TRACES OF ANTARCTICA AROUND PUNTA ARENAS AND THE STRAITS OF MAGELLAN

1 Contents Introduction 3 Central Punta Arenas 4 Northern Punta Arenas 38 Straits of Magellan tour 48 References 60

Antarctica was the last continent to be discovered. It was not until the 19th century that its status as a land mass could even be confirmed. Its location so far from the great population centers and the most important ports of the world helped to keep Antarctica shrouded not only by its impenetrable ice, but also under a veil of mystery.

Punta Arenas was the principal point of reference for all the early Antarctic scientific expeditions. Though young by modern standards, the city nevertheless served a vital role not only as the departure point for journeys to the White Continent but also in some of the most dramatic stories of survival in the course of human endeavor. Even today, Punta Arenas serves as the capital of Patagonia and continues to be one of the most strategic and important ports for expeditions headed across the treacherous Southern Ocean.

The Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH) celebrates its fifty years of service both to the nation and to science, promoting exploration, research, and education about the polar region. And while reaching Antarctica itself can be a daunting challenge for many people, this guidebook provides a valuable tool for residents and visitors to Punta Arenas, allowing everyone to experience the rich cultural, historical, and natural heritage of southern Patagonia. To that end we have identified fifty locations of interest that are linked to Antarctica which can be visited in and around the city, and along the Straits of Magellan. Welcome to Chile’s Magellanic and Antarctic region, the doorstep of the Last Continent.

2 3 A full-day walk around the center of Punta Arenas includes 26 locations that connect the city’s rich heritage with memories of expeditions to Antarctica since the end of the 19th century. This excursion includes the port, the waterfront, historic buildings, public spaces, museums, libraries, monuments, and residences that date from the age of exploration. This guidebook also offers information Central about artists, services, and local products that bear the imprimatur of Antarctica. Punta Arenas

4 5 The Imperial Transantarctic Expedition (1914-17) included two The rescue of the shipwrecked MNMPA ships. One was the Endurance, survivors of the Endurance with Ernest Shackleton, the leader of the mission which would enter the Weddell Sea and disembark a group intending to cross 2,900 km, from west to east, to McMurdo One of the most dramatic chapters of the Sound on the opposite edge of “Heroic Era” of Antarctic exploration ended the continent. Here they would in the port of Punta Arenas on the third of meet up with the second ship, the Aurora, commanded by Captain September, 1916, following the rescue of 22 Aeneas Mackintosh. Their destiny crewmembers of the ship Endurance, taken would be doubly adverse. The from Elephant Island by the Chilean Navy Aurora had gone astray for twelve 1 The Port of Punta Arenas months following a blizzard in cutter Yelcho, under the command of the Straits of Magellan waterfront. the Ross Sea, and the Endurance Chilean sea-pilot Luis Pardo Villalón. spent nine months trapped in the ice before collapsing and sinking. Doctor Alexander Macklin, a member of The crew wintered over on ice View of the port of Punta Arenas Shackleton’s third expedition, noted in his Our tour begins at the Arturo Prat pier, located on a floes before escaping by boat in February of 1908, with a diary the reception by 8,000 people in Punta to Elephant Island. From there record-setting 63 ships at anchor wide bay on the Straits of Magellan. In 1848 this area Shackleton and five of his men Arenas: “The bay was full of ships... As we in the bay, when the United was selected for settling a small group of colonists set out on a frightful voyage to States’ Great White Fleet and its went full steam ahead with the flags waving, who would go on to found the city of Punta Arenas, South Georgia Island. Three of 27 warships called on the port them crossed the island on foot all the ships hoisted their flags and blew their during their passage from the which in just a few decades would become a major and reached the whaling station at sirens. The noise was deafening. The flags Atlantic to the Pacific. commercial center in Patagonia. Stromness. Thus began a series were fluttering on all the public buildings of four attempts to rescue the of the city. As we got closer we saw that all Down through the years, Punta Arenas has featured shipwrecked men on Elephant This German clock in the port Island, with the final, successful the docks were full of people and when we (purchased in 1912) features a a number of piers along with ship hulks (called effort leaving from Punta Arenas. anchored two boats approached with all the moon phase indicator, monthly “pontoons”) that served for storage. The construction calendar with signs of the zodiac, important personalities of Punta Arenas, of the Arturo Prat pier began in 1920 and was thermometer, barometer, thermo- among them the Admiral López and consuls hygrometer, thermograph, and completed in 1931, with modification in the 1970s of various countries, Chilean officials... We weather-vane. which replaced the original wood with concrete. There did not lose any time to go up into one of the are three commemorative plaques here that recall the boats that took us to the pier, so crowded that arrivals of the principal early Antarctic expeditions that we could barely make our way. I was amazed sailed the Straits and moored at these piers. These at the feelings expressed by the people, men were headed by (among others) Adrien de Gerlache, shouted and shook our hands; there were Jean-Baptiste Charcot, Robert Scott, Luis Pardo, Sir women, many of whom wept copiously... Ernest Shackleton, Sir Hubert Wilkins, Richard Byrd, Firemen and soldiers were lined up along the and Finn Ronne. way to hold the crowds.” It was an excited and wildly enthusiastic community that in September of 1916 received the shipwrecked The Magellan Times, the local “The whole populace appeared to be in the streets. survivors of the ship Endurance, rescued by the Chilean English-language periodical, cutter, the Yelcho. Through Punta Arenas also came covered the arrival of the It was a great reception, and with the strain of the Frithjof expedition in search of Otto Nordenskjöld’s Yelcho and Shackleton’s men, long, anxious months lifted at last, we were in a in September 1916. Antarctic (1903), and the corvette Uruguay in the wake mood to enjoy it.” of Charcot in the South Shetland Islands (1905); along ERNEST SHACKLETON with the legendary American explorer Richard Byrd (1940) and the Chilean President Gabriel González

