前面贴的2篇文章比较简单,下面的文章是我们化了2天看完的,都是六年级课本里的,黄色单词是我问儿子的,兰色单词是儿子不知道的.
P222 The Great Serum Race
Blazing
the Iditarod Trail by Debbie S. Miller
Comprehension
Genre
Nonfiction
is a detailed account of
real people or situations using verifiable facts.
Summarize
Sequence
As
you read, use your Sequence Chart.
Read
to Find Out
What
role did the sled dogs play in the sequence of events?
In March every year, dog sled teams and drivers
from all over the world compete in the Iditarod
Trail Sled Dog Race.
This race, over a thousand miles from Anchorage to Nome, Alaska, commemorates
the famous serum run of 1925. It is the longest sled dog race in the world. In
this selection, you will read about how it all began.
On
a dusky January afternoon in 1925, Dr. Welch walked quickly toward the outskirts of
Nome. Sled dogs howled from their yards. Outside a small cabin, a worried Inupiat
Eskimo mother greeted the doctor. She led him into her home where two small children
lay in bed, struggling to breathe.
“Can
you open your mouth?” Dr. Welch asked the three-year-old boy.
The
weak child tried to open his mouth, but it was too painful for his swollen throat.
His fever was extremely high. Dr. Welch comforted the mother and children, but
there was little he could do. The next day, both children died. Soon after, another
girl, Bessie Stanley, was miserable with the same symptoms. But this time, Dr.
Welch could examine Bessie’s throat. He immediately recognized the symptoms of
diphtheria. Poor Bessie would not live through the night.
Diphtheria.
Dr. Welch had not seen a case in twenty years. This fast-spreading disease could
wipe out the entire community of more
than 1,400 people. Dr. Welch immediately met with the city council and recommended
a quarantine. The schools and other public places were
closed. Community leaders told people to stay in their homes.
There
was only one way to fight diphtheria. The town needed a supply of antitoxin
serum. Dr. Welch sent out a desperate
plea for help by radio telegraph. The
message soon reached Governor Bone in Juneau and other important officials. Newspapers
across the nation picked up word that the historic gold rush town needed emergency
help.
The
nearest supply of serum was at a hospital in Anchorage, 1,000 miles away, across
a snowbound wilderness. Officials considered flying the serum to Nome, but it was
too dangerous to operate open cockpit planes
in extreme cold temperatures. In those days, planes were used only during the summer.
Nome was an icebound port, so boats were not an option. The serum could travel
partway by train, and then the only safe means of transport was by sled dog team.
On
January 26, an Anchorage doctor carefully packed the glass bottles of serum for
the long journey. The bottles had to be protected to keep the serum from freezing.
He gave the twenty-pound bundle to the conductor at the train station.
Sequence
What
event started the great serum race? When did it take place?
Soon,
steam engine 66 began to chug its way north to Nenana, the closest railroad link
to Nome. Nenana lay nearly 300 miles away, beyond the tallest mountains of North
America.
On
the frozen Tanana River, five-year-old Alfred John could hear the distant roar
of the steam engine. His Athabaskan Indian family lived in a cabin near the train
station in Nenana. Although it was late at night and nearly fifty degrees below
zero, Alfred and his mother bundled up in their warmest caribou legskin boots and
fur-lined parkas and walked to the station to greet the train.
As
they waited by the tracks in the moonlight, Alfred watched the huge locomotive
hiss steam into the frozen sky and slow to a screeching
halt. He saw men unload the freight,
and the conductor hand the serum package to Bill Shannon. Bill was the first of
twenty mushers to carry the serum in a dog team relay to Nome. These brave men
and their best dogs would travel nearly 700 miles on a snow-packed mail trail.
Bill
covered the serum with a bear hide and lashed it to the sled. His strongest team
of nine malamutes barked and were anxious to move. Just before midnight
on January 27, Bill waved good-bye to Alfred and shouted to his dogs. Swoosh! Into
the winter night, the dog team sped toward Tolovana, the first relay stop some
fifty-two miles away.
Bill
knew every turn of the trail. Like many of the mushers, his regular job was to
transport mail and freight with his dog team. Traveling long distances in the extreme
cold was a dangerous challenge. If the dogs ran too fast and breathed too deeply,
they could frost their lungs. When the team reached bitter-cold stretches along
the river, Bill slowed his dogs to protect them. He often ran behind the sled to
keep himself warm.
Hundreds
of miles away, Togo leaned into his harness and waited patiently for Leonhard Seppala
to position Scotty and the other huskies. Togo, now twelve years old, was a proven
leader for one of the strongest dog teams in the world. Leonhard, dressed in his
warmest squirrel parka, sealskin pants, and reindeer mukluks, had carefully chosen
twenty of his best dogs. Officials had asked the famed Norwegian musher to intercept the serum at Nulato, a village located
halfway between Nome and Nenana.
Jingle,
jangle—the bells on Leonhard’s
sled rang as the team rounded the corner. There were so many dog teams in Nome
that mushers were required to carry bells to warn pedestrians. Togo led the team down Front Street while
friends wished them good luck.
