Yagra

Yagra Township is easily the most beautiful place in Deqen Prefecture. It is situated deep in the mountains at the juncture of Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet.

 

Covering an area of 1,087 square kilometers, it is called "North Pole of Yunnan."

 

Yagra Township is also the poorest township in the province, though the Yunnan provincial government has taxed its ingenuity in an effort to help it shake off poverty. No highways pave the way into the area; instead visitors must trek for two days along a 37-km mountain path.

 

In recent years, several thousand tons of materials, such as cement, steel and rubber pipes and daily-use articles have been transported to the township by horse and human shoulder step by step up the mountains. Nyimagyi, deputy secretary of the Yagra Township Committee of the CPC, says that only the Yagra people could endure such hardships.

 

In the 1970s, the Yagra people caused a sensation when they purchased a bulldozer from the interior area. When the machine was transported to the end of the highway, they dismantled it and carried the parts one by one over the mountain, and re-assembled it on the other side. They used the bulldozer to turn wasteland into fertile farmland.