Videla, returning from his historic trip to Antarctica INACH (1948). RSOLAR Today, large ships used in Antarctic programs dock and resupply here, including the icebreaker Óscar Viel, the transport Aquiles and the Chilean sea-tug Lautaro, the American icebreakers Nathaniel Palmer

and Laurence M. Gould, the Araon (South Korea), the MMN James Clark Ross (UK), the Polarstern (Germany), the Las Palmas and the Hespérides (Spain), the Humboldt (Perú), the Vanguardia (Uruguay) and the Brazilian ships, Ari Rongel and Almirante Maximiano. 6 7 SGONZÁLEZ First Chilean expeditions

Although the rescue carried out by sea -pilot Pardo in 1916 was an official Chilean Navy mission, the operation of 1947 is considered the first such official Chilean expedition to Antarctica. Under the command of Captain Federico Guesalaga, the ships Iquique and Angamos carried a group of scientists which the old Antarctic Plaque and Monument 2 seafarers called “the wise men”- marine biologists to Bernardo O’Higgins Parmenio Yáñez and Juan Lengerich, zoologist Intersection of Avenida Independencia and 21 de Mayo street. In 1948, one week after the Guillermo Mann, glaciologist Humberto Barrera, visit of González Videla geologist Carlos Oliver Schneider, and French naturalist (1898 -1980), the scientific A block from the Arturo Prat pier there is an Antarctic expedition of Norwegian- Louis Robin, in addition to the diplomat Óscar Pinochet American Finn Ronne (1899- de la Barra and the writer Francisco Coloane. On plaque showing the Chilean Antarctic Territory, a 1980) disembarked in Punta work of José Carocca, erected in 1951 at the foot Greenwich Island the Navy built the base then known RSOLAR Arenas from the ship Port of of the monument of Bernardo O’Higgins, hero of Beaumont, after 11 months as “Soberanía” (now called base “Arturo Prat”) and the exploring the coast of the Air Force conducted the first Chilean flights over the the war for Chilean independence and a visionary in Weddell Sea, accompanied Terra Australis Incognita. It was O’Higgins’ foresight by his wife Edith, who served South Shetland Islands and the Antarctic Peninsula, in that set the stage for Chile to take possession of the as research scientist and Chile’s Antarctic Territory, in a Vought Sikorsky journalist. Straits of Magellan and the Antarctic territories. float-plane piloted by Lieutenant Arturo Parodi Alister . In 1819, Captain William Smith, commanding an English merchant ship, discovered the South The city celebrated the explorers with Shetland Islands archipelago. Sailing on his second parades and public tributes, and then Members of the first official Chilean expedition voyage from Valparaiso, then headquarters of the to Antarctica, among others, Óscar Pinochet de again in 1948 for the second national Royal Navy’s South America Station, he disembarked la Barra and Guillermo Mann. expedition with President Gabriel on Livingston Island and discovered the remains of González Videla, the world’s first head the wreck of the Spanish ship San Telmo. In 1820 of state to reach the White Continent. the British Navy sent an expedition with Smith as At the regional government office the guide, under the command of Lieutenant Edward Bransfield, who landed on King George Island and president received more than 500 people may have become the first man to sight the Antarctic and local institutions, while his wife Rosa Peninsula. Markmann conducted her own reception with the women of the Italian colony in In the same year, as Supreme Leader of Chile, Punta Arenas. O’Higgins authorized former Chilean Navy Lieutenant The Chilean Army Base “General Andrew MacFarlane to command the ship Dragon Bernardo O’Higgins” is its second INACH from Valparaiso on a sealing expedition that became built in Antarctica. The old station, which can be seen in front of a new the first known landing on the Antarctic Peninsula. one, is located on Cape Legoupil In a letter to Captain Coghlan of the Royal Navy, the on the Antarctic Peninsula and was Chilean leader noted the relationship between Chile inaugurated by Chilean President Gabriel González Videla and and Antarctica according to the Treaty of Tordesillas General Ramón Cañas Montalva. in 1494 and signaling that the country reached as far It was declared a National as the South Shetland Islands. Monument in 2011.

Chilean President Gabriel González Videla (in white) in 1948 with his family

EBARTICEVIC and part of the presidential entourage. INACH

8 9 PRUIZ 3 “Jorge Berguño Antarctic Cuisine Barnes” Antarctic As Punta Arenas is a town full of Laboratories Building temptations, we went on board in the evening in order to be quite sure of getting 1245 Lautaro Navarro street. m2298154. [email protected]. Fridays 3-5 PM. off early the next morning. RSOLAR

