some ragamuffin: an excellent adventure

Aimag- a Mongolian province

Hovsgol- an aimag bordering Siberia

Moron- Hovsgol’s capital

Tsagaan Nuur- the northernmost town of Mongolia’s northernmost aimag

Taiga- the geographical region where the Tsaatan live

Tsaatan- Mongolia’s smallest ethnic minority, also known as the Dakha. The Tsaatan herd their reindeer in the Eastern Saya Mountains spanning the Siberian and Mongolian border.

I should provide some context.

The original plan was to spend our first six weeks in Mongolia working with the Itgel Foundation, an NGO focused on Tsaatan community and reindeer health. Itgel indicated that they could make use of us in some of their education and surveillance work. But there is no Internet in the area that the Itgel Foundation serves, and our contact with them was inconstant. Upon our arrival in Mongolia, we asked around and determined that our contact and Itgel’s founder, Morgan Keay, had returned to the United States, and that Itgel’s activities were effectively suspended until further notice. The details surrounding this conclusion were hazy, but at any rate Morgan was no longer responding to our emails, and it looked like we were SOL. We continued to ask around and soon a friend introduced us to a friend who put us into contact with a friend. This friend was the founder of the grassroots NGO The Reindeer Fund, which works to improve socioeconomic opportunities and promote education in the Tsaatan community. His name was Sukhbaatar, a bewhiskered old gentleman with a deliberate, patient way of speaking and beautiful penmanship.

With the help of a long-suffering translator, we interviewed Dr. Sukhbaatar about his work, and he encouraged us to travel to the taiga region. Dr. Sukhbaatar, being familiar with veterinarians and students, knew that we would find it interesting. In fact, he turned us on to a veterinary friend of his who had plans to travel to Tsagaan Nuur and the taiga the following week.

Dr. Namsalmaa was busy with her own research, as well as an American veterinary student from Cornell, and a conference being held in Tsagaan Nuur. Nevertheless she was perfectly friendly and gave us tentative dates for when she would be in the region.

Dr. Nansalmaa and Jocelyn from Cornell

So we began planning our trip. For three days we ran around like startled goats, procuring boarder permits, letters of endorsement, residency cards, supplies, and advice. The population density of Hovsgol is 1.34 people/km², so we did our best to organize logistics ahead of time, our Mongolian friends acting as translators through distant cell phone connections.

We received dire warnings and cautionary tales. We were advised it would rain the whole time and freeze overnight.

“You have a good tent right???” Sukhbaatar’s daughter asked, and I tried to nod confidently, thinking secretly of the moldy old thing I’d unearthed from its thirty-year hiatus in my parents' garage.

We were warned of the gold miners, and advised to avoid looking conspicuous (ha). We were warned of the military, and told to avoid looking Russian. We were warned of the spirited taiga ponies, and were begged to avoid well-aimed and sharp little hooves.

pretty boy

A long-time American fishing guide we met in the airport raised one eyebrow at us:
“You’re going to West Taiga? Please, when your horse falls belly-deep into a bog, take your feet out of the stirrups,” he drily said.
“Duly noted,” I replied. I would have raised an eyebrow myself but alas I don’t possess that particular talent.

I wondered for just a second if we weren’t jumping in over our heads. At any rate, by the end of three days we were as prepared as we’d ever be, with camping equipment, riding boots, rain gear, gifts, and nine day’s worth of food packed into two backpacks. This might have conjured a moments pride if we weren’t in a country where a man will travel several weeks with nothing but the del on his back and a lump of rock-like cheese curd in his pocket.

So anyway, we flew to Moron. Three hours at the military office, and then into a Soviet era minivan. The roads are countless dirt tracks etched into the terrain, crossing, separating, and converging again like bundles of ribbons. Shades of green and shadow impart an endless quality to the hilled landscape. And from a minivan, that’s where the beauty ends. Thirteen bone-crunching, joint powdering, stomach-churning hours later, we were in Hovsgol’s northernmost town.

Nansalma had unexpectedly stopped to visit family on the way up, so for the time being she was MIA. We camped in the back yard of a local friend, Bayarma. Her young daughters brought us salty milk tea and sweet homemade blueberry juice. The next day we were introduced to a local guide and his horses, and set off for the taiga.


Bayarma's house in Tsagaan Nuur. The younger sister is attempting to climb the ladder, while the older sister in the loft is trying to tip her over.

Tsagaan Nuur


in Tsagaan Nuur

rowing on the lake in Tsagaan Nuur

As is usually the case, nothing turned out to be as bad, or as difficult, or as dangerous as we were led to believe. I can see what the American meant about the bogs, although happily none of our party succumbed to that fate. And the miners left us alone, or should I say, the Ninjas.

I spotted a Ninja

Micheal Kohn did a pretty great job of illuminating the Ninjas for Lonely Planet, so I’m stealing his blurb here.

Nomads to Ninjas

Miners indulging in Mongolia’s great new gold rush are turning verdant plain and pure rivers inside out in search of buried fortunes. But for once, its not just the megacorporations from Ulaanbaatar that are to blame, it’s the Ninjas.

When severe winters in the beginning of the millennium wiped out entire herds and family fortunes, many impoverished nomads turned to illegal gold mining in Bulgan, Tov, and Selenge aimags. The green, shell-like buckets strapped to their backs, coupled with their covert night-time operations, earned them the moniker ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,’ or Ninjas for short.

The Ninjas, who often pan what larger mining corporations dredge from the flooded plains, attracted interest from businesspeople who sold them food and supplies. Soon ‘Ninja ger boomtowns’ developed, each with ger-butchers, ger-shops, ger-karaoke barrs, ger-sega parlours, and ger-goldsmiths. Police have tried, often vainly, to break up the settlements, but the Ninjas return in larger numbers.

The Ninjas, who number more than 100 000, pose a serious threat to the environment and themselves. Unlike the licensed mining companies, they don’t clean up after themselves; their work sites are often littered with discarded batteries and open pits. Mercury and cyanide, used to separate gold from the rock, add more problems. Health workers report that miners who use these methods have levels of mercury in their urine that are five to six times the safe limit.

Ninjas account for an incredible US$140 million in gold exports (although official bank numbers say US$40 million). They receive US$500 per troy ounce, completely illegal and untaxed. Most Ninjas earn US$16 to US$24 per day. This kind of money, ten times that of other rural salaries, has attracted more than out-of-work nomads. They’ve been joined by pensioners, redundant farm workers and poorly paid civil servants. Students who come in summer are able to finance their entire university education.

But this is dangerous business— a couple dozen Ninjas are buried alive in mine shafts each year. Recognising that the Ninjas won’t go away, the government has considered ways to legalise their activities, protect their health, and clean up their mess, if for no other reason than to tax their cache, which is mostly smuggled to China.

Two days of gorgeous mountain riding brought us to the Tsaatan summer camp, which was just getting underway.