In
Tolovana, Edgar Kalland, the twenty-year-old Athabaskan Indian mail driver, ate
breakfast and waited anxiously for Bill Shannon. The Tolovana Roadhouse was a favorite
rest stop for Edgar. Outside the roadhouse, Edgar’s dogs pricked
up their ears, and some began to howl. Bill’s team drew
closer.
The
team looked exhausted when their frosted faces came into view. Two of the dogs
would later die from frozen lungs. Following the doctor’s instructions, Bill carefully
removed the serum. He hurried into the roadhouse to warm the container and prevent
the serum from freezing. As the two men talked about the weather, Edgar put on
three pairs of socks and his boots.
Once
the serum warmed, Edgar took off for Manley Hot Springs with his team of seven
dogs. The thirty-one-mile trip to the next relay point was brutally
cold. Temperatures fell to fifty-six degrees below zero. At one point the dogs
had to wade through slushy
overflow, a place where the river seeped
through a crack in the ice. When the team reached Manley Hot Springs, the dogs
could barely lift their ice-crusted legs.
Edgar’s mitts were frozen stiff to the
sled handle. A roadhouse worker poured a kettle
of hot water over the mitts to melt the ice and free Edgar’s hands.
The
relay continued from musher to musher, roadhouse to roadhouse, with teams pushing
west through the biting cold. At each relay point, the mushers warmed the serum
over woodfired stoves. Following the winding rivers, the teams covered an average
of thirty miles each, at a speed of six or seven miles per hour. The mushers traveled
around the clock, usually by moonlight or twilight. In the middle of Alaska’s winter,
only a few hours of sunshine fell on the teams each day.
When
the twelfth dog team headed for the village of Nulato, waves of northern lights
flowed across the sky. Musher Charlie Evans faced the coldest temperatures at sixty-four
degrees below zero. He wrapped the serum in a rabbit skin robe for extra protection.
Charlie’s nine-dog team moved slowly. Near open stretches of water on the Yukon
River, a layer of eerie ice fog blanketed
the valley. The ice fog, a mist of ice particles,
was so dense that Charlie could barely see his wheel dogs, the ones closest to
the sled. The experienced dogs followed the trail by scent rather than sight.
Nearing
Nulato, two of the dogs moved stiffly and dragged their paws. The skin was beginning
to freeze. Charlie stopped the team and gently loaded the poor dogs into the sled.
In their struggle to save the lives of Nome’s residents, these two dogs would fall
victim to the deadly weather.
When
the team reached the halfway point, conditions in Nome had grown worse. Five people
had died from the disease, and more than twenty cases had been diagnosed.
Another thirty people were suspected of having diphtheria. Newspapers across the
country reported Nome’s plight and
the progress of the
serum
run.
The
relay teams pressed onward. Togo and team worked their way east to intercept the
serum. When Leonhard passed villages, he told residents about the epidemic and
advised them to stay away from Nome. As the team approached the village of Shaktoolik,
Togo picked up the scent of another dog team and sprinted
forward. Leonhard could see a musher in the distance trying to untangle his string
of dogs.
“On
by!” Leonhard shouted to Togo.
Togo
followed the familiar directions and steered
the team away from the confusion.
“Serum—turn
back!” shouted Henry Ivanoff, one of the relay mushers.
In
the howling wind Leonhard barely heard the words. Luckily, he looked over his shoulder
to see the musher waving frantically
at him. Leonhard was surprised to see the relay team. After he set out for Nulato,
twenty more mushers were chosen to travel short relays to speed up the serum run.
Out in the wilderness, Leonhard had no idea that his rendezvous point
was now 130 miles closer.
“Gee!”
Leonhard yelled to Togo.
Togo
gradually turned right and the swing dogs helped pull the sled toward the waiting
team. The two men greeted each other briefly, shouting in the gale. Within minutes
Leonhard had secured the serum package to his sled and instructed Togo to head
home.
Togo
and his teammate had traveled more than forty miles that day with the wind at their
backs. Now the fierce gale blew in their faces with thirty below zero temperatures.
Blowing snow plastered the team as they
approached Norton Bay. Leonhard considered the risks. If they crossed the frozen
bay, the sea ice might break up in the powerful gale. They could be stranded
from shore on drifting ice. If they skirted
the bay on land, the trip would take much longer. Leonhard thought of the children
in Nome who were suffering from the disease. He decided to take the shorter route
and cross the treacherous sea ice.
Leonhard
believed that Togo could lead the team across twenty miles of frozen sea. As they
pressed into the wind the dogs hit slick
stretches of glare ice. They slipped, fell, and struggled to move forward. But
mile after mile, Togo kept his course through the wall of wind. At day’s end, Togo
picked up the scent of food that drifted from
the Inupiat sod house at Isaac’s Point.
After traveling eighty-four miles, they rested for the night. The dogs devoured
their rations of salmon and seal blubber.