A number of plant and animal fossils CARL SKOTTSBERG that show the connection between In recent years the cooking of the Magellanic South America and Antarctica are region has re-incorporated items from the under study at the “Jorge Berguño Antarctic and sub-Antarctic in its dishes, Barnes” laboratories building, belonging bringing back the native flora and fauna to the Chilean Antarctic Institute. The once used by the earliest inhabitants, and facility was named in honor of a Chilean acknowledging the value of the many products ambassador who was an internationally of the Southern Ocean. recognized authority on polar issues. In Punta Arenas, seaweed, krill, and fish such Here, Chilean and foreign scientists undertake as Patagonian toothfish (“Chilean sea bass”) research projects to uncover traces of a once- and icefish, within the proper season, all provide green Antarctica that existed millions of years ago, an invitation to discover something of polar when the climate was warm and trees, ferns, and history and gastronomy, with snacks, intriguing flowering plants flourished, along with the predatory appetizers, hearty main dishes, and desserts that supply flavor, color, and aroma as you Ammonites were cephalopods therapods and huge herbivorous sauropod dinosaurs, that swam in the seas and marine reptiles such as the mosasaurs, approach the very heart of the regional cuisine. during the Age of Dinosaurs. plesiosaurs, and other species. One group of In the city fish market (the “Mercado Municipal”) This example belongs the El Remezón restaurant and the foodie A plank with greenery from the sea: scientists is uncovering the DNA secrets of Antarctic sweet corn pie with seaweed, “huiro” to the species Maorites district near the port along O’Higgins street tenuicostatus, from the Upper organisms, hypothesizing that they developed seaweed tempura, spicy beans will surely tempt you to sample some of these Cretaceous on Seymour unique adaptations due to their geographic with two seaweed types: luche and Island in Antarctica. delights. cochayuyo, raw fish ceviche, and a isolation between 5 and 30 million years ago. Their small seaweed empanada. work involves modern tools such as advanced During the “Heroic Age” of Antarctic exploration El Remezón restaurant, biotechnology. The lessons drawn from knowledge of (1897-1922) the shortage of natural food 1469, 21 de Mayo street. plant and animal adaptations in Antarctica may help m 2241029. sources in the region called for reliance on p [email protected]. address some problems of contemporary life. canned food, biscuits, and dried meat. Fresh meat from seals and penguins helped to prevent This building harbors laboratories dedicated to scurvy, but excessive consumption resulted in Antarctic and Patagonian paleobiology, microbiology, other health problems. molecular biology, and biochemistry, along with several rooms with collections of paleontological During the presidential visit of Chilean items, as well as meeting rooms and facilities for President Gabriel González Videla in students preparing theses. 1948, the executive entourage was The red marine algae is a sea- greeted at Base Soberanía with a plant present in the waters of sophisticated menu that included krill, Magallanes and the Antarctic PRUIZ Peninsula. From it are obtained penguin soup, filet of seal, and chilled natural rubber substances, milk with penguin eggs.Today, with carrageenans, used in the food industry. Its scientific name the exception of the krill, those items Gigartina skottsbergii, refers would be prohibited. to the Swedish botanist and Modern expeditions Antarctic explorer Carl Skottsberg. to the White Continent rely on During his explorations of the South Pacific, the technological and Straits of Magellan, and the Southern Ocean, French Rear Admiral Jules Dumont D’Urville logistical advances (1790-1842) gave names to previously unknown that assure varied diets places, plants, and animals unknown to Western science. Those included the kelp that are tailored to the genus Durvillae, which is represented here with demands of work the nutritious Durvillaea antarctica, known in in the field. Chile as the cochayuyo. 10 11 INACH 4 Hotel Cosmos 977 Errázuriz street.

