时候，总会跟它们讲话。它们认得出我的嗓音或我的雪地摩托车发出的声音，这多多少少有助于它们平静下来。”
As Canada's last free-ranging reindeer herd drives forward, just north of the Arctic Circle, the animals carry with them a link to a legendary experiment.
加拿大最后一群自由放养的驯鹿正在北极圈内前进，它们与一项传奇实验息息相关。
It began about a hundred years ago, after the number of local caribou that the Inuvialuit long depended on began to decline and a bold plan was hatched to address food scarcity by importing reindeer. (Caribou and reindeer are the same species, but the latter have been domesticated.)
这项实验始于大约100年前，当时伊努维亚卢特人长久以来赖以维生的当地北美驯鹿数量开始减少，为了解决粮食短缺的问题，政府制定一项大胆的计划：引进驯鹿。（北美驯鹿和驯鹿是同一物种，但后者已经驯化。）
Something similar had been tried at the turn of the century in nearby Alaska, when waves of reindeer boarded boats and trains to make improbable journeys from Siberia and Norway to North America.
邻近的阿拉斯加曾在19、20世纪之交尝试过类似举措，那时一批又一批驯鹿登上船只及火车，从西伯利亚和挪威运送到北美洲，踏上不可思的旅程。
In late 1929, a chunk of what was then a burgeoning Alaska reindeer population -- some 3,500 reindeer -- set off for Canada under the care of Sami and Inuit herders.
1929年底，在萨米及因纽特牧民的照料下，大约3500只驯鹿前往加拿大，他们属于一个当时数量迅速增长的阿拉斯加驯鹿族群。
The arduous, zigzagging 1,500-mile journey ended up lasting more than five years, marking a difficult beginning to what came to be known as the Canadian Reindeer Project.
这趟艰巨且迂回的旅程长达2400公里，最后持续五年多才告终，这项后来称为“加拿大驯鹿计划”的行动就在此艰难的开端下展开。
Now, decades on, a group of Inuvialuit stakeholders is taking the project further into uncharted territory.
而数十年后的今天，一群伊努维亚卢特人正在将这项攸关他们福祉的计划进一步推动到未知的疆域。
The herd, which has been cared for with the help of the Inuvialuit but family owned, was formally purchased in 2021 by the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation.
这群驯鹿原本是由某个家族拥有，但一直在伊努维亚卢特人的帮助下进行照料，2021年由伊努维亚卢特地区公司正式收购。
Under the watchful eyes of Esagok and his colleagues, the herd has more than doubled, to nearly 6,000 reindeer, making possible an ambitious plan to build a sustainable path to self-reliance for Inuvialuit people living on their ancestral lands.
在埃萨高克和同事的密切关注之下，这群驯鹿的数量已经增加了一倍多，达到将近6000只，使一项雄心勃勃的计划有望实现，这项计划希望为生活在祖传土地上的伊努维亚卢特人打造一条自给自足的永续道路。
"The ultimate goal is to have reindeer abundantly available for Inuvialuit -- that's goal number one," said Brian Wade, director of the Inuvialuit Community Economic Development Organization.
“终极目标是为伊努维亚卢特人提供数量充足的驯鹿--那是首要目标。”伊努维亚卢特社区经济发展组织的主任布莱恩·章德说。
"There's the food security component to this herd, but there's also job creation and the economic component to it."
“这群驯鹿不但能保障粮食生产充足，也能创造就业机会并促进经济。”
