Profile of Kanas

“Kanas”, located at the north of Buerjin County and 150 km from the county seat, is an alpine lake in high Altai Mountains and forests, the outstanding one of Altai scenic tourism resources and called “Pearl in Tourism of Altai Mountains”. “Kanas” means “fair, rich and mysterious land” in Mongolian language. Its lake surface is like a crescent, with altitude of 1374m, length of 25km, width of 1.6—2.9 km, area of 4478 sq. km and the deepest point of 188m, making it the deepest lake in Xinjiang. The lake surface’s color can change with changing of season and weather all the time, winning it the fame of “color-changing lake”. Surrounding the lake there is layer upon layer of mountains, presenting you beautiful views of lake and mountains, enticing, enchanting. This area is the only distribution area in China where Syberia region series animals and valuable trees such as larch, Korean pine, spruce and fir grow, including 177 varieties of birds, 39 varieties of beasts, more than 300 varieties of insects, and seven varieties of fish in the lake.

In autumn, trees compete with each other to show their beauties, colorful lake and mountains views accompany, offering you a fairytale-like world… from the last 10 days of May to the middle 10 days of June, peony and gold lotus bloom all over the mountains and plains, like artificial garden. Kanas always offers her charm in the early morning, when thick fog rises, “dark green forest and sea of clouds” and “mysterious fog over the lake” bring you dream-like beauties; right after raining, when clouds remain, standing on top of Halakait Mountain, you may see “Buddha’s halo”, if luck on your side. Kanas is under cold temperate zone, characterized by long winter but almost no summer, and autumn following spring. Average temperature in July is 15.9 ℃, very suitable for growth of trees and forests of cold temperature zone.

Beautiful and quiet Moon Bend is one of key scenic spots in Kanas. The Moon Bend can change with changing of water of Kanas Lake, and is a pearl on Kanas River. At the turn of river, there are two shallow beaches, vividly looking like two large foot prints, which are, as legend goes, a pair of bare foot prints of Chang’e, a fairy in ancient Chinese mythology.

There are several miracles in Kanas. The first is 1,000-m-long dead wood dyke, formed by wood floating on the lake, which goes upstream under strong wind from the valley nearby and piles there, the second is giant “Lake Monster”, who often draws horse drinking on lakeside into water, leaving some mysteries over Kanas; the third is Buddha’s halo over sea of clouds, a top landscape like that over Emi Mountains, only in shining days after raining.

Endowed with views like virile North-China landscapes, and like pretty and elegant South-China mountains and waters, how can Kanas not be called as best view in Western Region and fairyland on earth?