Near the Antarctic Laboratories building is the office of Chile’s bureau of investigation (Policía de Investigaciones), which was previously the annex of the Cosmos (or Kosmos) Hotel, where famous Swedish scientists such as Otto Nordenskjöld and Carl Skottsberg stayed. Skottsberg’s arrival in February of 1908 saw the streets lit up by a huge Salvage in the south fire in the forest to the south of the city. Both had participated in the fateful Swedish Antarctic Expedition of 1901-04, Punta Arenas holds a strategic position on the Straits of Magellan: besides being where the survivors were rescued by the the southernmost town in the world it is one of the most cosmopolitan. Its life and Argentine corvette Uruguay. One group its business are absolutely astonishing. had remained isolated in Antarctica on Cerro Nevado Island, with a second FREDERICK COOK SGONZÁLEZ group on Paulet Island, while another included the crew of the supply ship Starting at the end of the 19th century, Punta Arenas Antarctic, which sank due to ice damage in February provided assistance to ships in distress, from the 1903. Straits down beyond Cape Horn. In the beginning there was help from the local sealing ships. Then, starting The shipwrecked members of the Mataura, under the in 1896, came the Punta Arenas Salvage Company, adventuresome Captain Milward, also lodged here. It belonging to José Menéndez and Braun & Blanchard. was at the Cosmos that in 1901 the horses from the Well provisioned, it included a mobile machine shop London Daily Express were auctioned off - the horses and diving equipment, with suits and helmets, air that had been used in search of the nonexistent pumps, and underwater lights. Between 1896 and surviving example of a prehistoric ground sloth, 1923, 36 ships were saved, including the Solstief, the mylodon. In April of 1940 there was no official grounded in Antarctic waters. This was a factory ship The Swedish scholar Otto belonging to a Norwegian whaling company based on Nordenskjöld (1869 -1928) or Magellanic high society member missing at the RSOLAR Deception Island in the South Shetland archipelago, conducted two geological Cosmos, at the banquet held for the American admiral expeditions to Patagonia in Richard Byrd, after his return from the Ross Sea and in the same area where the Magallanes Whaling the 1890s, visiting Torres del Company operated. Paine, Tierra del Fuego, and his third Antarctic expedition, aboard the ship Bear of the islands Picton, Lennox, and Oakland. Nueva, with support from the France, Argentina, and Sweden all sent expeditions in Chilean Navy. His cartographic search of Nordenskjöld’s Antarctic, which had been work assisted in the arbitration Australian explorer, over the frontiers between photographer, and pilot commanded by the experienced Carl Anton Larsen Chile and Argentina. During the but was lost near the Antarctic Peninsula around the troubled exploration with the Sir Hubert Wilkins, also ship Antarctic, Nordenskjöld’s fêted at a luncheon at the end of 1903. In November that year, the whaler Frithjof most important discovery was hotel, was the subject of of the Royal Swedish Navy called on Punta Arenas the plant and animal fossils with its Captain Olaf Glyden, a young Arctic traveler. on Seymour Island, which considerable interest by suggested the existence of a the British community Commercial hunting of whales The officers landed along with naturalist Axel F. von green Antarctica millions of and seals has disappeared Klinckowström, while Glyden met with the head of the years ago. and the Menéndez from these waters. Today Chilean Naval Station and the maritime operations company, for which his scientists and artists follow ship Wyatt Earp was these animals through art. governor. Their expedition did not have the same good Andrea Araneda’s workshop results as the voyage of the Uruguay, commanded by dispatched. Tales of and store exhibits textiles and espionage at the Hotel graphics. the Argentine Irízar, whose crew included the Chilean Cosmos during the Navy Lieutenant Allberto Chandler Bannen. world wars inspired The Art Corner. 910 the novel Correr tras el Errázuriz street. The polar explorer’s name m09-89045392. is recorded in Magellanic viento (Running After [email protected]. AARANEDA toponomy and he is found the Wind) by Ramón Díaz Eterovic, and the album Monday to Friday 11 AM- in many scientific names, Hotel Kosmos by the Magellanic electronic music duo, 1 PM / 4-7 PM. Saturday including the tiny sea-snail, 11 AM-2 PM. Calliostoma nordenskjoldi. Lluvia Acida. 12 13 SGONZÁLEZ JCÁRCAMO 5 Hull of the schooner Rippling Wave 6 Cargo pier (“Blanchard pier”) 1169 O’Higgins street. and Loreto pier Straits of Magellan waterfront (“costanera”) and In front of the port authority building repair the Rippling Wave and returned Pedro Montt street. lies part of the hull of the restless to port with the entire crew. schooner, Rippling Wave, built in New Towards the end of 1925, the main piers in the port York in 1868. Elegant, fast, and hardy, A Falkland Islands (Malvinas) rancher of Punta Arenas included the Loreto pier, the cargo or “Blanchard” pier, and the “Green” or passenger pier, The old piers in Punta its first voyage in the Straits left it then used the Rippling Wave for Arenas provide perches grounded following a massive storm. transport of animals and supplies as which has now disappeared. and nesting areas for birds such as the imperial Refloated, it ran aground again but was well as for hunting whales and sea cormorant (Phalacrocorax later repaired and used by two Punta lions. In 1880 José Nogueira found atriceps), that also lives in Arenas businessmen for hunting sea the schooner in disrepair in Port the Antarctic Peninsula and several subantarctic islands. lions. Stanley and took it to Punta Arenas, They build nests of seaweed after which it was put into service held together with guano - bird excrement. Seagulls, In 1872 the brig Treponts foundered transporting thousands of sheep from penguins, the black-browed and then-governor Óscar Viel sent the the Falkland Islands. Four years later albatross and marine schooner on a rescue expedition that it was turned over to Braun and Scott, mammals such as sea lions and Peale’s dolphins, are included the Argentine Luis Piedra traveling to Valparaiso in 1887 with all visible around the Punta Buena, who refused any compensation. hides and tallow. In 1902 the Rippling Arenas waterfront. Upon finding the shipwrecked crew in Wave went to the South Shetland Fortescue Bay, Piedra Buena returned Islands, returning with fur seal skins. Just beyond Roca street there is part of the cargo (Blanchard) pier structure, built in 1896 by pioneers The Punta Arenas waterfront by rowboat, leaving his men with beans Its last owner was Sara Braun, who project was the most as rations and the schooner Rippling had it caulked continuously, until one Rodolfo Stubenrauch and Mauricio Braun, and utilized southerly Chilean bicentennial (2010) project in the country. Wave with no anchor, and its rigging in day it lost it anchors and came ashore until the end of the 1930s for cargo and merchandise. The Chilean Navy ship Huemul waited at this pier to It includes bicycle paths, tatters. An English packetboat collected in front of the Hotel Cosmos. Finally, in green areas, multi-sport those left on the boat and sailed to 1906, it was beached at Cabo Negro. carry the Swedish Magellanic Expedition (1907-09) facilities, cafés, a sculpture with Carl Skottsberg, to Admiralty Sound, together with park, the hull of the English Punta Arenas. Later, they went back to ship Lord Lonsdale (National English sailor George Musters (1841-1879) a one Müller and an Albert Pagels, a German resident Historic Monument), and was orphaned as a child and brought up by who during the World War I would assist the battleship several ship hulks. sailors: his uncle sailed with FitzRoy and Darwin on board the HMS Beagle. He wrote Dresden in the Patagonian channels. A strap and crane a book about his travels with the Tehuelche were used to load the expedition’s horses aboard, a Indians from the Straits of Magellan to the spectacular but no doubt terrorizing moment for the Río Negro in Argentina, entitled At Home with the Patagonians. In 1869 the Rippling animals. Wave provided him with food and supplies. KAYAK AGUA FRESCA AGUA KAYAK After 1903 the Loreto pier served the Agustín Ross coal mines, to load the material from the Río de las Minas, and even today the steel rails can be seen in the area of the waterfront road (the “costanera”) and Pedro Montt street. And so the steamships, including those that traveled to Antarctica, loaded coal first from the Loreto mine and later from other sources. Years later the pier was acquired by the Menéndez Behety company, which ran it until the middle of the 1940s.

14 15 CFCALCUTTA CFCALCUTTA

Passenger pier (or “Green” pier) 7 Hotel de France 998 Roca street (on the corner with O’Higgins, the present-day Los Ganaderos building).