The
following morning, Leonhard discovered that the previous day’s trail had vanished. The ice had broken up and drifted
out to sea. Worried about the unstable conditions, Leonhard decided to hug the
shoreline for safety.
Togo
led the way toward Dexter’s Roadhouse in Golovin, about fifty miles away. Along
the coast, the wind’s force became unbearable. Blowing snow blasted
the dogs’ faces like buckshot. Some of the dogs began to stiffen up. Leonhard stopped
the sled and gently massaged the freezing muscles of Togo, Scotty, and the others.
When they finally reached Golovin, the dogs collapsed
and buried their ice-coated faces beneath their tails. Togo and team had traveled
farther than any other relay team.
Now
it was another dog’s turn to lead a fresh team of seventeen malamutes to Bluff,
the final relay point. With a shout from musher Charlie Olson, lead dog Jack charged off into the blowing snow. After struggling
through four hours of whiteout conditions, the experienced leader faintly heard
a dog barking through the gale. It was Balto.
At
Bluff, Balto and Fox waited for Gunnar Kaasen to adjust the leather harnesses and
secure the serum package. Then the pair of leaders heard their musher’s shout through
the raging wind. Balto and Fox led the
strong team of thirteen huskies into the swirling snow. Mile after mile, they trotted steadily toward Nome. During the final
leg of the run, the wind assaulted them.
A violent gust flipped the sled over,
and the dogs went flying.
Sequence
What
happened after Gunnar Kaasen received the serum?
Gunnar
struggled to his feet against the might of the wind. After he fought to untangle
the dogs, he checked the sled to make sure the serum was securely fastened.
Gunnar felt the bottom of the sled in disbelief. The serum package was gone!
In
the dark, he crawled around the sled. Since he couldn’t see his surroundings, he
took off his mitts and felt through the snow with his bare hands. After more than
600 hard-won miles and twenty teams risking their lives, could it be that the serum
was lost forever?
Panicked,
Gunnar ran his numb hands across the
windswept bumps of snow. All he could
do was hope. Suddenly, he felt something hard. It was the serum! His frostbitten
fingers struggled to tie the package onto the sled. Then the windbattered team
ran off.
They
struggled on through the night. With less than twenty miles remaining, two of the
dogs ran stiffly and appeared to be freezing. Gunnar anchored the sled and put
rabbit-skin covers on the dogs to protect their undersides from frostbite.
Through
the darkness, Balto and Fox smelled familiar scents. At last the exhausted team
reached Nome. They drove into town as most people slept through the blizzard. When
Gunnar knocked on the door, Dr. Welch greeted him with a stunned
face. How could a musher and team have fought their way through
such
a storm?
With
stiff hands, Gunnar gave the shocked but thankful doctor the life-saving serum.
Twenty
brave mushers and more than 160 strong dogs traveled hundreds of miles in the worst
conditions. The incredible relay took less than six days. Four dogs perished
and several others grew lame because
of the lethal weather. Yet their
struggle
saved many lives in Nome.
One
month after the epidemic first began, the quarantine
was lifted. The schools reopened and children hugged their old friends. The whole
town celebrated by holding a dance and watching a movie at the theater. Togo, Scotty,
Balto, Fox, Jack, and all the other dogs were true heroes.
On
The Trail With Debbie and Jon
Debbie
S. Miller can
look out her window and see a moose, a fox, and piles of snow. She lives in Alaska
and used to teach school in an arctic village in the Brooks Mountain Range, near
the Arctic Circle. Ideas for her books are all around her—the ice and snow, the
polar bears, and, of course, those amazing husky dogs.
Jon
Van Zyle and
his wife live with twenty husky dogs and a black cat named Dickens near Eagle River,
Alaska. Jon is the official artist for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. He has
even competed twice in the race himself—all 1,049 miles of it!
Author’s
Purpose
Debbie
Miller is informing the reader about the origins of the Iditarod. The text is full
of verifiable facts such as dates and distances. What are some examples?
Comprehension
Check
Summarize
Use
your Sequence Chart to help you summarize The
Great Serum Race.
What were the series of events that led to the serum getting safely to Nome?
Think
and Compare
1.
When the serum
traveled to Nome during the epidemic, what was the sequence in
which the mushers handed off the serum? Summarize:
Sequence
2.
In your opinion,
who made the biggest contribution to the successful delivery of the serum to the
people of Nome? Use specific examples from the text to support your answer. Synthesize
3.
Think about a
time when you had to work with a team of people to get something important done.
How was working as a team important to achieving your goal? Analyze
4.
The mushers and
dog sled teams involved in the serum race are heroes. What do you think makes a
hero? Compare the heroes in The
Great Serum Race to
other heroes you know or have read about. What do they have in common? Evaluate
5.
Read “The Last
Great Race on Earth” on pages 220–221. Why is it important that the Iditarod feature
the checkpoints and medical assistance described in this selection? Use specific
evidence from The
Great Serum Race to
support your answer. Reading/Writing
Across Texts
亲子
