The Frenchman Who Followed McCandless Into Alaska
On the morning of May 26, 2014, two Alaskan state biologists were in a Cessna floatplane, counting fish from the window as a pilot took them down the Alaska Peninsula, a huge, curved harpoon of land that juts toward Russia from the southeast.
2014 年 5 月 26 日上午，两名阿拉斯加州立生物学家乘坐一架塞斯纳水上飞机，从窗户数鱼，飞行员将它们带到阿拉斯加半岛，这是一片巨大的弯曲鱼叉状土地，从东南方向伸向俄罗斯。
Just then they were in an area fronting Kamishak Bay, on the coast north of Katmai National Park .
就在那时，他们来到了卡米沙克湾前面的一个区域，位于卡特迈国家公园北部的海岸上。
Seen from above, the peninsula’s landscape looks like a runny soufflé, a cracked and wrinkled pillow of mossy tundra perforated with hundreds of inkblot lakes.
从上面看，半岛的景观就像一个流淌的蛋奶酥，一个长满青苔的苔原，布满了裂纹和皱纹的枕头，上面有数百个墨迹湖。
In the distance, the biologists could see glaciers twisting off the flanks of Mount Douglas, the 7,021-foot volcano that stands sentry over one of Alaska’s diciest water passages: the maritime pinball machine known as the Shelikof Strait.
在远处，生物学家可以看到道格拉斯山侧翼的冰川扭曲，这座 7,021 英尺高的火山矗立在阿拉斯加最危险的水道之一：被称为谢利科夫海峡的海上弹球机器。
No roads lead in or out of where they were, and reaching the nearest village requires several days of bushwhacking through grizzly-infested alder thickets.
没有道路通向他们所在的地方，到达最近的村庄需要几天的时间，穿过灰熊出没的桤木灌木丛。
Suddenly, one of the men spotted the white cork floats of a fishing net.
突然，其中一名男子发现了渔网的白色软木浮子。
“Whoa!
“哇！
That’s a gill net,” Glenn Hollowell shouted to his partner, Ted Otis, over the hum of the propeller.
那是刺网，”格伦·霍洛威尔在螺旋桨的嗡嗡声中向他的搭档泰德·奥蒂斯喊道。
The net was stretched across the mouth of Amakdedori Creek, blocking it entirely.
这张网横跨阿马克德多里河口，将其完全封锁。
They stared in disbelief at such a blatant violation of fisheries regulations, in a place where a major sockeye salmon run was only two weeks away.
他们难以置信地看着如此公然违反渔业法规的行为，而在这个距离大型红鲑鱼洄游只有两周的地方。
The sea was remarkably calm, and their pilot offered to land the plane on its pontoons.
大海出奇地平静，飞行员提出让飞机降落在浮桥上。
When the biologists hopped out onto the beach, they were greeted by a man with a disarming smile and a thick French accent.
当生物学家们跳到海滩上时，迎接他们的是一名带着令人放松的微笑和浓重法国口音的男子。
“I am François!” he said, holding out his hand.
“我是弗朗索瓦！”他伸出手说道。
François was a spare, muscular guy in his mid-thirties with a sunburned nose, a scraggly beard, and a bandana wrapped around his mostly bald head.
弗朗索瓦是个三十多岁的瘦小伙子，肌肉发达，鼻子被晒伤，胡须蓬乱，头上缠着头巾，几乎秃了。
His clothes were unwashed and tattered, and he reeked of wood smoke and body odor.
他的衣服没有洗，破破烂烂，浑身散发着木烟和体味。
He looked like a feral orphan, a postpubescent Little Prince who’d spent too many years stranded in the Sahara.
他看起来就像一个野性的孤儿，一个在撒哈拉沙漠滞留多年的青春期后的小王子。
A selfie taken by François during a 2012 pack-rafting trip.
弗朗索瓦在 2012 年一次背包漂流之旅中拍摄的自拍照。
( Photo: Courtesy of the Guenot family)
（照片：盖诺家族提供）
As François led the men to the net, he told them he’d just set it out and had caught only a single starry flounder.
当弗朗索瓦带领大家到网前时，他告诉他们，他刚刚放网，只捕获了一条星状比目鱼。
“I don’t think he understood it was illegal,” says Otis, who’s been working in the region since the late 1980s.
“我认为他不明白这是违法的，”自 20 世纪 80 年代末以来一直在该地区工作的奥蒂斯说。
Otis told François that he was obligated to confiscate the net and describe what he’d seen to state wildlife troopers.
奥蒂斯告诉弗朗索瓦，他有义务没收渔网并向国家野生动物保护部队描述他所看到的情况。
“Do you have any identification?” he asked.
“你有身份证明吗？”他问道。
François clammed up at this but then led the men back to a dilapidated cabin on a grassy bluff above the beach.
弗朗索瓦对此保持沉默，但随后带领他们回到海滩上方长满草的悬崖上的一间破旧小屋。
It was patched together with sun-bleached driftwood and orange, blue, and green fishing nets.
它是用经过阳光漂白的浮木和橙色、蓝色和绿色的渔网拼凑在一起的。
Otis leaned inside the creaky structure and watched François dig through his bags on the floor.
奥蒂斯靠在吱吱作响的建筑里，看着弗朗索瓦在地板上翻找他的包。
He had a surprising amount of stuff in his camp, including a cloth-covered folding kayak that had seen better days.
他的营地里有数量惊人的东西，其中包括一艘已经过时的布质折叠皮划艇。
François had scavenged for parts in a dump and mended tears with melted plastic bags and tree sap.
弗朗索瓦在垃圾场里捡起了零件，并用融化的塑料袋和树液修补了伤口。
The kayak’s open cockpit was expansive enough to fit three people, and he shielded it from sea spray using little more than thin plastic sheeting.
皮划艇的开放式驾驶舱足够宽敞，可以容纳三个人，他只用薄薄的塑料布来保护它免受海浪的影响。
The boat’s most impressively crappy feature was its rudder, which François had jury-rigged out of found materials.
这艘船最令人印象深刻的蹩脚特征是它的船舵，它是弗朗索瓦用找到的材料临时组装的。
In lieu of pedals for steering, he wrapped two lines around his feet.
他用两条绳子绕住脚，代替了转向踏板。
He had another line extending from the jib of his sail that he would trim with his body or stick between his teeth.
他还有另一根线从帆的三角帆上延伸出来，他会用身体修剪它或将其粘在牙齿之间。
“It was not the type of gear that I would go on an adventure with,” Otis says.
“这不是我会带着去冒险的装备类型，”奥蒂斯说。
François never produced a passport.
弗朗索瓦从未出示护照。
Whether he couldn’t find it or didn’t want to—it had been expired for a year by that point—is unclear.
不清楚他是找不到还是不想找到（当时它已经过期一年了）。
After 20 minutes on the ground, Otis and Hollowell were anxious to get back to the plane before the weather turned bad.
在地面飞行 20 分钟后，奥蒂斯和霍洛威尔迫切希望在天气变坏之前返回飞机。
As they left, Otis pulled out his iPhone and snapped a grainy, backlit picture of the mysterious Frenchman he’d just met.
他们离开时，奥蒂斯拿出 iPhone，为他刚刚遇到的神秘法国人拍了一张模糊的逆光照片。
François’s full name is François Guenot.
弗朗索瓦的全名是弗朗索瓦·盖诺。
We know that because his passport and belongings—including his boat—were discovered on June 19, 2014, scattered along a Katmai beach, about 20 miles south of where the biologists had met him.
我们之所以知道这一点，是因为他的护照和随身物品（包括他的船）于 2014 年 6 月 19 日被发现，散落在卡特迈海滩沿线，距离生物学家与他会面的地点以南约 20 英里。
The wood and metal skeleton of his kayak poked through the red fabric skin like a compound fracture.
他的皮划艇的木质和金属骨架像复合骨折一样刺穿了红色织物表皮。
Two drybags lay less than a quarter-mile away, filled with several weeks’ worth of rice and lentils.
不到四分之一英里处有两个干燥袋，里面装满了几周的大米和扁豆。
Days earlier a vicious storm had whipped down the coast, with winds gusting to 60 miles per hour.
几天前，一场猛烈的风暴席卷了海岸，风速达到每小时 60 英里。
Whitecaps peeled off dark swells tall enough to swallow a bus.
白浪从黑色的海浪中剥离，高度足以吞没一辆公共汽车。
The Coast Guard scoured the ocean for two days but failed to find François, alive or dead.
海岸警卫队在海上搜寻了两天，但未能找到弗朗索瓦，无论他是生是死。
Officials called off the search.
官员们取消了搜索。
I first learned about François on the website of the Alaska Dispatch News , the state’s largest newspaper.
我第一次了解到弗朗索瓦是在该州最大的报纸《阿拉斯加快报新闻》的网站上。
In a story about the search , a man named Gary Nielsen, a small-town general-store owner who'd met François, said he was “dangerously naive” and “could not get it into his mind the distances involved here.”
在一篇关于这次搜索的报道中，一位名叫加里·尼尔森（Gary Nielsen）的男子是一位小镇杂货店老板，他曾见过弗朗索瓦，他说他“天真得危险”，并且“无法理解这里所涉及的距离”。
François's greatest accomplishment was drawing out virtue in the people he met, and he in turn was rewarded by this.
弗朗索瓦最伟大的成就是在他遇到的人身上培养美德，而他也因此得到了回报。
“Alaska is a vast, emotional land,” he wrote in his journal.
“阿拉斯加是一片广阔而充满情感的土地，”他在日记中写道。
“Relationships center me.”
“人际关系是我的中心。”
The comments under this story were hard on François.
这个故事下的评论对弗朗索瓦来说很严厉。
Many Alaskans saw him as yet another rootless fool on the yahoo spectrum that stretches from Chris McCandless to grizzly man Timothy Treadwell .
许多阿拉斯加人认为他是雅虎圈子里又一个无根的傻瓜，从克里斯·麦坎德利斯到灰熊蒂莫西·特雷德韦尔。
But as I learned more about François, I began to wonder if the audacity of his wilderness exploits put him in a different category.
