The Tsaatans or Dukhas are a Mongolian ethnic minority, a small Tuvan community of Turkish origin, living in the far North of the Khövsgöl province, within the taiga.

The taiga is a transitional zone before the Arctic tundra. Shrubland, low conifers, and birch trees compose its vegetation. Here lies the point on Earth most distant from the oceans. Forming a natural barrier protecting the Tsaatan camps, the wild and uninhabited taiga proves challenging in summer: marshes, deer flies, and mosquitoes are unfortunately part of the experience.

The northern taiga belt was regulated under the Qing dynasty between 1755 and 1912, falling then under the Uriankhai banner. Upon Mongolian independence in 1911, the banner was incorporated into the then-independent Tuvan Republic. In 1944, the Russians annexed the Tuvan Republic, leaving the northern band on the Mongolian side of the border orphaned.

Beginning in the 1930s, many Tsaatans and other Uriankhais fled the Tuvan Republic to avoid conscription. Initially, the Mongolian government repeatedly returned them to the Tuvan Republic, but in 1956, Mongolia finally granted them Mongolian citizenship and resettled them in the village of Tsagaan Nuur on the Shishigt River in an attempt to encourage sedentarization. Many Tsaatans quickly abandoned their apartments to return to the taiga.

The Tsaatans are the last solitary people who live by reindeer herding in the isolated and scarcely accessible mountains of the country's far North. "Tsaa" means reindeer in the Tsaatan language. The Tsaatans are therefore "those who live with reindeer".