7 Days in Jiamusi

The Songhua riverwalk and the city museum set the region up — frontier rivers, reclaimed marsh, farm towns; stock up for the eastern runs — Fuyuan lies about 400 km out, 5 hours by road.

1. jiamusi riverside park
2. jiamusi city museum

Morning at the Hezhe village in Aoqi bay, fish-skin craft and river boats; then northwest to Tangyuan county, where the Daliangzihe park keeps old-growth Korean pine underfoot — a shaded 2-hour loop.

1. jiamusi aoqi hezhe village
2. jiamusi daliangzihe forest

About 400 km and five hours east; the island was split in 2008 with roughly 171 square km on the Chinese side — wetland boardwalks and a nine-story pagoda. Overnight in Fuyuan for the early sun.

1. jiamusi heixiazi island

Sun clears the horizon around 3 a.m. in midsummer at the east pole square; the easternmost post at Wusu and the sturgeon halls in town fill the morning, then the road bends southwest.

1. jiamusi dongji square
2. jiamusi wusu town
3. jiamusi fuyuan fish hall

The state farms of the Sanjiang plain stretch in square-mile grids — the Qixing farm near Jiansanjiang shows the reclamation story and, in September, rice gold as far as the road runs.

1. jiamusi qixing farm

Where the two rivers meet and run on as one, with the zero-kilometer marker of the Sanya highway; Jiejinkou keeps Hezhe river life — the Yimakan storytelling entered the UNESCO safeguard list in 2011.

1. jiamusi sanjiangkou
2. jiamusi jiejinkou hezhe town

About 140 km south, the Fujin wetland park spreads boardwalks across the marsh — reeds, herons, open sky — then the afternoon run back into Jiamusi for evening trains.

1. jiamusi fujin wetland