但随着我对弗朗索瓦的了解越来越多，我开始怀疑他在荒野中的大胆探索是否让他被归入了一个不同的类别。
I came to believe that he was more than just another unprepared lost soul.
我开始相信他不仅仅是另一个毫无准备的迷失灵魂。
He was a street performer whose venue happened to be the Alaskan backcountry.
他是一名街头表演者，表演地点恰好是阿拉斯加的偏远地区。
He was also resourceful and tough: some of the things he did, and the distances he covered, are mind-boggling.
他还足智多谋、坚韧不拔：他所做的一些事情以及他走过的距离令人难以置信。
And his journey was obviously meant to inspire people.
他的旅程显然是为了激励人们。
As he made clear in his writings and conversations, it was a rebuke against capitalist excess and gear junkies who are convinced they need to have the latest gadgets to fully appreciate the wild.
正如他在著作和谈话中明确指出的那样，这是对资本主义过度行为和装备迷的谴责，他们坚信自己需要拥有最新的设备才能充分欣赏荒野。
From reading François’s short-lived blog , studying journals and maps found in his kayak, reviewing a trail of photos and videos he left on borrowed computers, and talking to people who’d met him, I learned that he had somehow covered 3,000 miles on borrowed skis, department-store bikes, and makeshift boats.
通过阅读弗朗索瓦短暂的博客、研究在他的皮划艇上找到的日记和地图、查看他在借来的电脑上留下的照片和视频痕迹，以及与见过他的人交谈，我了解到他以某种方式利用借来的滑雪板、百货商店的自行车和临时船行驶了 3,000 英里。
After starting his travels in Quebec in 2011, his compass pointed more or less in the direction of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, but he was easily led astray.
2011年开始魁北克旅行后，他的指南针或多或少指向了俄罗斯堪察加半岛的方向，但很容易就迷失了方向。
He dipped down into America’s desert Southwest, up through California and east to Yellowstone, north to the Yukon, and southwest into Alaska.
他深入美国西南部的沙漠，向上穿过加利福尼亚州，向东到达黄石公园，向北到达育空河，向西南进入阿拉斯加。
At one point, he built a bike trailer out of a rolling trash can, which he dragged behind him loaded with 70 pounds of food and gear.
有一次，他用滚动垃圾桶搭建了一辆自行车拖车，并把它拖在身后，上面装有 70 磅的食物和装备。
“He was a bullheaded son of a bitch who would just go for it,” says Colter Barnes, a school principal in the Alaskan town of Kokhanok, where François lived for roughly nine months, starting in 2013.
“他是个顽固的王八蛋，只会一味追求目标，”阿拉斯加科哈诺克镇的一名学校校长科尔特·巴恩斯 (Colter Barnes) 说，从 2013 年开始，弗朗索瓦在那里住了大约九个月。
“He challenged you to live differently.”
“他向你发起挑战，要求你以不同的方式生活。”
“François wasn’t so obsessed with his goal that he missed all the stuff around him,” says Bretwood Higman, a well-known explorer and geologist based in Seldovia, another Alaskan town where François washed up.
“弗朗索瓦并没有那么痴迷于自己的目标，以至于错过了周围的一切，”布雷特伍德·希格曼 (Bretwood Higman) 说道。
“In fact, that was most of what he did: have an interaction with the places and people he met along the way.
“事实上，这就是他所做的大部分事情：与他沿途遇到的地方和人进行互动。
That’s the heart of what I respect about him.”
这就是我尊重他的核心所在。”
As it happened, François had grown up in the Jura Mountains on the French border with Switzerland, where I’d spent time as a kid.
碰巧的是，弗朗索瓦在法国与瑞士边境的汝拉山脉长大，我小时候也在那里度过了一段时光。
My father took a business course there in 1990, and we lived in the shadow of the Salève, a limestone massif known as the Balcony of Geneva.
1990 年，我父亲在那里参加了商业课程，我们住在萨莱沃 (Salève) 的阴影下，这是一座被称为“日内瓦阳台”的石灰岩地块。
Switzerland was a major change from my life in suburban Houston; like François, I got my first taste of adventure there, which made him that much more intriguing to me.
与我在休斯敦郊区的生活相比，瑞士是一个重大变化。和弗朗索瓦一样，我在那里第一次尝到了冒险的滋味，这让我对他更加感兴趣。
I also learned to speak passable French.
我还学会了说一口流利的法语。
Searching online one morning last July, I found the website for a business called Moteurs-Loisirs (“Recreational Motors”) in François’s hometown of Maîche.
去年七月的一天早上，我在网上搜索时发现了弗朗索瓦家乡迈什一家名为 Moteurs-Loisirs（“休闲汽车”）的企业网站。
The site features colorful images of chainsaws, snowblowers, and sit-on-top lawn mowers, but the core products are four-wheelers and snowmobiles.
该网站以电锯、吹雪机和坐式割草机的彩色图片为特色，但核心产品是四轮车和雪地摩托。
“Providers of Pure Feelings!” the slogan went.
“纯粹感情的提供者！”口号消失了。
The shop was owned by a man named Robert Guenot, who I assumed was François’s dad.
这家商店的老板名叫罗伯特·格诺特，我以为他是弗朗索瓦的父亲。
I called one day to find out.
有一天我打电话去了解情况。
“Are you François’s father?” I asked in French.
“你是弗朗索瓦的父亲吗？”我用法语问。
“ Le père de François ,” he said, as if it were his professional title.
“弗朗索瓦之父，”他说道，仿佛这是他的职业头衔。
He told me that he hadn’t seen his son since he left France almost four years earlier.
他告诉我，自从四年前离开法国以来，他就再也没有见过他的儿子。
After the Coast Guard called with news about finding his boat, Robert decided that he would travel to Alaska with François’s younger brother, Philippe.
在海岸警卫队打电话告知找到他的船的消息后，罗伯特决定与弗朗索瓦的弟弟菲利普一起前往阿拉斯加。
I figured he was just going to collect François’s belongings, but he intended to stay for a month.
我以为他只是去收拾弗朗索瓦的物品，但他打算待一个月。
“I had already planned to spend my vacation with—” he began.
“我已经计划好要和——”他开始说道。
Then his vocal apparatus seized up, and all that emerged was gasping and shuddering.
然后他的发声器官失灵了，所有的声音都在喘息和颤抖。
“I had already planned to spend a one-month vacation with François,” he continued.
“我已经计划和弗朗索瓦一起度过一个月的假期，”他继续说道。
“For me he is still alive.
“对我来说他还活着。
He is going to meet me between the 18th and 20th of July.”
他将于 7 月 18 日至 20 日期间与我见面。”
Robert had purchased his ticket months ago.
罗伯特几个月前就买了票。
The trip, as originally planned, would be a chance for him to finally understand who his distant son had become.
按照原计划，这次旅行将是他最终了解他的远房儿子变成什么样子的机会。
“I will keep you informed if my plan changes,” François had told him in an e-mail.
“如果我的计划发生变化，我会随时通知你，”弗朗索瓦在一封电子邮件中告诉他。
“Big kisses.
“大吻。
I love you.”
我爱你。
July 18 was exactly one week away, and I doubted François had survived.
距离 7 月 18 日还有一周，我怀疑弗朗索瓦是否还活着。
He hadn’t been spotted on the coast in nearly two months, and heading inland would have required traversing an ice-covered mountain range and then trekking to Katmai National Park headquarters—a slog that could take over a month.
他已经近两个月没有在海岸上被发现了，要前往内陆需要穿越一座冰雪覆盖的山脉，然后徒步到达卡特迈国家公园总部——这一过程可能需要一个多月的时间。
Even so, I wanted to understand what had driven François to take such immense risks.
即便如此，我还是想了解是什么驱使弗朗索瓦冒如此巨大的风险。
The best way to do that was to join his family in Alaska.
最好的办法就是去阿拉斯加和他的家人团聚。
Anchorage was not blessed with an abundance of rental cars when I was there: summer tourists had evidently taken them all.
当我在那里时，安克雷奇并没有大量的出租汽车：夏季游客显然已经把它们全部租走了。
When I arrived to pick up the Guenots in a beat-up minivan the color of a ripe banana, they started laughing.
当我开着一辆颜色像熟香蕉的破旧小货车去接盖诺夫妇时，他们开始大笑。
“Does it have brakes?” Robert asked.
“有刹车吗？”罗伯特问道。
“ Oui ,” Philippe said.
“哎呀，”菲利普说。
“This is a François car.” His brother’s ride back home was such a wreck that you could bring it to a complete stop only by wedging it against a stone wall.
“这是一辆弗朗索瓦汽车。”他哥哥回家的路非常糟糕，只有把它靠在石墙上才能完全停下来。
“We always wanted to improvise according to whatever we found,” Robert said.
“我们总是想根据我们发现的任何东西即兴创作，”罗伯特说。
“It’s the way François would have liked it.” As we pulled out of the hostel parking lot in our crayon on wheels, white smoke from burning oil curled out of the hood.
“弗朗索瓦会喜欢这样。”当我们开着带轮蜡笔驶出旅馆停车场时，燃烧的油冒出白烟。
Robert, 63, was sporting a Ski-Doo T-shirt and white scruff on his face, thanks to several days without a shave.
63 岁的罗伯特穿着一件 Ski-Doo T 恤，由于好几天没有刮胡子，脸上有白色的颈脖。
He was compact, with a reserved, Buddha-like demeanor.
他身材矮小，有一种内敛的佛陀气质。
Philippe, 32, was decked out in swag from their shop: a Can-Am baseball cap and shell.
32 岁的菲利普穿着他们店里的潮品：一顶 Can-Am 棒球帽和外壳。
He is taller, leaner, and more angular than his father, with dark, styled hair and boxy plastic glasses that look vaguely futuristic.
他比他的父亲更高、更瘦、更有棱角，有一头深色的有型的头发，戴着四四方方的塑料眼镜，看起来隐隐约约具有未来感。
Philippe (left) and Robert Guenot in Alaska last July.
去年七月，菲利普（左）和罗伯特·盖诺在阿拉斯加。
( Photo: Brendan Borrell)
（照片：布伦丹·博雷尔）
The day before, the Guenots had taken me to their bunk room to dig through two cardboard boxes’ worth of stuff that belonged to François and had been recovered on the beach.
