The Reindeer Herders of the Altai: Meeting Xinjiang’s Last Nomadic Reindeer Keepers

The first time I saw a reindeer in Xinjiang I was not expecting one. I had driven the long way up from Burqin, past the cottonwood flats where the river turns a strange chalky blue, and was climbing the last switchbacks toward the Kanas reserve when a small herd stepped out of the birch forest about twenty kilometers short of Hemu village. A man in a short sheepskin coat was leading them, and he did not look surprised to see a rented SUV with a confused foreigner behind the wheel. That was the start of a week I still think about whenever someone asks me what makes the Altai different from the rest of Xinjiang.

The herders belong to the Ewenki, a people whose relatives range across Siberia and into the Greater Khingan range, but the families I met live at the southern edge of the taiga, where the mountains of China, Russia, Mongolia and Kazakhstan crowd together. They are the only reindeer herders left in Xinjiang, and probably the only ones south of the Arctic Circle who still move with their animals through the forest the old way. I spent four days with one household, and what I learned did not fit the postcards at all.

Getting to the taiga

Most foreign travelers reach this corner by flying into Altay City or Urumqi and renting a car. The drive from Burqin to the Kanas gate is about 150 kilometers, and from the gate it is another 30 kilometers to Hemu. I had given myself three full days for the stretch, which turned out to be barely enough. The road is paved but narrow, and in October the light fails by six in the evening, so I was stopping early and sleeping cold.

You need a border-area permit for Kanas, and as a foreign national you should sort it in Burqin or Altay before you head up. The checkpoint staff speak little English, but a screenshot of your hotel booking and a friendly smile got me through in about twenty minutes. Plan for a 160 yuan entry ticket to the reserve on top of the fuel, and bring cash: the herders do not take cards, and the nearest ATM that worked for my foreign card was back in Burqin.

Hemu itself is the obvious base, and if you want the classic wooden-cabin experience you can read up first in our guide to visiting Hemu village before you commit to a night there. I stayed two nights in the village and used the third to push deeper into the forest with a local driver who knew the herding families by name.

The drive itself is half the pleasure. Between Burqin and the gate the road follows the river through a wide gravel plain, then climbs through a belt of juniper where the wind gets honest. I stopped once at a roadside stand around the 90 kilometer mark to buy smoked fish and hot corn from a woman who warmed her hands on the kettle. She charged me 15 yuan and waved me on without a word. Those small stops are where the trip stops feeling like a transfer and starts feeling like a place.

Meeting the herders

The household I visited lived in a canvas tent pitched on a mossy flat beside a frozen creek, with a ring of low spruce poles to keep the reindeer from wandering too far at night. There were eleven animals: six adults, four yearlings, and a calf born that spring. The patriarch, whom I will call Old Baoyir, had herded since he was nine. He told me, through my driver translating, that his family had moved camp four times already that autumn, following the lichen.

Reindeer here live almost entirely on ground lichen, the pale, branching stuff that grows slow under the spruce. When the snow gets deep the animals paw through it with their hooves, and the herders burn small fires to melt the top crust so the herd can feed. A healthy adult eats maybe four kilos of lichen a day, which means the family cannot stay in one place long. That is the whole logic of the life: keep moving, or watch the animals thin.

I asked Baoyir what he thought of the tourists who now come up the valley. He shrugged and pointed at the calf. “They like to take pictures,” he said. “As long as they do not scare the deer.” He sells a little dried reindeer milk cheese to visitors for 40 yuan a bag, and carves small antler toggles that sell for 20 yuan each at the Hemu market. It is not much, but it buys flour and salt.

The animals themselves surprised me. A full-grown male stands only about 1.1 meters at the shoulder, smaller than the European reindeer I had seen in photos, with broader hooves built for snow and a coat so dense it sheds the Burqin rain in sheets. Both sexes grow antlers, which Baoyir said marked them as the southernmost wild-herd lineage left in the country. He touched the velvet on a yearling’s new spike and grinned. “Soft now. Hard by November.”

Two of Baoyir’s grandchildren were at the camp, a boy of seven and a girl of nine, and they followed the dogs more than the deer. Their mother wants them in Burqin for school, she told my driver, but in autumn the family still pulls them north so they learn the herd. The girl could already tell a healthy antler from a sick one by smell. Watching her I understood that this life is not dying in a dramatic way. It is being slowly swapped for something safer, and the swap is happening one school term at a time.

