A Brief Encounter With the Tsaatan Reindeer People

Twenty one Dukha families, also known as the Tsaatan reindeer herders, reside in the East Taiga Region of Northern Mongolia, about seventy kilometers from the small town of Tsagaannur. I arrive at their camp after an arduous eight-hour horse ride through open grassland, pine forests and snow-capped rugged terrain. Exhausted, cold and wet from the rainy downpour, I’m fearful of the half dozen barking dogs that greet me.

In the distance, families are semi-dismantling their uurtz - canvas teepees - getting ready to move about forty kilometers closer to Tsagaannur. It is at a lower altitude and the winters are not as brutal. It’s only mid-August, but the air is chilly.

This is the most remote place on earth to me, the edge of civilization. The forests are filled with wolves that regularly threaten reindeer, the Dukha’s only livelihood. Reindeer provide all the Dukha’s survival needs, from transportation to the staples of their diet: cheese, milk, yogurt and dried milk curds.

I had envisaged a Shangri la and yes, it is a breathtakingly beautiful area of Mongolia, but life up here is tough and at times bleak. I am this week’s only visitor and part of me has the inkling to retreat back down to the familiarity of my warm ger.

I eat baisleg (reindeer cheese) and my hosts Darima and Oogdorj offer me copious amounts of suuteitsai, a tasteless milky tea. It warms, but doesn’t fill me. My guide sells candy bags, smokes and choco pies to droves of people who arrive with their precious tugriks. Dried goat meat hangs on the yurt’s circular canvas walls and in the smoky air, plentiful conversations are spoken in soft and whispered tones.

I am eager to meet the local shaman and when she arrives she complains to me of her painful toothache and asks for medicine. I’m only able to offer her six aspirin and my bracelet. She grins at me with delight and I laugh at the irony.

Even though I am in my goose down sleeping bag the dampness of the cool ground seeps through to my bones and the next morning I take a long walk further up the valley where cold, clear water trickles down the mountains. An enveloping endless cloud makes me feel like the only person on earth. A few male reindeer pass me and nod their massive velvety antlers towards me curiously.

At noon I...