前一天，盖诺夫妇带我去他们的双层床房间，挖掘了两个纸板箱里的东西，这些东西属于弗朗索瓦，是在海滩上找到的。
“This is what his clothes were like back in Maîche,” Philippe said, holding up a tattered pair of boxer-briefs that looked like a clump of seaweed.
“这就是他在迈什时穿的衣服，”菲利普说道，手里举着一条破烂的平角内裤，看上去就像一团海藻。
We pulled out gloves that were more holes than fabric, a sleeping bag that looked like a patchwork quilt, two ancient GPS units, and a solar panel.
我们拿出比布料还破洞的手套、看起来像拼布被子的睡袋、两个古老的 GPS 装置和一块太阳能电池板。
The gear was in pitiful shape, but it made François seem more prepared than any of us had expected.
装备的形状很糟糕，但这让弗朗索瓦看起来比我们预想的更有准备。
He even had two condoms in a ziplock bag.
他甚至在一个自封袋里放了两个避孕套。
Robert told me that he’d had his own brush with death in his younger days.
罗伯特告诉我，他年轻时也曾与死亡擦肩而过。
In March of 1992, he traveled to Quebec to participate in a three-week snowmobiling expedition to the Hudson Bay, an adventure chronicled in a 2012 book by Romulad Previtali called Amarok Trail: The Wolf Track .
1992 年 3 月，他前往魁北克参加为期三周的哈德逊湾雪地摩托探险活动，罗穆拉德·普雷维塔利 (Romulad Previtali) 2012 年出版的书《阿玛洛克小道：狼道》(Amarok Trail: The Wolf Track) 中记录了这次冒险活动。
In the opening chapter, Robert gets stranded on fracturing ice over the Leaf River as his companions watch helplessly.
在第一章中，罗伯特被困在叶河上破裂的冰上，他的同伴们无助地看着。
“It is four o’clock Sunday, March 14,” Previtali writes, “negative twenty-five degrees, Robert motionless, lays on a delicate layer of ice ready, at the slightest movement, to swallow all.”
“现在是 3 月 14 日，星期日四点，”普雷维塔利写道，“零下二十五度，罗伯特一动不动，躺在一层脆弱的冰层上，只要稍有移动，就会吞没一切。”
When I asked Robert again about his goal for this trip, he answered without hesitation: “To tell you the truth, we still hope to find him alive.
当我再次问罗伯特此行的目的时，他毫不犹豫地回答：“说实话，我们还是希望找到他还活着。
As long as the Coast Guard has not found his corpse, there is a slim chance.” He and Philippe also wanted to experience the world through François’s eyes, and they saw me as part of that mission.
只要海岸警卫队没有找到他的尸体，可能性就很小。”他和菲利普也想通过弗朗索瓦的眼睛体验世界，他们将我视为这一使命的一部分。
They spoke only a few words of English, and I had already helped them reach out to François’s friends.
他们只会说几句英语，我已经帮助他们联系了弗朗索瓦的朋友。
“The trip is better with you,” Robert said.
“有你在，旅途会更美好。”罗伯特说。
“We will discover a lot more than if we were alone.”
“我们会发现比独自一人更多的东西。”
Our plan was to drive south to Homer and then catch a ferry to Seldovia, which sits on the southern end of the Kenai Peninsula, on the east side of Kachemak Bay.
我们的计划是向南行驶到荷马，然后乘渡轮前往塞尔多维亚，塞尔多维亚位于基奈半岛南端，卡彻马克湾东侧。
François spent a year there, from the fall of 2012 to the summer of 2013, before crossing the Cook Inlet in his makeshift kayak and, eventually, setting out on his ill-fated exploration of the Alaska Peninsula.
从 2012 年秋天到 2013 年夏天，弗朗索瓦在那里度过了一年，然后乘坐他的临时皮划艇穿越库克湾，最终开始了他命运多舛的阿拉斯加半岛探险。
After we left Anchorage, we drove along a fjord-like sliver of the inlet, climbed over a low alpine pass, and descended into a moist rainforest.
离开安克雷奇后，我们沿着峡湾般的狭长入口行驶，翻过一座低矮的高山山口，进入潮湿的雨林。
This is the same route François biked with his rolling trash can.
弗朗索瓦 (François) 骑着滚动垃圾桶也沿着这条路线骑行。
Most of the way, we noticed, there was almost no shoulder.
我们注意到，在大多数情况下，几乎没有肩膀。
Robert and Philippe studied a map on which François had dutifully marked his campsites.
罗伯特和菲利普研究了一张地图，弗朗索瓦在上面尽职尽责地标记了他的露营地。
He had covered 30 or 40 miles per day.
他每天行驶 30 或 40 英里。
“People said that François couldn’t comprehend distances in Alaska,” Robert said.
“人们说弗朗索瓦无法理解阿拉斯加的距离，”罗伯特说。
“We think that, yes, he knew.”
“我们认为，是的，他知道。”
We stopped at a mile marker where François had taken a selfie; Robert and Philippe hopped out to capture the same shot.
我们在弗朗索瓦拍自拍照的一英里标记处停下来。罗伯特和菲利普跳下车去捕捉同一个镜头。
“I haven’t felt this close to François in years,” Philippe said.
“我已经很多年没有和弗朗索瓦如此亲近了，”菲利普说。
He credited François with helping him escape from a rut, encouraging him to spend a year in the Dominican Republic in 2009.
他称赞弗朗索瓦帮助他摆脱了陈规，并鼓励他于 2009 年在多米尼加共和国度过一年。
“The only barrier in our lives is ourselves,” François once told him.
“我们生活中唯一的障碍就是我们自己，”弗朗索瓦曾经告诉他。
After a five-hour drive, we pitched tents in a meadow, under purplish evening light, and took seats around a fire ring.
经过五个小时的车程后，我们在一片草地上搭起帐篷，在紫色的晚霞下，在火圈周围坐下。
Across the mirror-flat water of Kachemak Bay, we could make out a saw-toothed mountain range and the white toe of a glacier.
穿过卡彻马克湾如镜面般平坦的水面，我们可以看到锯齿状的山脉和白色的冰川。
Philippe puffed on a cigarette.
菲利普吸了一口烟。
Robert nervously pawed his phone, looking for news.
罗伯特紧张地抓着手机寻找新闻。
There wasn’t any.
没有。
I told Robert that Gary Nielsen, the skeptical man quoted in the Alaska Dispatch News , had e-mailed me and that he hadn’t given up on François, either.
我告诉罗伯特，加里·尼尔森（《阿拉斯加快报新闻》中引用的持怀疑态度的人）给我发了电子邮件，而且他也没有放弃弗朗索瓦。
“We don’t think he’s gone,” he wrote.
“我们不认为他已经走了，”他写道。
“We think he is walking.”
“我们认为他正在走路。”
“That’s nice to know, don’t you think?” Robert said.
“很高兴知道这一点，你不觉得吗？”罗伯特说。
“That somebody else thinks that?”
“别人也这么认为吗？”
When François was six, he jumped off a dining room table and landed on his head.
弗朗索瓦六岁时，从餐桌上跳下，头部着地。
His brain swelled with blood, and doctors shaved off his long blond hair to saw his skull open.
他的大脑充满了血液，医生剃掉了他的金色长发，打开了他的头骨。
During the two weeks he spent under intensive care, Robert went to see him every day, fearing it could be his last.
在他接受重症监护的两周里，罗伯特每天都去看他，担心这可能是他的最后一次。
François recovered and, as he grew up, turned out to be a natural athlete.
弗朗索瓦康复了，随着他长大，他成为了一名天生的运动员。
Robert pushed him to be a competitive cross-country skier.
罗伯特促使他成为一名有竞争力的越野滑雪运动员。
Maybe too hard.
也许太难了。
By the time François was 15, he had a shelf full of trophies but had grown tired of the sport.
弗朗索瓦 15 岁时，他的架子上摆满了奖杯，但他已经厌倦了这项运动。
One afternoon he came home and threw them all away.
一天下午，他回到家，把它们全都扔掉了。
“They mean nothing,” he said.
“它们毫无意义，”他说。
In his late teens, François turned away from the outdoors, drinking and partying with friends for several years.
在他十几岁的时候，弗朗索瓦不再参加户外活动，有好几年与朋友喝酒聚会。
He was 21 and bumbling through college when his parents divorced.
当他 21 岁的时候，他的父母离婚了，他正在艰难地读完大学。
He remained close to his mother, Martine, who cared for the elderly, but he saw Robert only sporadically.
他和照顾老人的母亲玛蒂娜关系密切，但他只是偶尔见到罗伯特。
After he graduated, he had trouble finding work he liked.
毕业后，他很难找到自己喜欢的工作。
In 2006, at 28, he hitchhiked to Austria and stayed in a faith-based community for six months.
2006年，28岁的他搭便车来到奥地利，在一个信仰社区呆了六个月。
François didn’t talk about that experience much, but friends and family believe it was transformative, inspiring his craving for simplicity.
弗朗索瓦并没有过多谈论这段经历，但朋友和家人认为这是一次变革，激发了他对简单的渴望。
Later, when François visited Robert in Maîche and helped clean out the yard of a 19th-century stone cottage Robert was restoring, he berated his father with questions about materialism.
后来，当弗朗索瓦拜访迈什的罗伯特并帮助清理罗伯特正在修复的一座 19 世纪石头小屋的院子时，他用有关唯物主义的问题斥责了他的父亲。
Why do you work?
你为什么工作？
Why do you buy new clothes?
你为什么买新衣服？
Why do you live in a house?
你为什么住在房子里？
“I like to live my life in a certain manner,” Robert responded curtly.
“我喜欢以某种方式过我的生活，”罗伯特简短地回答道。
“Nothing was ever small with François,” he says.
“对于弗朗索瓦来说，没有什么是小事，”他说。
“I didn’t understand him.”
“我不明白他的意思。”
François during a backcountry trip with Evers.
弗朗索瓦与埃弗斯一起进行野外旅行。
( Photo: Nicole Evers)
（照片：妮可·埃弗斯）
Loic Deforet, a friend of François’s, says that François thought of his father as a too stern man who was “always thinking about money.” In 2007, Loic and François lived together on a communal farm, Le Redondance (“The Redundancy”), and François earned extra cash by teaching nordic skiing at Monts Jura.
