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to explore the world is often balanced by a deep connection to home.
That connection is rooted not just in culture, but in history.
For centuries, Hunza was a princely state ruled by local dynasties known as the Mirs. Their power was tied directly to geography, control of this narrow corridor meant influence over trade routes that passed between empires. The forts they built, such as Baltit and Altit, still stand above the valley, their wooden balconies and stone walls overlooking the same routes that once carried caravans of goods and ideas. Then came the era of empire. During British colonial rule in India, Hunza became entangled in the strategic manoeuvring of the British Empire, which sought to secure its northern frontiers against Russian expansion. Expeditions were launched, alliances enforced, and the autonomy of local rulers gradually eroded. While the British presence here was less direct than in other parts of the subcontinent, its effects were nonetheless significant, reshaping political structures and redefining the region’ s place within a broader geopolitical framework.
Even today, those historical shifts
echo quietly through the valley.
Borders that once meant little now define nations. Trade routes that sustained communities for centuries have been replaced or diminished. And yet, the memory of that interconnected past remains, visible in language, in architecture, in the stories people tell.
Language, in particular, reveals the complexity of Hunza’ s identity.
Burushaski, spoken widely in the central valley, is a linguistic anomaly, an isolate language with no known relatives. Alongside it are Wakhi and Shina, each tied to different parts of the region. Urdu serves as a national bridge, while English connects the valley to the wider world.
In practice, conversations move fluidly between these languages, often within the same sentence.
The connection of people to place becomes especially apparent when you travel further north, into the Gojal region, where the landscape grows harsher and more exposed. It was here that I first saw Attabad Lake, and like most people, I was unprepared for it.
From a distance, the lake appears almost unreal— its water a striking turquoise, set against barren slopes of rock and scree. It is beautiful in a way that feels almost unsettling, because its origins are anything but.
In January 2010, a massive landslide blocked the Hunza River, creating the lake and submerging entire villages beneath its rising waters. Thousands were displaced, homes and farmland lost, and the main road through the valley severed for years.
I met a man in Gulmit who had lived through it. We sat by the water as he pointed across the lake to where his village once stood.
“ It’ s there,” he said, gesturing toward the surface.“ Under the water.”
He spoke without bitterness, just a kind of quiet acceptance. When I asked what it had been like, he described the days after the landslide, the uncertainty, the rising water, the gradual realisation that nothing would return to how it had been.
“ We lost everything,” he said.“ But we are still here.
“ When the mountain falls, you cannot argue with it.”
What followed was not just loss, but adaptation. New routes were carved through the mountains, tunnels blasted into rock to reconnect communities. Boats
TRAVERSE 57