Nature’s greatest splendors are often secreted in the remotest of spots. This is certainly true of Kanas Lake, deep in the Altay Mountains of northern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. This area of sublime, and as yet unsullied, natural beauty is home to 2,000 people of the Tuwa ethnic minority. The ancestry of these herder-hunters is unclear. Certain anthropologists believe that they are descended from Genghis Khan’s “Mongol hordes” that swept through on their 13th century rampage of Central Asia and Europe. Others argue that they are the posterity of Siberian migrants, and cousins to the Tuvan people of Russia.

Tuwa Village

The Tuwa community of 80-odd households is sequestered in a narrow, shallow valley. Log huts with sharply sloping roofs, interspersed with towering pines and silver aspens, bathe in warm sunshine under the sky’s azure canopy. Friendship Peak on the Sino-Russian border soars in the distance; the arctic Siberian winds blowing over it warm upon their descent into the valley, creating a climate in which dense woods and lush pastures flourish.

As the Tuwa people are Lamaists, each household has a shrine dedicated to the 11th Panchen Lama at the northern wall of its west-facing room, around whose portrait are hung animal hides as a token of good wishes. Household elders and women generally perform the traditional rituals. As earlier generations of Tuwa were Shamanists, there are remnants of this pagan belief in the contemporary community. Shamanistic dances are generally performed at major festivals.

All newcomers to the community receive a warm welcome at any of the local households they enter. A variety of drinks and snacks unique to the community are presented immediately upon entry. Visitors may try each specialty as they wish, but drinking two cups of buttered tea is a compulsory ritual. The tea, butter and slices of milk curd are separately served and mixed to the partaker’s taste. The sliced milk curd softens and melts in the hot tea, giving it a refreshing piquancy.

When the first cup is empty, it is immediately refilled according to the Tuwa convention. This is based on the reasoning that as the visitor enters the household on two legs they will, after drinking two cups of tea, leave in the same fashion.

The Tuwa actually regard the number two as sacred. If two Tuwa men fight, others will look on impassively, making no attempt to intervene, no matter how badly either of the two adversaries may be injured. Any attempt to separate them would be regarded as an insult. Any wel intentioned stranger that tries to deter them will take a beating from both for his trouble. A fight between two Tuwa men does not end until one of them lies helpless on the ground.

Two is the number of horses a Tuwa man may own in his lifetime. At the age of 20, when his adulthood officially begins, his family gives him a horse, which he rides back and forth joyfully throughout the Altay Mountains. He gets the second horse -- his mount until death -- at the age of 40.

Tuwa settlement in winter (Image: China Today)

Two is also the maximum number of girls a man may court in his lifetime. Those that fail to find a wife after two attempts remain celibate for the rest of their lives. They get no sympathy from their fellow villagers, the scorn they suffer being based on the maxim: “The thinnest goat becomes strong after crossing two peaks; the weakest-hearted eagle soars after flying over two mountains; and even the slowest-witted man learns after two tries.” Two men in the village, one aged 38 and the other 46, have disgraced themselves by twice failing to find a wife. Villagers attribute the pair’s bad luck to having incurred Genghis Khan’s disfavor, but are in some way grateful to them for filling the required “quota” of two for village bachelors.

Kanas Lake

Kanas is Mongolian for beautiful, abundant and mysterious. The lake is deep in the virgin forests of the Altay Mountains of northern Burqin County in Xinjiang. This 44.78-square-kilometer lake is 1,374 meters above sea level, and has a maximum depth of 180 meters.
Its glittering crystal waters reflect the hues of the cloud, sky, rocks, trees and other flora that surround it.

The nature reserve bounding the lake is the only one in China to border three other nations - Russia, Mongolia and Kazakhstan. Lake Kanas is the source of the Burqin River -- the biggest tributary of the Ertix that, alone of all Chinese rivers, flows to the Arctic Ocean. It is also the sole region in China of South Siberian flora and fauna.

Of the many legends emanating from Kanas Lake, the most intriguing is that of its fabled monster. The Tuwa have believed for generations that the lake is the habitat of a behemoth that breathes mists and clouds that act as camouflage for its periodical forays to prey on local livestock. This legend has been proved an old wives' tale after several sightings by tourists and scientists in recent years of a shoal of huge fish that lined up for dozens of meters long.

Tuwa horsemen riding in the snow (Image: China Today)

Members of a scientific exploration team from the Xinjiang University spotted a school of huge fish in Kanas Lake in the 1980s. Two days later an expedition from the Xinjiang Environmental Science Institute had a similar sighting that they were able to record on film and video.

Biologists conclude that the creature is the Hucho taimen, a ferocious carnivore that lives as long as 200 years, grows to a length of two to three meters, weighs hundreds of kilograms and swims in schools. A six-kilogram taimen once caught was found to have ingested two wild ducks.

Local Tuwas, however, are unconvinced. Their sustained belief in the lake’s fishy monster prevents them from fishing from or allowing their livestock to graze by it.

The second Kanas oddity is its natural log dyke. At the northern mouth of the lake floats a phalanx of dead trees that is 100-odd meters wide and 2,000 meters long. It remains perennially in place, resisting the waters flushing downstream. What seems uncanny about the dam is that logs that have been taken out, carried and placed in the lower reaches of the lake always drift back to it. There is, however, a scientific explanation for this phenomenon: logs float from upper rivers into the lake, but are unable to move further down the watercourse because of currents that are caused by gusts of wind diverted to the valley by mountains south of the lake. Over the years, these “captured” logs have stacked up and formed a spectacular natural dam.

The beauty of Kanas Lake is further enhanced by the changes in its color according to the season. During the thaw in May it is a deep grayish blue, which by June, when it reflects summer’s mountain greenery, has turned sky blue. July is the flooding season, when deluges from the White Lake upriver bleach Lake Kanas milky white. High rainfall in August deepens its color once more to an aqua green, which turns brilliant emerald in the drier months of September and October.

Among the several contributing factors to this phenomenon are the various minerals that are carried downstream from the upper rivers, the changing colors of plant life on the mountains around the lake, and the varying angle of sunshine on the water surface throughout the year.

But scientific explanations are the last thing on your mind if you are lucky enough to stand on the banks of Lake Kanas and gaze at natural beauty unchanged for tens of thousands of years.