弗朗索瓦的朋友卢瓦克·德福雷 (Loic Deforet) 说，弗朗索瓦认为他的父亲是一个过于严厉的人，“总是想着金钱”。 2007 年，卢瓦克和弗朗索瓦一起住在一个名为 Le Redondance（“冗余”）的公共农场，弗朗索瓦通过在汝拉山教授北欧滑雪赚取额外收入。
The two studied to become mountain guides and went on spontaneous adventures, including an 1,800-mile road trip to Estonia in 2009.
两人学习成为登山向导，并自发地进行冒险，其中包括 2009 年前往爱沙尼亚的 1,800 英里公路旅行。
On the farm, François’s nickname was Gross Sac (“Big Bag”), because he would spend days binging on junk food, like a bear preparing for hibernation, then set off on a multi-day adventure without any sustenance.
在农场里，弗朗索瓦的绰号是“大袋”，因为他会花几天时间狂吃垃圾食品，就像一只准备冬眠的熊，然后在没有任何食物的情况下开始为期多天的冒险。
He took chances.
他抓住了机会。
Once, while he was hiking along a riverside cliff, he dropped his pack in the dirt and jumped 20 feet into the water, knowing nothing about its depth.
有一次，当他沿着河边的悬崖徒步旅行时，他把背包掉在泥土里，然后跳进了 20 英尺的水中，对水的深度一无所知。
“When he wanted to do something, he would just do it,” says Loic.
“当他想做某事时，他就会去做，”卢伊克说。
“ Plutot mourrir dans l’ocean qu’accocher dans un bureau ,” François used to say.
“Plutot mourrir dans l’ocean qu’accocher dans un Bureau”，弗朗索瓦过去常说。
It’s better to die in the ocean than to be stuck in an office.
死在海里总比被困在办公室里好。
François’s North American adventure was hatched in 2010, over a game of Risk he played with Loic and three friends on the farm.
弗朗索瓦的北美冒险之旅始于 2010 年，当时他与卢瓦克以及三个朋友在农场玩了一场风险游戏。
After playing, they took the game board—which features a stylized map of the world—and tore it into pieces for the players to keep.
玩完后，他们拿起游戏板（上面有一张风格化的世界地图）并将其撕成碎片供玩家保留。
They vowed to reunite in Kamchatka two years later and play again.
他们发誓两年后将在堪察加半岛重聚并再次比赛。
François tucked his piece into his backpack and decided he would travel to Kamchatka the hard way.
弗朗索瓦把他的作品塞进背包里，决定艰难地前往堪察加半岛。
His mother wired $2,000 to his bank account so he could demonstrate to Canadian officials that he had financial support for a visa, but he never withdrew a cent.
他的母亲向他的银行账户汇了 2,000 美元，以便他可以向加拿大官员证明他有签证所需的经济支持，但他从未提取过一分钱。
On January 6, 2011, François flew to Montreal and rode his thumb south and west, looping through the Grand Canyon, up the California coast, and over to Yellowstone National Park.
2011 年 1 月 6 日，弗朗索瓦飞往蒙特利尔，用大拇指向南和向西骑行，穿过大峡谷，沿着加州海岸，到达黄石国家公园。
The details of these travels come from friends and a marked-up atlas he left behind, and they’re sketchy.
这些旅行的细节来自朋友和他留下的一本标记过的地图集，而且内容很粗略。
But it’s known that, by summer, he’d headed to Vancouver, where he saved money working as a dishwasher and a prep cook at the Hummingbird Pub on Galliano Island, camping in the woods.
但众所周知，到了夏天，他去了温哥华，在那里，他在加利亚诺岛的蜂鸟酒吧做洗碗工和预备厨师，在树林里露营，攒了钱。
His wilderness adventure seems to have started in earnest a couple of months later, when he arrived at the town of Lake Louise, inside Alberta’s Banff National Park .
几个月后，当他到达艾伯塔省班夫国家公园内的路易斯湖镇时，他的荒野冒险似乎才正式开始。
François spent a month hiking along the spine of the Rocky Mountains to Jasper, which sits about 130 miles north.
弗朗索瓦花了一个月的时间沿着落基山脉徒步到达位于以北约 130 英里的贾斯珀。
Then he canoed down the Fraser River for 200 miles to Prince George, British Columbia.
然后，他沿着弗雷泽河划独木舟 200 英里到达不列颠哥伦比亚省的乔治王子城。
Next he floated north for 500 miles through some of the most scarcely visited country in the province.
接下来，他向北漂流 500 英里，穿过该省一些人迹罕至的国家。
At one point, he capsized in rapids and lost much of his gear.
有一次，他在急流中翻船，失去了大部分装备。
Locals gave him some necessities so he could keep going, and he grew confident that he could always live off the excess and waste of modern society.
当地人给了他一些生活必需品，这样他就可以继续生活，他越来越相信自己可以永远靠现代社会的过度和浪费生活。
“Adventure has become my life in the way I have wanted since my childhood,” he wrote to a former teacher in France.
“冒险已经成为我从小就想要的生活，”他在给法国一位前老师的信中写道。
“The Indians and Eskimos of North America have always supported me on my quest.”
“北美的印第安人和爱斯基摩人一直支持我的追求。”
The X marks the spot where Alaskan fisheries biologists encountered François Guenot in May 2014.
X 标志着阿拉斯加渔业生物学家 2014 年 5 月遇到弗朗索瓦·盖诺 (François Guenot) 的地点。
After crossing into the Yukon, François cannibalized several busted bicycles at a dump and pedaled 500 miles north up the Klondike Highway to the town of Pelly Crossing.
进入育空地区后，弗朗索瓦在垃圾场拆掉了几辆报废的自行车，然后沿着克朗代克高速公路向北骑行 500 英里，到达佩利克罗辛镇。
Situated halfway between Whitehorse and Dawson City, this former outpost of the Hudson Bay Company is now a dreary place with the usual problems faced by First Nations communities: unemployment, alcohol, and drugs.
这个哈德逊湾公司的前哨基地位于怀特霍斯和道森市之间，现在变成了一个沉闷的地方，面临着原住民社区常见的问题：失业、酗酒和毒品。
Hand-painted signs on the roadside read: CRACK DOWN ON CRACK DEALERS.
路边的手绘标牌上写着：打击毒品贩子。
Eddie Tom Tom, a lifelong resident of Pelly Crossing, was shoveling snow one November evening in 2011 when he saw the glow of a headlamp in the distance.
埃迪·汤姆·汤姆 (Eddie Tom Tom) 是佩利十字路口 (Pelly Crossing) 的终身居民，2011 年 11 月的一个晚上，他正在铲雪，突然看到远处一盏头灯的光芒。
The temperature was below zero, and as the man approached, Eddie could see icicles clinging to his blond beard.
气温低于零度，当那人走近时，埃蒂看到他的金发胡子上挂满了冰柱。
He had a ragged daypack and a couple of homemade saddlebags strapped to the fender of his junkyard bike.
他有一个破烂的背包和几个自制的鞍袋，绑在他的垃圾场自行车的挡泥板上。
He was looking for a place to string up his tarp—the only shelter he carried.
他正在寻找一个地方来挂上防水布——这是他携带的唯一庇护所。
Eddie invited François to come in and warm up by his woodstove.
埃迪邀请弗朗索瓦进来，在他的柴炉旁取暖。
“He told me his story up to that point,” Eddie recalled, adding that François’s exploits reminded him of tales he’d heard from tribal elders.
“他向我讲述了到目前为止的故事，”埃迪回忆道，并补充说弗朗索瓦的事迹让他想起了从部落长老那里听到的故事。
“We might have done something like that a hundred years ago,” Eddie said.
“一百年前我们可能就做过类似的事情，”埃迪说。
“A lot of us have become too comfortable in our sedentary lifestyles, in our couch culture.” François soon moved into a trailer with a schoolteacher named Gabriel Ellis, and over the next six months he gave the people of Pelly a taste of his relentless optimism.
“我们中的许多人已经对久坐的生活方式和沙发文化变得过于自在。”弗朗索瓦很快就和一位名叫加布里埃尔·埃利斯的教师住进了一辆拖车，在接下来的六个月里，他让佩利的人们尝到了他不懈的乐观精神。
Eddie’s elderly mother, Rachel, taught François the Athabaskan technique for snaring rabbits and showed him how to cook bannock—a survival staple made with flour, salt, grease, and water.
埃迪年迈的母亲雷切尔（Rachel）教弗朗索瓦阿萨巴斯卡（Athabaskan）捕捉兔子的技术，并向他展示如何烹饪班诺克（bannock）——一种用面粉、盐、油脂和水制成的生存主食。
He called her Grand-mother and she made him mittens, mukluks, and a cap trimmed with beaver fur.
他称她为祖母，她为他制作了手套、穆克鲁斯帽和一顶饰有海狸皮毛的帽子。
François taught French cooking at the local community center and later sent Rachel a pair of moccasins he’d sewn himself.
弗朗索瓦在当地社区中心教授法式烹饪，后来送给雷切尔一双他自己缝制的鹿皮鞋。
“I still use them,” she said.
“我仍然使用它们，”她说。
François's father, Robert Guenot, said without hesitation: “To tell you the truth, we still hope to find him alive.
弗朗索瓦的父亲罗伯特·盖诺毫不犹豫地说：“说实话，我们仍然希望找到他还活着。
As long as the Coast Guard has not found his corpse, there is a slim chance.”
只要海岸警卫队没有找到他的尸体，可能性就很小。”
As much as François thrived among his new friends, his veins pulsed with a potent mix of adrenaline and antifreeze.
尽管弗朗索瓦在新朋友中茁壮成长，但他的血管里充满了肾上腺素和防冻剂的强效混合物。
Over Christmas, Eddie, the tribe’s map guru, helped him plan a 30-mile trek, and the community loaned him a pair of snowshoes, an antler-handled knife, and a $20 bill.
