Western Mongolia is home to the Kazakhs, a hardy semi-nomadic people who have maintained a strong connection to the tradition of migration and eagle hunting for generations. Following are excerpts of a photo-journal by Canadian independent photographer, France Lecclerc who has visited this remote region. After that, watch a video documentary of an actual Kazakh migration filmed by photographer Timothy Allen and his film crew who made the trip across the Altai Mountains in Western Mongolia in 2015.

The Kazakhs of Western Mongolia: A Photo Journal

Video: The Great Kazakh Spring Migration

There about 100,000 of Kazakhs in Mongolia, representing less than 5% of the country’s population.. Western Mongolia’s landscape is magnificent in an eerie way – with miles and miles of arid plains surrounded by the mighty Altai mountain range, broken up by tiny bits of greenery when grassland meets a glacial river. Kazakhs are semi-nomadic. Entire extended families migrate with their flocks to look for pasturage as the seasons change, journeying hundreds of kilometres through some of the toughest terrains on earth.