Hangzhou's Xianghu Lake features culture and natural landscapes, and is considered West Lake's "sister". [Photo by Xu Lin/China Daily]

Visiting the water body indeed enables travelers to understand Zhejiang province's history.

Xianghu Lake Tourism Resort offers a perfect platform for this.

Visitors can enjoy culture and leisure in scenic spots scattered along the banks, by foot or boat.

The Kuahuqiao Site Museum hosts an 8,000-year-old canoe and is shaped like one itself. The actual watercraft was repaired with tree sap by its builders.

It also houses pottery and prehistoric stone, bone and wooden artifacts.

Kuahuqiao culture's discovery pushed the known history of Zhejiang's civilization to eight millennia ago, 1,000 years earlier than previously believed.

The exhibition room is in the original site－beneath Xianghu Lake's surface.

Machines monitor humidity, which is high given the location, and cracks in the canoe.

"It's tricky to prevent threats like mold and microorganisms," curator Wu Jian says.