圣诞节期间，部落的地图大师艾迪帮助他计划了一次 30 英里的徒步旅行，社区借给了他一双雪鞋、一把鹿角刀和一张 20 美元的钞票。
François got lost, though, and spent ten days trying to find his way back.
然而弗朗索瓦迷路了，花了十天的时间试图找到回来的路。
The temperature was below zero as he trudged through snow from 2 p.m.
从下午 2 点到下午 2 点，他在雪地里艰难前行，气温一直低于零度。
to 10 a.m.
至上午 10 点
to keep warm, sleeping during the day.
为了保暖，白天睡觉。
He survived by rationing a single can of Heinz baked beans that he took from a trapper’s cabin.
他靠配给从捕猎者小屋拿来的一罐亨氏烤豆才得以生存。
On his final approach to the town of Mayo, he was crossing the Stewart River when the ice gave way, soaking him in shallow, frigid water.
在他最后一次到达梅奥镇时，他正在穿越斯图尔特河，这时冰块融化了，把他浸在浅而冰冷的水中。
When the local newspaper interviewed François about his ordeal , he remained effusive and awestruck.
当当地报纸采访弗朗索瓦讲述他的苦难经历时，他仍然热情洋溢，充满敬畏。
“In Europe, you see the print of man everywhere,” he said.
“在欧洲，你到处都可以看到人类的足迹，”他说。
“Here, it’s open land.
“这里，是一片开阔的土地。
It’s wild.”
这很疯狂。”
Undeterred, François borrowed a pair of skis and set out again, trying to reach a sacred hot spring some 70 miles away.
弗朗索瓦并没有被吓倒，他借了一副滑雪板，再次出发，试图到达大约 70 英里外的一处神圣温泉。
It was April and the thaw was on, so he had to drag his sled and skis behind him.
当时是四月，解冻开始了，所以他不得不把雪橇和滑雪板拖在身后。
He made it and spent several days lounging in the pools.
他成功了，并在泳池里躺了几天。
On his return, he had little choice but to ski along the rotten shore ice of the Pelly River.
回来后，他别无选择，只能沿着佩利河腐烂的岸冰滑雪。
When the ice turned to open water, he built a raft using a piece of plywood and beams he’d scavenged from an old cabin.
当冰面变成开放水域时，他用从旧小屋中捡来的一块胶合板和横梁建造了一艘木筏。
He made it back to town after 17 days alone.
独自度过了17天后，他回到了小镇。
Ellis, the schoolteacher, liked François’s company but was furious about his foolhardiness.
埃利斯是一名教师，他喜欢弗朗索瓦的陪伴，但对他的鲁莽行为感到愤怒。
François, in turn, taunted Ellis, calling him Easy Man because he watched TV and used a sauna.
弗朗索瓦反过来嘲笑埃利斯，称他为“简单的人”，因为他看电视并使用桑拿浴室。
In François’s view, modern society had become lazy, corrupted by convenience foods and fossil fuels.
在弗朗索瓦看来，现代社会已经变得懒惰，被方便食品和化石燃料所腐蚀。
“What appeared to me as reckless was him building up his skills,” Ellis said.
“在我看来，他在增强自己的技能方面显得鲁莽，”埃利斯说。
When I asked him what motivated François, he said he thought François was probably “trying to outdo his dad.”
当我问他弗朗索瓦的动机是什么时，他说他认为弗朗索瓦可能“试图超越他的父亲”。
François’s friends were still planning to meet up in Russia in September 2012, and he needed to get moving.
弗朗索瓦的朋友们仍计划 2012 年 9 月在俄罗斯见面，而他需要行动起来。
He raised money chopping wood and bought a secondhand canoe in Whitehorse, outfitted it with a tarp sail, and floated the Yukon River some 850 miles, arriving in Ruby, Alaska, on July 24.
他靠砍柴筹集了资金，在怀特霍斯买了一艘二手独木舟，给它装上了防水布帆，然后在育空河上漂流了约 850 英里，于 7 月 24 日抵达阿拉斯加的鲁比。
François had told people that he planned to continue west to the Bering Strait, but he must have thought better of that, because he abruptly made a U-turn.
弗朗索瓦曾告诉人们，他计划继续向西前往白令海峡，但他一定是想得更好了，因为他突然掉头了。
He got a bush-plane ride to Fairbanks, Alaska’s second-largest city, and sold his canoe for a few hundred bucks.
他乘坐丛林飞机前往阿拉斯加第二大城市费尔班克斯，并以几百美元的价格卖掉了他的独木舟。
In early August, he mailed his passport back to France as part of his application for a Russian visa.
八月初，他将护照寄回法国，作为申请俄罗斯签证的一部分。
While he waited, he caught a lift with a trucker heading north; his goal was to cross the Arctic Circle and hike in the Brooks Range.
在等待的时候，他搭上了一辆卡车司机的电梯，向北行驶。他的目标是穿越北极圈并在布鲁克斯山脉徒步旅行。
Then he returned to the Yukon River to pick up where he’d left off.
然后他回到育空河继续他上次停下的地方。
It was there that he built his bike trailer, writing FAIRBANKS OR BUST on it with duct tape.
正是在那里，他建造了自己的自行车拖车，并用胶带在上面写下了“费尔班克斯或半身像”。
When he made it the 60 miles to Fairbanks, he added OR HOMER.
当他行驶 60 英里到达费尔班克斯时，他添加了“OR HOMER”。
Homer was 650 miles south.
荷马位于以南 650 英里处。
On his blog, François wrote about the absurdity of his quest.
弗朗索瓦在他的博客上写下了他的探索的荒谬之处。
“What a beautiful bike pack, no?” read a caption beneath a photo of his inelegant rig, backdropped by the regal peaks of the Alaska Range.
“多漂亮的自行车包，不是吗？”阅读他的不雅装备照片下方的说明文字，背景是阿拉斯加山脉的雄伟山峰。
The plastic wheels of his trash can eroded into lumpy nubs, and he tried to prolong their life with tape.
他垃圾桶的塑料轮子被腐蚀成块状小块，他试图用胶带延长它们的使用寿命。
Those repairs lasted about half a mile before the wheels snapped in two.
这些修理持续了大约半英里，然后车轮断成了两半。
A Good Samaritan—François called him the Trashologist—stuck a proper axle through the trash can’s base and gave him a couple of beefier, rubber-rimmed wheels to keep him going.
一个好心的撒玛利亚人——弗朗索瓦称他为“垃圾学家”——在垃圾桶的底座上插了一根合适的轴，并给了他几个更坚固的橡胶轮子，让他继续前进。
By the time he reached Homer, on September 12, François had mounted an Alaska license plate alongside a red reflector.
9 月 12 日，当弗朗索瓦到达荷马时，他已经在红色反光镜旁边安装了阿拉斯加车牌。
He soon learned that his Russian visa application had been denied.
他很快得知他的俄罗斯签证申请被拒绝。
He considered building a boat and sailing to Russia illegally, but his friends persuaded him not to.
他考虑建造一艘船并非法航行到俄罗斯，但他的朋友劝他不要这样做。
Two weeks later, he borrowed a plastic kayak and paddled across to Seldovia.
两周后，他借了一艘塑料皮划艇，划船前往塞尔多维亚。
Robert, Philippe, and I took a ferry to Seldovia on July 21.
7 月 21 日，罗伯特、菲利普和我乘渡轮前往塞尔多维亚。
It’s a tiny fishing village with roughly 165 residents, and in anticipation of our arrival, some of them had raised a French flag above a wooden boardwalk near the harbor.
这是一个小渔村，约有 165 名居民，为了迎接我们的到来，其中一些人在港口附近的木板路上升起了一面法国国旗。
Otters backstroked in the water and soaked up sun.
水獭在水中仰泳，沐浴阳光。
It was a perfect day.
这是完美的一天。
We got off the ferry with our packs and hoofed it down the Otterbahn Trail through a tunnel of hemlock and spruce.
我们带着背包下了渡轮，沿着奥特巴恩步道穿过铁杉和云杉的隧道。
Robert was wearing one of François’s old long-sleeved T-shirts, lime green with the logo of the Buckwheat Ski Classic.
罗伯特穿着弗朗索瓦的一件旧长袖 T 恤，柠檬绿，上面印有荞麦滑雪经典赛的标志。
When we emerged from the forest onto a beach, Robert picked up a sun-warmed mollusk and slurped its salty juices, as he had once seen his son do on a YouTube video.
当我们从森林来到海滩时，罗伯特拿起一只被阳光晒热的软体动物，大口喝着它的咸汁，就像他曾经在 YouTube 视频中看到儿子所做的那样。
“Just a taste,” he said.
“只是尝尝，”他说。
“It’s not fresh,” Philippe warned.
“这不新鲜，”菲利普警告说。
Robert tossed it away and we hiked up to a grassy flat, where we made camp.
罗伯特把它扔掉了，我们徒步走到一片草地上，在那里扎营。
Philippe donned a black beret, lit a cigarette, and joked that all he needed was a baguette and he’d be a walking cliché.
菲利普戴上黑色贝雷帽，点燃一支香烟，开玩笑说他只需要一根法棍面包，这样他就会成为一个活生生的陈词滥调。
Kirby Corwin, the Kayak King of Seldovia.
柯比·科文 (Kirby Corwin)，塞尔多维亚的皮划艇之王。
( Photo: Brendan Borrell)
（照片：布伦丹·博雷尔）
Just as I was zipping my rainfly, an ATV rumbled up and we saw a white-haired man in a baseball cap with the initials F.A.R.T.
正当我拉上雨衣拉链时，一辆全地形车隆隆驶来，我们看到一个戴着棒球帽的白发男子，上面写着 F.A.R.T. 的缩写。
on the front.
在前面。
“ Autre père de François !” he growled, shaking Robert’s hand.
“弗朗索瓦的另一位父亲！”他咆哮着，握着罗伯特的手。
This was Kirby Corwin, the self-proclaimed Kayak King of Seldovia, a Long Island, New York, native who runs a guiding outfit called Kayak’Atak .
这就是柯比·科尔文 (Kirby Corwin)，他是纽约长岛人，自称为塞尔多维亚皮划艇之王，经营着一家名为 Kayak'Atak 的导游机构。
“François was a nutcase,” Kirby said.