The end of Errázuriz street turned into the busy Dining room in the Hotel de An apartment building constructed in 1981 now France around the beginning occupies the corner where between 1890 and 1950 passenger pier, which was the first such structure of 1900. The Tehuelche chief in Punta Arenas. From there, on a splendid 16th of “Cacique Mulato” and his son, the Hotel de France stood, run by French owners and December, 1908, the French consul Juan Blanchard and several French settlers. the preferred place for settlers and travelers of the Ernest Detaille is seated next same nationality who came ashore at Punta Arenas. went to say farewell to his friend Jean-Baptiste to the chief’s son; Charcot Charcot. In Blanchard’s launch, the Laurita, were paid homage to Detaille by governor Chaigneau, the Dutchman Henkes from christening an Antarctic Emil Racovitza stayed here in December of 1897 island in his name. the Magallanes Whaling Company, the Italian with a sack of mail, while waiting for the crew of Grossi, and the Frenchmen Poivre, Beaulier, Detaille, the Belgica. He was dressed as a gaucho and quite and Roca. The group boarded the ship Pourquoi- An exceptional team of content after 20 days on horseback, riding along Pas? that was setting out on its second voyage of young polar scientists and with the Argentine naturalist Perito Moreno. During explorers met in turn with this trip and another toward Puerto Hambre lasting Antarctic exploration, and the champagne fueled Baron Adrien de Gerlache six days, the Romanian zoologist collected some many eloquent toasts. Charcot took with him (1866-1934) to assemble the Belgian Antarctic Expedition valuable examples of the flora and fauna. correspondence for Adolfo Andresen, commander of (1897-99), considered to be a the whaling company fleet at Deception Island, and a success due to the quality of its The expansive rooms of the hotel were attended letter from Blanchard to Andresen with an agreement oceanographic, meteorological, geological, and biological by the owner, Euphrasia Dufour, originally from for the directors of the whaling company to supply observations, in spite of the Marseille. In March of 1899 Adrien de Gerlache coal and other support for the French scientific death of members Émile Danco and the sailor Wiencke, and the lodged here once again, with his “golden crew” that explorations. The Norwegian explorer Roald rigors of the Antarctic winters included Georges Lecointe as second in command, Amundsen (1872-1928) The aforementioned which kept them trapped for 13 was in Punta Arenas during the Norwegian Roald Amundsen as the ship’s second Roca had taken in the months among the ice floes at a the two visits of the ship latitude of 71 degrees south, in mate, the Polish oceanographer and meteorologist Romanian zoologist Belgica. The future conqueror the Bellingshausen Sea. Henry Arctowski, the American surgeon Frederick Emil Racovitza 11 of the South Pole would in Cook, Emil Racovitza, and 11 others who remained years earlier at his 1911 select a route different than that of his competitor for a time at this southern extreme, after sending a ranch on Otway Sound. Robert Scott, setting up cable about their discoveries in Antarctica. These Racovitza made up part Punta Arenas has grown his base camp on the Ross Ice Shelf. Better prepared included a small wingless fly, named the Belgica of the Belgian Antarctic astonishingly larger. There is electric light and than the Englishman for a antarctica, and an ocean trench 4,000 meters deep, Expedition, the first quick trip, his expedition located in Drake’s Passage. to winter over on the telephones everywhere, was made up of skiers and pavements have been laid expert navigators, relying Frozen Continent. They spent two weeks in Punta heavily on dogs for transport In February 1910 the Gallic community bid a farewell Arenas with a lively social agenda, and on a quiet and there are large, elegant and ultimately, for food. In to Jean-Baptiste Charcot and his officers at the Hotel morning 15 months later its members returned from shops… The people’s 1926, together with Lincoln Ellsworth, he became part of de France, with the word of the architect Antoine the Antarctic Peninsula to the same pier. In 1899, as morals and customs have the first aerial expedition to Beaulier reflecting the local pride in the feat of the they made their way to the Hotel de France, the men also changed. You used fly over the North Pole in the Pourquoi-Pas? in the southern seas, which upon from the Belgica swayed like sailors, their skins were to be able to walk round dirigible Norge, then getting lost two years later on a returning to France Charcot would recall as “the rough “like nutmeg-graters”, with full beards and their in shabby clothing for rescue mission. grand spectacle of the Antarctic ice and the cliffs and overcoats full of patches. They noticed the skirts of everyday. Now you have magnificent mountains of the Straits of Magellan.” two attractive young women who scurried inside as to be dressed in the latest they approached. The explorers had just a brief view fashion. The roadstead is of the two, but it was enough to warm their “frozen noticeably busier than two hearts” as was later reported by the flowery and years ago… controversial Frederick Cook, the American surgeon on that expedition. ROALD AMUNDSEN

16 17 Punta Arenas Naval and 8 PRUIZ Maritime Museum 981 Pedro Montt street. m 2205479. p [email protected]. Tuesday to Saturday 9.30 AM-12.30 PM /2-5 PM.

Dear Father… When you read this letter, either your son will be dead, or will have arrived back in Punta Arenas with all the shipwrecked men. I shall not return without them. 9 British Club LUIS PARDO 864, Roca street (Banco de Chile building).

The seven exhibition rooms of this museum provide The Banco de Chile building was a window into the maritime and naval history of constructed for the Bank of Punta Arenas this region. Housed in the Chilean Navy building, in 1907 by a group of businessmen built in 1908 by Miguel Bonifetti, the museum is headed by Stubenrauch and Braun. The RCANALES located within the old Navy command station for upper floors belonged to the British Club, Magallanes, once visited by Admiral Richard Byrd. Shackleton’s center of operations during Sir Ernest Shackleton, Captain Frank Worsley the planning for the rescue and the social and Tom Crean at the British Club in Punta center for the former castaways, during Arenas, which was also visited by the crew On the first floor there are models of Navy ships, of the Discovery (1904) and Sir Hubert photographs, maps, paintings, and the memorable 24 days they enjoyed in Wilkins (1934), among others. portraits, along with one room Punta Arenas. showing the role of Cape decorations were perfect, and the Singing songs about Elephant Island, Horn as a maritime route. tables strained under the weight their chief Frank Wild, the illustrator One showcase recalls of the local dishes and bottles of Marston, the physicist James and the the feat of the Yelcho champagne. British consul Charles ship’s officer Cheetham accompanied and sea-pilot Pardo, Milward, local British settlers, and the banjo of meteorologist Hussey along with a picture of officials of the Chilean Army and during the evening reception after the Brave but quiet, Luis Pardo Sir Ernest Shackleton, Navy gathered around Shackleton, Villalón (1882-1935) went crew’s arrival. Wild and Shackleton, and information totally absorbed in the dangers from the merchant marine with their brilliant oratory, concluded to the Chilean Navy, and about the Chilean of the polar adventure. Half in with grateful thanks to the Chilean Navy then into the labyrinths of Antarctic Territory and jest and half seriously, Colonel the Straits and the southern and to sea-pilot Pardo, repeating the Espíndola remarked, “even if channels. In August of the first official Chilean Pilot Pardo’s message that hours earlier had been 1916 he was asked to take saber. you didn’t manage to cross the expeditions. A part of a sent to Admiral Muñoz Hurtado and to command of the Yelcho and Antarctic continent, you did make depart for the rescue of the ship’s hull with a porthole King George of England, communicating

