RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

As China finishes building its massive Three Gorges Dam, it looks ahead to the reservoir behind that dam covering more than 400 square miles of land with water. As the water rises to its maximum this year, more than a million people have to be moved, along with homes, schools and hospitals. But this area of China is home to a unique culture as well, not all of which can be moved.

In this final story in our series on the Three Gorges, NPR's Anthony Kuhn examines what in this culture is being saved and what is being lost.

ANTHONY KUHN: Traveling by boat down the reservoir, an impressive structure dominates the shoreline in the county of Zhongxian. It's called the Stone Treasure Fortress. There aren't any fortifications anymore. There's still a beautiful 18th century, multitiered pagoda with curly eaves. It's perched on a cliff looking out over the Yangtze River.

On the front of the gateway, the water level marker says a 175.1. That's meters above sea level, the level to which the waters will rise when the dam is completed. This was once the stronghold of the Deng clan, an ancient village once clustered at the feet of the fortress. The village has now been razed and its residents relocated.

Unidentified Woman: (Speaking Chinese)

KUHN: One of them is Deng Shuhua who sells drinks and souvenirs outside the site. He recounts a local legend about how the place got its name.

Mr. DENG SHUHUA (Resident): (Through translator) The legend goes that the goddess Nuwa was fixing a hole in the sky. She was carrying some stones in a basket when one of them dropped out, fell on the riverbank and became this mountain. That's the Stone Treasure.

KUHN: Nearby, workers are cutting and chiseling stone, part of an effort to protect the fortress from the rising waters. In a nearby office, Engineer Qui Guogui explains the plan to save the site.

Mr. QIU GUOGUI (Engineer): (Speaking Chinese)

KUHN: The fortress is being surrounded by 222 concrete and steel pillars, he says, connected by walls which will seal the fortress off from the river outside. The fortress will become an isolated island accessible either by boat or a connecting bridge.

The fortress is part of an ancient regional culture. Two-million-year-old fossils found in Wushan County are the earliest known signs of human habitation in China. From China's earliest dynasties, the area was known as the Kingdom of Ba.

Downriver from the fortress is a temple dedicated to a 3rd century general of the three kingdom's period. Tour guide Wu Qiongying describes how this landmark was saved.

Ms. WU QIONGYING (Tour Guide): (Through translator) The entire temple was moved with the aim of preserving it in its original form. Every stone and brick you see here was removed piece by piece, numbered, moved, and then used to reconstruct the temple.

KUHN: After more than a decade, the effort to rescue the cultural heritage of the Three Gorges is in its final phase. Far less money has been spent on cultural preservation than on environmental protection and relocating residents.

Tang Yuyang of the Beijing Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture has been involved in the rescue effort. She says that while some important sites have been moved or rebuilt, a lot of intangible culture is being lost.

Ms. TANG YUYANG (Beijing Institute of Civil Engineering and Architecture): (Through translator) The people of the Three Gorges no longer exist. What I mean is that the environment, the local customs, the feeling is gone. Before, locals carried things in baskets on their back, climbing steep stairways up the hillsides to get to the towns; now it's all highways. It's not just the physical sites that are at issue.

KUHN: Downriver from the temple is the City of the White Emperor, where the founder of one of the Three Kingdoms died. Five centuries later, one of China's most famous poets, Li Bai, mentions it in a poem about a journey through the river's fast and treacherous waters.

Mr. ZHANG TAICHAO (Former Journalist): (Through translator) Amid early morning's colored clouds, I depart from the City of the White Emperor. And one day I can make it to Xian Ling(ph) 300 miles away. As monkeys cry ceaselessly on the riverbanks, my small boat has already passed the myriad peaks.

KUHN: That's Zhang Taichao reciting the poem. He's a former journalist, author and official. He notes that with the building of the dam, the classic descriptions of the Gorges in Chinese literature and art no longer apply.

Mr. TAICHAO: (Through translator) The natural landscapes described by our ancient poems will disappear. Future generations, including my daughters, will not get to see this magnificent scenery that we Ba people are so proud of.

KUHN: On the advice of local residents, I paid a visit to the ancient village of Dachang, which I was told was full of picturesque cobbled streets and ancient wooden temples.

(Soundbite of hammering)

KUHN: I was too late. The village had been reconstituted uphill as a sort of theme park. Workers laid new cobblestones as men dressed up as Qing Dynasty soldiers manned the gates. Village employee Lei Haoming showed me around.

Ms. LEI HAOMING: (Through translator) We feel very proud because the government has spent all this money to move the village. This means that it will not be submerged, but preserved for people to see in the future, and so we feel that our culture has been well preserved.

KUHN: As is often the case in China, replication is confused with historic preservation. The main difference, of course, is that no actual residents live here anymore. They've been relocated so as to facilitate the business of separating tourists from their money.

Traveling through the Gorges, it seems that almost every rock has a name, every mountain has a legend. One of the few people who has documented the region's natural wonders before they were inundated is local photographer Wang Fengyun. He shows me a book of his work.

Mr. WANG FENGYUN (Photographer): (Through translator) The grooves on this rock were formed by people using ropes to pull boats against the current. Some of these grooves are more than three feet deep. This rock here looks like a wolf. It reminds us that the people of Ba have plucked their survival from the wolf's jaws.

KUHN: Scholar Tang Yuyang says that what makes the culture of the Three Gorges special is the interrelation between man and this unique landscape. The dam, she says, has irreversibly wrecked that relationship.

Ms. YUYANG: (Through translator) Just because we possess this technological power, we should not let it overshadow our relationship with the mountains and rivers. We should emphasize the power of nature.

KUHN: In fact, the problems of cultural preservation, economic development and urbanization in the Three Gorges can be found all over China. It's just that the building of the dam is forcing the changes on people faster here than elsewhere.

Some folks here say that the resourceful people of this ancient region will someday create a new and splendid culture. Maybe so, but for now all that's clear is that a rich cultural heritage is being submerged beneath the reservoir's waters, perhaps forever.

Anthony Kuhn, NPR News on the Three Gorges Reservoir.

MONTAGNE: And you can see the curling pagoda in the Stone Treasure Fortress Anthony spoke about, read about preservation efforts, plus hear previous stories in this series at npr.org.