“弗朗索瓦是个疯子，”柯比说。
“If I wasn’t so friggin’ old, I’d probably do the same thing.”
“如果我不是那么老的话，我可能也会做同样的事情。”
Kirby told us that Seldovia is a place that takes all comers.
柯比告诉我们，塞尔多维亚是一个包容所有人的地方。
A cross-dressing metalhead named Sadi Synn used to strut down the main strip in his pumps and leopard-print miniskirt, and the only people who gave him grief were some pricks in for the weekend from Anchorage.
一个名叫萨迪·辛恩 (Sadi Synn) 的变装金属迷过去常常穿着高跟鞋和豹纹迷你裙昂首阔步地走在大街上，唯一让他悲伤的是一些从安克雷奇来度周末的人。
One reason for the town’s anything-goes vibe: it’s cut off from the rest of Alaska by glaciers and can be reached only by boat or plane.
该镇随心所欲的氛围的原因之一是：它与阿拉斯加其他地区被冰川隔开，只能乘船或飞机到达。
In January 2013, Kirby helped François transform an aluminum skiff into a ramshackle sailboat called The Perl .
2013 年 1 月，柯比帮助弗朗索瓦将一艘铝制小船改造成一艘摇摇欲坠的帆船，名为 The Perl。
“It was a piece of shit,” Kirby said.
“这真是一坨屎，”柯比说。
A dusky brown sail hung from the 15-foot mast—a tree trunk that still had bark on it.
15 英尺高的桅杆上挂着一张暗褐色的帆——一根上面还留着树皮的树干。
The flat-bottomed skiff had no keel, so François turned two plywood doors into retractable leeboards, attached to either side of the hull like folded wings.
平底小船没有龙骨，因此弗朗索瓦将两扇胶合板门变成了可伸缩的背风板，像折叠的机翼一样固定在船体的两侧。
By then, François had attracted a gaggle of young friends who were willing to skinny-dip in winter and join him on hare-brained adventures.
那时，弗朗索瓦已经吸引了一群愿意在冬天裸泳并与他一起进行疯狂冒险的年轻朋友。
They got stranded in The Perl more than a few times and had to paddle back to shore.
他们多次在珀尔河搁浅，不得不划船返回岸边。
“Daddy!” François would tell Kirby.
“爸爸！”弗朗索瓦会告诉柯比。
“I am a stupid cocksucker.”
“我是个愚蠢的混蛋。”
Kirby was a good host, taking us kayaking and organizing a cookout.
柯比是一位很好的主人，带我们划皮划艇并组织野餐。
He’d been telling people in town that he was starting a collection to donate to Robert and Philippe for their travel expenses.
他一直告诉镇上的人们，他正在开始筹款，捐赠给罗伯特和菲利普，以支付他们的旅费。
One night I stopped in at the Linwood Bar and saw him nursing a beer at the counter.
一天晚上，我在林伍德酒吧停下来，看到他在柜台上喝着啤酒。
“Does François’s family have money?” he said.
“弗朗索瓦家有钱吗？”他说。
A French flag in Seldovia welcomes the Guenots.
塞尔多维亚的一面法国国旗欢迎格诺家族。
( Photo: Brendan Borrell)
（照片：布伦丹·博雷尔）
“Robert does have a successful business,” I told him, mentioning an ultralight airplane he owned.
“罗伯特的生意确实很成功，”我告诉他，并提到了他拥有的一架超轻型飞机。
“Aw, shit, he has a plane ?
“噢，操，他有飞机？
We’re not raising money for them!
我们不是为他们筹集资金！
Maybe we can go to France and sponge off them awhile.”
也许我们可以去法国吸一会儿。”
As we met with other people who knew François, I realized that his relationship with the town was a mixed bag.
当我们见到其他认识弗朗索瓦的人时，我意识到他与这座小镇的关系是复杂的。
Sure, he was always game to ski off a cliff or huck a backflip, but Seldovians, like many Alaskans, pride themselves on self-reliance, and they work hard to make money and keep up their homesteads.
当然，他总是热衷于从悬崖上滑雪或后空翻，但塞尔多维亚人像许多阿拉斯加人一样，以自力更生为荣，他们努力工作赚钱并维持家园。
Once locals understood that François wasn’t just passing through but was planning to stay the winter, he became the town’s one-man homeless problem.
当当地人了解到弗朗索瓦不仅仅是路过，而是打算留下来过冬时，他就成了该镇唯一的无家可归者问题。
Much of François’s daily life in Seldovia was devoted to acquiring the calories he needed to survive.
弗朗索瓦在塞尔多维亚的日常生活大部分时间都花在获取生存所需的卡路里上。
He walked around with a baggie of flour in his pocket and made bannock in borrowed kitchens.
他口袋里揣着一袋面粉走来走去，在借来的厨房里做班诺克。
He was thrilled when he learned about bidarkies, intertidal mollusks.
当他了解到潮间带软体动物“bidarky”时，他感到非常兴奋。
He’d pry them off rocks with his multitool and eat them raw or roast them over burning logs.
他会用多功能工具将它们从岩石上撬下来，生吃或在燃烧的木头上烤。
Mostly, though, he hunted for dinner invitations.
不过，他主要是在寻找晚餐邀请。
“François was always hungry.
“弗朗索瓦总是很饿。
That’s a given.
这是既定的。
We accepted that,” said a local named Walt Sonen.
我们接受了这一点，”一位名叫沃尔特·索南 (Walt Sonen) 的当地人说道。
“He’d hang around, hoping you might have him for dinner.
“他会在附近闲逛，希望你能请他吃晚饭。
If you had other plans, you’d let him know.”
如果你有其他计划，请告诉他。”
This tendency to overstay was a recurring theme during François’s travels.
这种逾期居留的倾向是弗朗索瓦旅行期间反复出现的主题。
“He had a lot of gumption,” said John Miles, an old-timer from Homer who sailed to Russia years ago and once survived wrecking his boat on a rock in the Shelikof Strait.
“他很有进取心，”约翰·迈尔斯 (John Miles) 说道，他是一位来自荷马的老前辈，多年前航行到俄罗斯，有一次在谢利科夫海峡的岩石上撞毁了他的船，幸存下来。
“He kind of took it for granted that, because he’s some kind of adventurer, we should kowtow to him.
“他有点理所当然地认为，因为他是某种冒险家，我们就应该向他磕头。
We don’t live that way.
我们不是那样生活的。
You got to hold your end up.
你必须坚持到底。
I told him, ‘Time to move on, François.’ ”
我告诉他，‘是时候继续前进了，弗朗索瓦。’”
One afternoon in Seldovia, Tobben Spurkland, a lanky Norwegian-born engineer with a white Muppet mustache, invited us to his airy two-story home.
在塞尔多维亚的一天下午，托本·斯普尔克兰（Tobben Spurkland）邀请我们去他通风良好的两层楼家，他是一位出生于挪威、留着白色布偶小胡子、身材瘦长的工程师。
He and his wife, Tania, an American with a straw-colored bob, laid out a generous spread of yogurt, berries, and smoked salmon.
他和他的妻子塔尼亚（Tania）——一个留着稻草色短发的美国人——摆出了丰盛的酸奶、浆果和熏鲑鱼。
The couple had taken François in when he first arrived, and Tobben laughed about the time François had left his bicycle in the woods during a ten-day pack-rafting expedition.
当弗朗索瓦第一次到达时，这对夫妇就收留了他，托本嘲笑弗朗索瓦在一次为期十天的背包漂流探险中将自行车落在树林里的事情。
When he returned, a porcupine had gnawed holes in the brown leather seat.
当他回来时，一只豪猪已经把棕色皮革座椅咬出了洞。
François was taking a class in leatherwork and repaired it with dental floss.
弗朗索瓦正在上皮革制品课程，并用牙线修理它。
“He took advantage of every single one of us, and we didn’t mind,” Tobben said.
“他利用了我们每一个人，我们并不介意，”托本说。
Later, when François asked Tobben to borrow survival gear, including a drysuit, for his planned ocean crossing, it was finally too much.
后来，当弗朗索瓦要求托本借用救生装备（包括干式潜水服）以用于他计划的跨洋航行时，他终于忍无可忍。
“No,” Tobben told him.
“不，”托本告诉他。
“I don’t want to be part of your self-destruction.”
“我不想成为你自我毁灭的一部分。”
Tobben Spurkland with a bike François borrowed.
托本·斯普克兰 (Tobben Spurkland) 和弗朗索瓦借来的自行车。
( Photo: Brendan Borrell)
（照片：布伦丹·博雷尔）
At the end of our visit, Robert asked me to translate a statement he wanted to make.
在我们访问结束时，罗伯特要求我翻译他想要发表的声明。
He put his hand on his chest and said, “ Du fond de mon coeur, je vous remercie de le prendre comme un fils .”
他把手放在胸前，说道：“我的心，请记住，我们的孩子们。”
“From the bottom of my heart,” I said to the Spurklands.
“我发自内心地”，我对斯普克兰夫妇说道。
“I thank you for taking him in like a son.” Tobben smiled in a taut Nordic way.
“谢谢你把他当作儿子一样收养。”托本以北欧人的紧张方式微笑。
It occurred to me that he never expected to be repaid for his generosity, in deeds or words.
我突然想到，他从未期望自己的慷慨会得到回报，无论是行动还是言语。
He saw François for what he was: a likable, confused young person unmoored from his homeland.
他看到了弗朗索瓦的真实面目：一个可爱、困惑的年轻人，远离了祖国。
François’s greatest accomplishment, I decided, was his ability to draw out virtue in the people he met, and he in turn was rewarded by this.
我认为，弗朗索瓦最伟大的成就是他能够从他遇到的人身上汲取美德，而他反过来也因此得到了回报。
“Alaska is a vast, emotional land,” he wrote in his journal.
“阿拉斯加是一片广阔而充满情感的土地，”他在日记中写道。
“Relationships center me.”
“人际关系是我的中心。”
A couple of miles outside town sits the cabin where François spent most of the winter, rent-free.
镇外几英里处有一座小木屋，弗朗索瓦冬天的大部分时间都在那里度过，免租。
It’s shaded by a dense tree canopy, and it’s positioned on the edge of a deeply eroded creek leading to the shore.