Leonard Hussey’s banjo another discovery: Punta Arenas.” Shackleton expedition on provide mute testimony to the success of the Chilean rescue Elephant Island. Pardo had the disaster of the HMS Doterel, The band in the billiard been towed by the Emma in mission. sunk in the Punta Arenas harbor in parlor broke out in music, the third rescue attempt. In changing conversation spite of the difficult winter, 1881 following an accidental explosion Charles Riesco, editor of The Pardo’s sailing abilities into one long dance that that killed 143 persons. Magellan Times, described and the good conditions featured the elegantly allowed the mission to be another one of the events dressed local ladies and successful. His connection The upper floors of the museum allow organized for the Imperial with the shipwrecked men the dance-floor talents visitors to interact with ships’ instruments, Trans-Antarctic Expedition. led him to be Chilean consul of the survivors of the in Liverpool and he assisted a special treat for young people attracted That Wednesday afternoon the Endurance. them in London in 1930 to the Salón Náutico (Nautical Hall) where with the Polar Exposition they will find the mockup of a ship’s In less than three days, the British Association of and the inauguration of the Magallanes gathered 1500 pounds sterling to cover Shackleton monument. bridge and compartments for maps, radio the operating costs of the third attempt to rescue the communications, and weather. men of the Endurance, with the balance of the 2000 pounds contributed through the help of Spanish consul and businessman Francisco Campos Torreblanca. Naval model-makers After this, Shackleton, Worsley, and Crean sailed in July

Alfonso Mayorga (Américo PRUIZ from Punta Arenas to the South Shetland Islands on Vespucio 2540, board the oak-hulled seal schooner, the Emma, built PRUIZ/INACH m2267523) and José Solis in 1883. The crew of ten men reflected eight different (Santiago Zamora 2717, nationalities, including the Norwegian Otto Fugellie, the m2263654) create special- famous sea-pilot of the Patagonian channels. order models of ships and The cutter Yelcho, under the command of Pardo, towed

lighthouses. them for part of their voyage. CSFUGELLIE 18 19 11 Blanchard residence- Chilean Antarctic Institute 1055 Plaza Muñoz Gamero (Plaza de Armas).m 2298100.

PRUIZ www.inach.gob.cl. Monday to Thursday 8.15 AM-1 PM / 2-6.15 PM. Friday 8.15 AM-1 PM / 2-5.15 PM.

The headquarters of the Chilean Antarctic Institute (Instituto Antártico Chileno - INACH) was originally the residence of the French consul, Juan Blanchard, also director of the Magallanes Whaling Company and the 10 First Corps of Firefighters principal backer of bacteriologist Jean-Baptiste Charcot’s 826 Roca street . m2223133. p [email protected]. expedition. Open to the public Monday to Sunday 9 AM-10 PM, except during response to emergencies. Constructed in 1907 in In November of 1887 a fire consumed the local government building, a tragedy neoclassical style, the building out of which, two years later, grew the Punta Arenas firemen’s corps. It was was the work of Parisian made up of 27 illustrious neighbors, among them Lautaro Navarro, Juan Bautista architect Antoine Beaulier. He Contardi, Gastón Blanchard, José Menéndez, Bolívar Espinosa and Mauricio arrived from Bordeaux at age Braun. The sale of the site of the first fire department to the Banco de Tarapacá 18, going first to Valparaiso and y Londres (now the Banco Santander) allowed the initial construction, in 1901, of then to Punta Arenas, where his the First Corps of Firefighters (“Primera Compañia de Bomberos”) on Roca street. uncle Gastón Blanchard had partnered with José Nogueira in a business. When Gastón died, Juan In 1897 the first firemen’s quarters was the (together with Mauricio Braun, brother of Nogueira’s widow, Sara Braun) acquired the business belonging to Blanchard

headquarters for the official reception of PRUIZ the Belgian Antarctic Expedition of Adrien and Nogueira. This soon revolutionized the local maritime de Gerlache, who wrote about his stay: “A industry, uniting distant Punta Arenas with ports to the local curiosity is the corps of firemen: this north and islands to the south. The Braun & Blanchard institution is made up of the inhabitants; company grew as it combined with the Menéndez-Behety fleet and became a substantial inter-ocean shipping the members are merchants, ranchers or company. The partners created other companies: the Punta officials, all volunteers. Then have good Arenas Salvage Company; and the De Bruyne, Andresen materials and spacious quarters, which and Company. The latter included Adolfo Andresen and since the first day of our arrival has been Pedro A. de Bruyne, and turned into the Magallanes Whaling generously placed at First firefighters station in Punta Arenas Company (1906), with operations in the South Shetland our disposal“. (1897). Image taken from “Fifteen Months in Antarctica” by Adrien de Gerlache. Islands. They also created the Patagonia Import-Export Company which expanded into Argentina and became Years later the French known there as La Anónima, which roughly translates as firefighters of Punta Arenas were lunching with Jean- “The Corporation.” Baptiste Charcot, his wife Marguerite Cléry - who would return to France before the Antarctic voyage - and the Besides having its administrative offices, the INACH officials of thePourquoi-Pas? In 1916 a Victorian-style headquarters offers talks and expositions, extension Volumes published by the Royal “smoking concert” reception was held in the firefighters’ activities, and scientific materials, which are housed in Society and the British Museum the building. The library collection covers specialized with the results of the British building for Pardo, Shackleton, the crew of the Antarctic Expedition on board the Endurance, and particularly Pardo and the crew of the publications on Antarctica and related themes, including Discovery, with some of the many Yelcho, all of whom were treated lavishly at the fire- oceanography, biology, ecology, climatology, glaciology, scientific works available in the specialty library at INACH. station for the Second Corps of Firefighters, located geology, paleontology, law, history, and geography. It also at 732 Avenida Colón. contains an extensive array of reference works, scientific journals, articles, maps, and audiovisual resources.