What a day actually looks like

We were up before the sun, around seven. Baoyir’s daughter lit the stove with birch bark while he walked out to check the herd. By eight the animals had drifted back to the tent line for their morning milking. The does stand calm and let the women draw maybe a cup each, enough for the family’s tea but never a surplus.

Midday was the long walk. The family moves the herd a few kilometers every few days, and I helped carry a rolled tent and a sack of pots on a makeshift sled. It was slow going through knee-deep moss, and I understood why they laugh at the idea of a “hiking trip.” This is walking as survival, not sport, done in felt boots with the wind coming straight off the Siberian plain.

By late afternoon the animals were grazing the new clearing, and the herders built a low fire to keep wolves and stray dogs away. Baoyir poured me a bowl of milk tea, thick with salt, and we sat while the light went orange behind the spruce. That quiet hour, with no engine and no signal, is the thing I came for and the thing no photo catches.

When to go

Timing matters more here than almost anywhere else I have driven in Xinjiang. Late September through mid-October is the sweet spot: the birch are gold, the mosquitoes are gone, and the first snow has not yet closed the high forest roads. I went the first week of October and had clear skies, though the night temperature dropped to minus nine.

Winter is beautiful but brutal, with roads to Hemu sometimes blocked for days, and the herders deep in their coldest camps. Summer brings the worst mosquitoes I have ever met, plus the heaviest tourist crowds around Kanas Lake. If your main goal is the reindeer, aim for the shoulder season and check road conditions in Burqin the morning you leave.

The region’s colors are famous for a reason, and if you want to plan a wider loop around your visit, our autumn foliage routes for northern Xinjiang lay out a sensible order for the birch and larch stands from Burqin east.

Practicalities and respect

A few things I wish I had known. Bring your own food and offer to share it; the herders eat simply and will not expect a feast, but a loaf of bread or a bag of sugar is a real gift. Do not walk between a herder and the animals, do not try to ride the reindeer, and ask before you film anyone’s face. A 50 to 100 yuan contribution to the household, handed over quietly, is fairer than haggling over a trinket.

Pack for cold even in early autumn. My phone battery died at minus five within an hour, so I carried a power bank inside my coat and kept spare socks in a dry bag. Felt boots or insulated hiking shoes beat fashion every time, and a pair of cheap snow gaiters saved my shins from the wet moss. The herders wear recycled tractor tire for sole leather, and they outwalked me in every clearing.

Photography is allowed and the light is extraordinary, but the forest is dark and the animals skittish, so a long lens and a steady hand beat a flash every time. If wildlife and patient fieldwork are your interest, our wildlife watching and photography guide covers the wider region’s species and the best blinds and timing.

For sleep, the choices are few. Hemu has guesthouses from about 200 yuan a night in autumn, and the simpler the cabin the warmer the stove usually is. If you want something between a tent and a hotel, our glamping and yurt camp guide lists a couple of spots within reach that keep the northern lights in mind.

Making it part of a longer trip

The reindeer families sit at the far north of a route that most visitors only sample. If you have a week and a decent car, you can combine the taiga with the lake country and still have room to breathe. Our seven-day northern Xinjiang itinerary strings Burqin, Kanas, and Hemu into a loop that leaves a day free for the herders if you ask your driver to detour.

I drove that loop myself, leaving Altay City on a Tuesday and rolling back into Burqin the following Monday with a fuel bill of around 600 yuan and a phone full of birch-gold photos. The reindeer day was the one I would repeat. Everything else you can see from a viewpoint; the herders you have to be invited to.

What stays with me

I left the camp the way I came in, on foot to the road where my driver waited. Baoyir shook my hand and said, in the few English words he knew, “Come back, same snow.” I doubt the life will last another generation unchanged. The young ones are in Burqin schools now, and the lichen moves slower than the tourists. But for the moment the reindeer still walk the Altai the way they have for centuries, and a self-drive traveler with patience can still sit by that fire.

If you go, go slowly. The road will teach you patience whether you like it or not, and the herders will teach you the rest. Pack for cold, carry cash, learn the permit routine, and leave the drones at home. The Altai does not perform for the camera. It just keeps going, quiet and old, while the rest of us pass through.