它被茂密的树冠遮蔽，位于一条通向海岸的严重侵蚀的小溪边缘。
As the ground drops away, a gap in the forest gives you a view across Cook Inlet toward the snowy slopes of Mount Iliamna.
随着地面逐渐下降，森林中的一个缝隙让您可以看到库克湾对面的伊利亚姆纳山的雪坡。
“This must have been paradise for him,” Robert said when we visited, popping a ripe salmonberry into his mouth.
“这对他来说一定是天堂，”我们参观时罗伯特说道，并把一颗成熟的鲑鱼放进嘴里。
Inside, we found a few traces of François’s stay, including a pastel-colored map resting above a windowsill.
在里面，我们发现了弗朗索瓦留下的一些痕迹，包括窗台上放置的一张柔和色彩的地图。
Looking closely, I saw that it was a map of eastern Russia, but the names were in French: Sibérie, Mongolie, and so on.
仔细一看，这是一张俄罗斯东部的地图，但名字却是法语：西伯利亚、蒙古等等。
Then I realized—it was his quadrant from the Risk board.
然后我意识到——这是他在风险委员会的象限。
“It’s the game,” I told Robert.
“这就是游戏，”我告诉罗伯特。
The game that symbolized all the far-off places François wanted to explore, the journey that he would take to get as far away as possible from his family and, he hoped, the influence of modern life.
这款游戏象征着弗朗索瓦想要探索的所有遥远地方，象征着他尽可能远离家人的旅程，以及他希望远离现代生活的影响。
“You can take it back to France with you,” I said.
“你可以把它带回法国，”我说。
Robert passed it wordlessly to Philippe.
罗伯特无声地把它递给了菲利普。
Philippe ran his hand along the edge and looked over at his father.
菲利普把手抚过边缘，看着他的父亲。
Then he set it back on the ledge.
然后他把它放回壁架上。
“No,” he said.
“不，”他说。
“It’s better if it stays here.”
“还是留在这里比较好。”
At four o'clock one morning in July 2013, François climbed into his patchwork kayak, shoved off into the Seldovia harbor, and raised his blue sail.
2013 年 7 月的一天早上四点，弗朗索瓦爬上他拼凑而成的皮划艇，驶入塞尔多维亚港，升起了他的蓝色风帆。
Leaving was always hard for him.
离开对他来说总是很难受。
As he passed the last buoy, he pointed his camera at himself.
当他经过最后一个浮标时，他把相机对准了自己。
“Thank you, Seldovia,” he said.
“谢谢你，塞尔多维亚，”他说。
“Thank you, everybody, for this winter was amazing.
“谢谢大家，这个冬天真是太棒了。
The wind is with me.
风与我同在。
That’s good.” Halfway across Kachemak Bay, he noticed that his kayak wasn’t tracking.
那很好。”在穿过卡彻马克湾的一半时，他注意到他的皮划艇没有跟踪。
He turned around to see the rudder askew, skimming just under the surface.
他转过身来，看到舵歪斜地掠过水面。
He muttered something, and the video ends abruptly.
他嘟哝了一句什么，视频突然结束。
After repairing his craft in Homer, François crossed Cook Inlet during a 17-hour stretch, catching the winds and tides just right.
在荷马修好船只后，弗朗索瓦在 17 小时的路程中横渡库克湾，恰到好处地抓住了风和潮汐。
On July 29, at around midnight, a fisherman spotted him ducking into a bay and asked if he needed help.
7月29日午夜左右，一名渔民发现他潜入海湾，询问他是否需要帮助。
François said he was fine and paddled on.
弗朗索瓦说他很好，然后继续划桨。
He followed the coastline south and was portaging the 15-mile road to Lake Iliamna when a truck pulled over, and he reluctantly accepted a ride.
他沿着海岸线向南行驶，在 15 英里长的道路上前往伊利亚姆纳湖时，一辆卡车靠边停了下来，他不情愿地搭了车。
“I kind of hide, but then they offer me beers,” he said in an e-mail to a friend.
“我有点躲起来，但随后他们给我提供了啤酒，”他在给朋友的电子邮件中说。
Lake Iliamna is massive, nearly 80 miles wide, shaped like a comet heading west.
伊利亚姆纳湖面积巨大，近 80 英里宽，形状像一颗向西行进的彗星。
It’s a place of spooky beauty, one of the only freshwater lakes in the world that has a resident population of seals.
这是一个美丽而诡异的地方，是世界上仅有的有海豹栖息的淡水湖之一。
Locals say the seals winter in underground caves.
当地人说海豹在地下洞穴里过冬。
Then again, they also believe the lake’s depths harbor a prehistoric monster.
不过，他们也相信湖的深处藏着一个史前怪物。
François bounced between the lakeside and saltwater coasts for a couple of months.
弗朗索瓦在湖边和咸水海岸之间颠簸了几个月。
He summited an island volcano called Mount Augustine.
他登上了一座名为奥古斯丁山的岛屿火山。
In September, he met Nicole Evers, a volunteer on the farm of a quirky homestead in Kokhanok, the only town on the lake’s south side.
九月，他遇到了妮可·埃弗斯 (Nicole Evers)，她是科哈诺克 (Kokhanok) 一座奇特农庄农场的志愿者，科哈诺克是湖南岸唯一的城镇。
She had just milked one of the goats when she saw him climb down from a yurt loft, wearing moth-eaten long johns.
当她刚刚给其中一只山羊挤奶时，她看到它穿着被虫蛀的秋裤从蒙古包阁楼上爬下来。
“He looked like a mess,” she told me.
“他看起来一团糟，”她告诉我。
The farm’s owner was the local school principal, Colter Barnes, nicknamed Chewbacca because of his orange lumberjack beard.
农场的主人是当地学校的校长科尔特·巴恩斯 (Colter Barnes)，他因留着橙色伐木工胡子而被昵称为“楚巴卡”(Chewbacca)。
Colter had invited François to stay with them.
科尔特邀请弗朗索瓦和他们住在一起。
“At first we didn’t try to get too close to him,” Nicole recalled.
“一开始我们并没有试图离他太近，”妮可回忆道。
“We thought he was passing by.
“我们以为他是路过的。
He kept all his stuff in his backpack, surveying what to do next.”
他把所有东西都放在背包里，思考下一步该做什么。”
(From left) Nicole Evers, Colter Barnes, Jesse Davis, and François.
（左起）妮可·埃弗斯、科尔特·巴恩斯、杰西·戴维斯和弗朗索瓦。
( Photo: Nicole Evers)
（照片：妮可·埃弗斯）
Things started to change when Nicole and her sister, Danielle, joined François on a multi-day trip to a mountain called Seven Sisters.
当妮可和她的妹妹丹妮尔与弗朗索瓦一起前往七姐妹山进行多日旅行时，事情开始发生变化。
They climbed into the cockpit of his kayak and towed gear behind them in a gray pack raft.
他们爬进他皮划艇的驾驶舱，用灰色的救生筏拖着身后的装备。
One morning they opened the flap of their tent after a storm and all they could see was white.
一天早上，一场暴风雨过后，他们打开帐篷的门帘，看到的只是白色。
Nicole was from Maine and was tough and smart and independent, traits that François obviously admired in a woman.
妮可来自缅因州，坚强、聪明、独立，这些品质显然是弗朗索瓦所钦佩的女性特质。
Late one night, after a box of red wine, they shared stories about their youth and made love.
一天深夜，喝完一盒红酒后，他们分享了青春的故事，做爱了。
Nicole was headed to the Peace Corps in Panama and thought François was going to pack up and leave any day.
妮可正前往巴拿马的和平队，她以为弗朗索瓦随时都会收拾行李离开。
He cooked her pancakes and cut them in the shape of a heart.
他给她做了煎饼，然后把它们切成了心形。
He helped on the farm by building a rabbit hutch, tarring a roof, slaughtering pigs.
他在农场帮忙建了兔舍、在屋顶上涂柏油、宰杀猪。
Colter and Nicole appreciated his help, but he was so relentlessly stubborn.
科尔特和妮可很感激他的帮助，但他却如此顽固。
“I do not like the petrol,” he would tell them, refusing to ride an ATV.
“我不喜欢汽油，”他会告诉他们，并拒绝乘坐全地形车。
He believed their animals should be free-range.
他认为他们的动物应该是自由放养的。
One day, Nicole found him standing outside the chicken coop, distraught.
有一天，妮可发现他站在鸡舍外面，心烦意乱。
“ Mais non!
“我不！
Mais non!
不！
” he repeated.
“他重复道。
He’d left the door open, and a dog had massacred their hens.
他把门开着，一只狗屠杀了他们的母鸡。
Over Christmas, it dawned on François that Nicole had also been hooking up with Colter, and he was floored.
圣诞节期间，弗朗索瓦突然意识到妮可也和科尔特交往，这让他大吃一惊。
“We were trying to all be friends on this hippie commune, free love and all that,” Nicole said.
“我们试图在这个嬉皮公社、自由恋爱等等方面成为朋友，”妮可说。
“He gave off this vibe that he was like that, but deep down he was a very sensitive, intimate little boy.” François took a breath and went downstairs to the workshop.
“他给人的感觉就是这样，但内心深处他是一个非常敏感、亲密的小男孩。”弗朗索瓦吸了口气，下楼去了车间。
Nicole heard the muffled roar of him cursing.
妮可听到他低沉的咒骂声。
“ Putain!
“普坦！
” he shouted.
“他喊道。
Colter tried to reason with François, explaining that they were all just having fun before going their separate ways in the spring, but François was not appeased.
科尔特试图与弗朗索瓦讲道理，解释说他们只是在春天分道扬镳之前玩得很开心，但弗朗索瓦并没有安抚。
“I’m not like you Americans,” he said.
“我不像你们美国人，”他说。
In late January, he wrote Nicole an expletive-laced letter that he never sent and stormed out.
一月下旬，他给妮可写了一封充满咒骂的信，但他从未寄出，然后气冲冲地走了出去。
During his exile, François dedicated himself to betterment, spending time with Gary Nielsen, a portly, bassoon-voiced man who ran the local general store.