Firefighter in Chacot (center, with cap), his wife to fruition and Adrien de Gerlache and two traditional uniform of Marguerite, Ernest Detaille, the officers naturalists deserted in Pernambuco, but the the First Corps. The of the Pourquoi-Pas?, and the French effort gathered detailed information about Hall of Honor, open firemen from Punta Arenas. Famously access routes to the Straits of Gerlache. The to the public, has a nicknamed “The Polar Gentleman” by expedition with the Pourquoi-Pas? continued display of firefighting Robert Scott, Jean-Baptiste Charcot cartographic work and investigation of the equipment used (1867-1936) conducted several voyages Antarctic Peninsula in addition to the islands since the end of to the Arctic and was commander and Alejandro I and Pedro I, filling 28 volumes with the 19th century, leader of the French Antarctic expeditions scientific materials and producing maps which PRUIZ and a remarkable on the ship Français (1903-05) and were to be used for the next 25 years. Charcot collection of the Pourquoi-Pas? (1908-10). The first died alongside the rest of his crew, save for portraits. sailed after Nordenskjöld’s waylaid one sailor, in the wreck of his last ship, the vessel Antarctic. The mission never came Pourquoi-Pas?, off the coast of Iceland. 20 21 12 The Old Post Office INACH Plaza Muñoz Gamero near number 1025.

Near the present location of the Hotel Cabo de Hornos was the former Punta Arenas post office, also known as the “Firemen’s Post Office” due to its proximity to the First Corps of Firefighters. This was the location of one of only four mail-boxes in the entire city.

Here, on the 8th of July in 1904, Robert Falcon Government Palace 13 1028 Plaza Muñoz Gamero. Scott, accompanied by an officer and the British consul Charles Milward, deposited nearly 400 letters Several series of Antarctic Since the end of the 19th century the Chilean government has received Antarctic addressed to the UK and the rest of the world, to stamps, envelopes, and related delegations from all over the world. The government palace housed public inform the recipients that the expedition with the ship items can be purchased at the services such as the postal service and the national government representative Discovery was returning to England safe and sound present location of the main Punta Arenas post office at (or “Intendencia”). Today it is shared between the Intendencia and the Regional with 47 crewmembers, after three years exploring the 911 Bories street. m2617901. Council. Constructed between 1894 and 1898, its neoclassical design is the work Ross Sea area and the Transantarctic mountains. Monday to Friday 9 AM to 6.30 PM. Saturday 10 AM to 1 PM. of Antonio Allende, the first government building made of locally manufactured bricks. Shackleton, Scott, and Wilson on November 2, 1902, at the beginning of the long trek southward that would take them to latitude 82° 17′ S. In the government chambers here in 1897, interim Governor Dr. Lautaro Navarro received a visit from Adrien de Gerlache, a visit that was reciprocated on the ship Belgica by secretary Juan Bautista Contardi, an Italian living in Punta Arenas, and a harsh critic of the Salesian indigenous missions. Founded in 1894 by Lautaro Navarro, Juan Bautista Contardi and Manuel A decade later, Governor Chaigneau received the Señoret, the daily newspaper botanist Carl Skottsberg and the bryologist Thore El Magallanes would years later become the Sunday edition of the Halle, promising support from the civil authority La Prensa Austral. Today as in the A tragic hero to some, an for the Swedish Magellanic Expedition, just as past it continues to provide extensive intransigent obsessive they had for the Otto Nordenskjöld research work. coverage surrounding the successes and failures of Antarctic explorers to others, English naval Flowers and exquisite meals were made available officer Robert Falcon Scott and related activities. That collection by Chaigneau to celebrate the 1910 return of the can be viewed on special request, at (1868-1912) led the Antarctic Antarctic expedition of his countryman Jean- 636 Waldo Seguel street. m2204001. The British Antarctic Expedition (1901-04) or “Discovery expeditions of the ships www.laprensaaustral.cl . Monday Expedition” was the first official English exploration since the Discovery and Terra Nova. Baptiste Charcot, who was staying just a few through Friday 10 AM-6 PM. voyage of James Clark Ross some 60 years earlier. Organized on He died on the latter, after steps away in the splendid residence of the consul a grand scale, it focused on scientific research and geographic reaching the sought-after Blanchard. During the celebratory luncheon, Charcot exploration on the White Continent. Sailing from New Zealand to South Pole on January 17, rendered a toast to Chile, and discretely mentioned Chile, it set off a race to see who would become the leaders in 1912, one month after his the “Heroic Era.” Such men would include Robert Scott, Ernest competitor, the Norwegian to Chaigneau that he hoped to be awarded the Shackleton, Edward Wilson, Frank Wild, and Tom Crean. Roald Amundsen. French Legion of Honor medal. That award occurred a year later.