在流亡期间，弗朗索瓦致力于改善生活，与加里·尼尔森（Gary Nielsen）共度时光，加里·尼尔森是一位肥胖、巴松管嗓音的男子，他经营着当地的一家杂货店。
“He was under a tree about a quarter-mile away,” Nielsen told me while he sat on the couch in his living room.
“他在大约四分之一英里外的一棵树下，”尼尔森坐在客厅的沙发上告诉我。
“He moved up here and was staying in my steam bath.”
“他搬到了这里，住在我的蒸汽浴室里。”
François had been feeding Nielsen’s sled dogs over the winter and keeping them in shape on a sled he built himself.
整个冬天，弗朗索瓦一直在喂养尼尔森的雪橇犬，并在他自己制作的雪橇上让它们保持体形。
Then, as the ice broke up in early spring, he set out on a journey.
然后，随着初春冰雪融化，他踏上了旅程。
He loaded a small backpack and walked west along the shore of Lake Iliamna.
他背上小背包，沿着伊利亚姆纳湖岸向西走。
Locals had stopped walking on the ice a week or two earlier, and they warned him to stay off.
一两周前，当地人就已经停止在冰面上行走，并警告他不要再走。
After 20 miles, he turned north and crossed the lake at the mouth of a river, where the ice is thinnest.
20英里后，他转向北边，在冰最薄的河口越过湖泊。
When he made it to the other shore, it seemed like a miracle.
当他到达彼岸时，这似乎是一个奇迹。
François merrily kept going, visiting settlements en route.
弗朗索瓦愉快地继续前行，途中参观了定居点。
By the time he meandered back to Kokhanok, 45 days later, he felt rejuvenated.
45 天后，当他蜿蜒回到科哈诺克时，他感觉自己又恢复了活力。
“I made some friends along my walk and connected with the spirits of the places I visited,” he wrote.
“我在散步中结识了一些朋友，并与我所到过的地方的精神产生了联系，”他写道。
“The villagers of the lake always welcomed me, gave me food, sometimes they accepted my help, and I discovered their way of life.”
“湖边的村民总是欢迎我，给我食物，有时他们接受我的帮助，我发现了他们的生活方式。”
Before sunrise one day in early August, Philippe got a call from an unknown number, but there was only silence on the other end.
八月初的一天，日出前，菲利普接到一个陌生号码打来的电话，但那头却一片寂静。
He was certain it had to be François, but when he called back the number was disconnected.
他确信一定是弗朗索瓦打来的，但当他再拨过去时，号码已挂断。
By this time, I’d already headed off on my own to continue reporting.
这时，我已经独自出发去继续报道了。
Meanwhile, Robert and Philippe met a French-speaking woman who was convinced that the search for François was inadequate, and she helped them set up a meeting with Alaska state troopers to try to initiate a new hunt on land.
与此同时，罗伯特和菲利普遇到了一位讲法语的妇女，她确信对弗朗索瓦的搜寻还不够，她帮助他们与阿拉斯加州警察举行了一次会议，试图在陆地上发起新的狩猎。
Robert and Philippe made an appeal for help in the Dispatch , but Alaska had moved on.
罗伯特和菲利普在《快报》中呼吁帮助，但阿拉斯加已经继续前进。
On August 17, they returned to France.
8月17日，他们返回法国。
Three weeks later, Andy Schroeder, the executive director of the Kodiak Island Trails Network , was motoring alone in a 13-foot Zodiac, scouting sites for a marine-debris cleanup his organization runs every year.
三周后，科迪亚克岛步道网络 (Kodiak Island Trails Network) 的执行董事安迪·施罗德 (Andy Schroeder) 独自驾驶一辆 13 英尺长的 Zodiac，为他的组织每年都会举办的海洋垃圾清理活动寻找地点。
As he pulled up to the beach on a small island north of Kodiak, he saw what looked like a body sprawled in the shallow water.
当他把车停到科迪亚克以北的一个小岛上的海滩时，他看到浅水中有一具看起来像尸体的东西。
It was little more than a skeleton, kept intact by neoprene chest waders and a green rain jacket.
它只不过是一具骨架，由氯丁橡胶防水裤和绿色雨衣完好无损地保存着。
It was so badly decomposed that Schroeder couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.
它已经严重腐烂，施罗德无法判断它是男人还是女人。
Following instructions he got on his cell phone from state troopers, he wrapped it in a tarp and dragged it above the tide line.
按照州警通过手机发出的指示，他将手机包裹在防水布中，然后将其拖到潮汐线以上。
Dental records confirmed that it was François.
牙科记录证实这是弗朗索瓦。
In January of this year, his remains were cremated and shipped back to Maîche, where a ceremony was held at a small church.
今年一月，他的遗体被火化并运回迈什，并在一座小教堂举行了仪式。
“As parents, we should not regret having accomplished our mission of raising our children to be men who are free, independent, and autonomous,” Robert said at the funeral.
罗伯特在葬礼上说：“作为父母，我们不应该后悔完成了我们的使命，将我们的孩子培养成自由、独立和自主的人。”
“We have a life to cross.
“我们还有一段人生要跨越。
Some cross it faster than others.”
有些人比其他人更快地穿过它。”
François seaside in 2012.
2012 年，弗朗索瓦海边。
( Photo: Courtesy of the Guenot family)
（照片：盖诺家族提供）
Almost everything we know about François’s final days comes from the journals found in his drybag on the beach.
我们所知道的关于弗朗索瓦最后几天的一切几乎都来自他在海滩上的干燥袋中发现的日记。
He departed Kokhanok on May 22, 2014, an overstuffed pack on his back, junk dangling off like Christmas ornaments.
2014 年 5 月 22 日，他离开科哈诺克，背上背着一个装满东西的背包，垃圾像圣诞装饰品一样晃来晃去。
He had a small collection of paperback books, including Never Cry Wolf by Canadian environmentalist Farley Mowat and an anthology of Victor Hugo stories.
他收藏了少量平装书，包括加拿大环保主义者法利·莫瓦特的《狼来了》和维克多·雨果的故事选集。
Before François left, he wrote a poem in English for Nielsen about his longing to be at sea.
弗朗索瓦离开前，用英语为尼尔森写了一首诗，表达了他对海上的渴望。
“Each wave is a pocket of my soul.
“每一浪都是我灵魂的一个口袋。
Make my life real as it does!” He signed it “the crazy Frenchman.”
让我的生活变得真实！”他在上面署名“疯狂的法国人”。
On his first night, François camped near Gibraltar Lake and then fought his way to the coast through alder, rocky canyons, and beaver ponds.
在他的第一个晚上，弗朗索瓦在直布罗陀湖附近露营，然后穿过桤木、岩石峡谷和海狸池塘到达海岸。
“Voila, the first day of my adventure to the Ocean,” he wrote in his journal.
“瞧，这是我海洋冒险的第一天，”他在日记中写道。
A local bush pilot had dropped his kayak and provisions at a ramshackle coastal cabin.
当地一名丛林飞行员把他的皮划艇和补给品扔在了一间摇摇欲坠的沿海小屋里。
After spending a few days there he kayaked north, camping and fishing in Bruin Bay, before turning south again in early June.
在那里待了几天后，他划皮划艇向北，在布鲁因湾露营和钓鱼，然后在六月初再次向南航行。
He was heading down to Chignik or maybe planning to trek across the Alaska Peninsula to Egegik.
他正前往奇格尼克，或者可能计划徒步穿越阿拉斯加半岛前往埃杰吉克。
The only thing he knew for sure was that he was headed to see the “ famille Guenot.”
他唯一确定的事情就是他要去见“盖诺家族”。
Flipping through the journal in Seldovia, Robert had been captivated by all these details.
在塞尔多维亚翻阅日记时，罗伯特被这些细节迷住了。
I asked him then if he was starting to understand his son.
然后我问他是否开始理解他的儿子了。
“He discovered a true way to live,” he told me.
“他发现了一种真正的生活方式，”他告诉我。
“This trip has given me a lot of time to reflect.”
“这次旅行给了我很多时间去反思。”
“Do you think you’re going to change things in your life?” I asked.
“你认为你会改变你生活中的事情吗？”我问。
“I am going to attach less importance to the material world.”
“我将不再那么重视物质世界。”
Robert turned the page.
罗伯特翻过这一页。
In early June, the journal said, the weather on the water proved unpredictable.
该杂志称，六月初，水面上的天气难以预测。
François hoped to paddle 12 miles a day, but he was fighting the wind and traveling less than half that.
弗朗索瓦希望每天划船 12 英里，但他顶着风，行进的距离还不到一半。
“I have made very little progress,” he despaired upon arriving at the north side of Cape Douglas on June 14.
“我几乎没有取得任何进展，”6 月 14 日抵达道格拉斯角北侧时，他感到绝望。
He stashed his gear underneath a cliff and tried fishing.
他将装备藏在悬崖下并尝试钓鱼。
“There is a lot of wind this evening,” he wrote.
“今晚风很大，”他写道。
“The Pacific ocean comforts me.
“太平洋让我感到安慰。
The long and high waves make me imagine far away places.”
又长又高的波浪让我想象很远的地方。”
He knew the only way he was going to meet his father in time was to paddle away from the coast, where he could chance it on the swift and unpredictable currents of the Shelikof Strait.
他知道，要及时见到父亲，唯一的办法就是划船离开海岸，这样他就可以在谢利科夫海峡湍急而难以预测的水流中碰碰运气。
At 1 P.M.
下午 1 点
on June 15, he wrote his last entry before rounding the cape and pointing himself toward open water.
6 月 15 日，他在绕过海角并指向开阔水域之前写下了最后一篇文章。
The skies were clear and the water quiet, but he knew what he was getting into.
天空晴朗，水面平静，但他知道自己将面临什么。
“Shit, I am a fool,” he scribbled.
“该死，我是个傻瓜，”他潦草地写道。
“Completely crazy.
“完全疯了。
I’ll go on.
我会继续。
We shall see.”
我们将会看到。
Brendan Borrell ( @bborrell ) writes for Scientific American and Smithsonian .
Brendan Borrell (@bborrell) 为《科学美国人》和史密森学会撰稿。
He lives in Brooklyn, New York.
他住在纽约布鲁克林。