Communications while underway on those first voyages were extremely Of Shackleton’s crew, only the overworked precarious, since until the 1920s there were no radios in Antarctica. Leaving Punta photographer Frank Hurley steered away from the Arenas, the ship Belgica carried passenger pigeons on board. These were offered 1916 festivities for the survivors of the wreck of the by the French resident Paute, with the intention of releasing one at Cape Horn and Endurance, even declining the invitation of Governor the other at Alexander I Island. A few days after sailing, one of the pigeons arrived Fernando Edwards. Shackleton and his men had in Punta Arenas with no message, having escaped from its cage on board. been welcomed on the beach by Edwards, alerted It was not until 30 years later that the first radio communication between hours earlier of their arrival. Edwards marched Antarctica and the mainland took place, when the Magellanic radio enthusiast alongside them in the community procession that Andrés Nielsen established radiotelephone contact with Richard Byrd at his camp started in the port, and entertained them both at the in Little America, on the Ross Ice Shelf. government offices and in his own residence. CFCALCUTTA

22 23 14 Cathedral

630 Monseñor Fagnano street. MVUKASOVIC Eucharist: Monday to Saturday 7 PM. Sunday 10 AM, 12.15 PM and 7 PM.

The silhouette of the Catholic cathedral is an urban landmark, visible from the coast to Cerro de la Cruz, the famous

SGONZÁLEZ lookout on the hill behind the city. A work of the architect Padre Juan Bernabé, it was inaugurated in 1901 and visited by Croatian Club (Club Croata) 15 812 Errázuriz street. m2221043. [email protected] Lunch and dinner. many Antarctic explorers. Among them p [email protected]. Monday through Sunday 11 AM- 12 PM. was Edward Wilson, during the visit of the ship Discovery at the beginning The Croatian Club was built in 1914 of July, 1904. Wilson found the city by the architect Carlos Hinckelmann, completely covered with snow, with featuring elegant ornamentation on sleds in the streets and the harbor full its balconies and windows. In 1916 it of ships and busy piers. Wilson reported was the scene of a reception for sea- that he was impressed not pilot Pardo and the crew of the ship only with the decorated interior and the devotion to the Christian God in a Endurance, in homage to the Chilean place so distant from the world, but Navy and a demonstration of the political also by the city’s continental airs, as alliance between the Croatians and well as its abundance of liquor stores England and the Allies during the First and the busy trade in animal skins. World War. Even though the Republic of Croatia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Within the church a large mosaic of Empire at the time, the Croatian exiles Christ framed by Mount Sarmiento in Punta Arenas tended to stick with and the famous Torres del Paine The devout Edward Adrian their British comrades. The celebration MVALENCIA Wilson (1872-1912) was adorns the dome above the was led by Dr. Mateo Bencur and Luka a member of the British principal altar. Along the left side Bonačić-Dorić. From the subtle to the visible. Explore expeditions on the ships of the main entrance lies the tomb the form and structure of the rocks, the Discovery and Terra Nova. of Monseñor José Fagnano, and play of light on the ice and the reflections A doctor, zoologist, and Previously, in April of 1915, the Croatian in the water, the range of color in the the stained glass along the walls southern and Antarctic landscapes. The sensitive artist, he painted community had provided its rooms for a alludes to the indigenous missions work of artist Mauricio Valencia never the Antarctic landscapes dinner for the Russian researcher Sergei on Dawson Island (Chile) and Río fails to amaze. An awakening, in acrylics in delicate watercolors and Gaiman, who explored the south of Tierra and postcards, available to the public in sketches. He was one of four Grande (Argentina), founded by the del Fuego and the subantarctic islands. various formats at his home gallery. 0404 men who died together with Salesian Fagnano, who was originally El Ovejero street. m2213768. Scott on their return from the from Italy. The Dawson Island p [email protected]. Monday to Saturday 4 - 8 PM. South Pole in March of 1912. mission was visited briefly in 1897 Welcoming the men rescued from the wreck Just before his death, Scott of the Endurance, at the Plaza de Armas in by Cook, Arctowski, and Racovitza

wrote a letter to Wilson’s wife, RSOLAR Punta Arenas. the words of which are now while the ship Belgica took on coal inscribed on a monument to in Punta Arenas. Cook took some Wilson: “He died as he lived. anthropometric measurements of the Fuegian Indians A brave true man. The best of at the mission and compiled a brief vocabulary of their comrades and staunchest of language. These studies would be continued in Ushuaia friends.” and Harberton, where on his return, Cook obtained the manuscript of a Yagán language dictionary prepared by the Anglican Reverend Thomas Bridges.

In 1908 the Swedish Magellanic Expedition visited the San Rafael mission on Dawson Island, leaving Skottsberg with an unfavorable impression, just as had been the case with the explorers on the ship Belgica.

At that time, there were only 45 natives at the mission, Muñoz Gamero plaza has been the heart of Punta Arenas since the end of the 19th century, when according to the data supplied by Fagnano. Today the the powerful Magallanes businessmen erected their palatial homes and commercial buildings around it. In its center is the monument to Hernando de Magallanes, donated by José Menéndez Basket made from an armadillo, Salesian Regional Museum “Maggiorino Borgatello” in 1920 to commemorate the fourth centennial of the discovery of the Straits of Magellan. The at a furrier in Punta Arenas. A has on display several items from those missions (336 statue recalls the Portuguese captain whose expedition, following his death, completed the first sketch by Edward Wilson. Avenida Bulnes). circumnavigation of the earth. 24 25 17 Punta Arenas Municipal Theater 823 Magallanes street. m2200673. p [email protected].

The “José Bohr” municipal theater is located on the site of the first fort for “Sandy Point”, which was erected

PRUIZ in 1848. The theater building is in Shackleton Bar neoclassical style, constructed by Numa 16 959 Bories street, inside the Hotel José Nogueira. Mayer and remodeled in 2012. In 1916 www.hotelnogueira.com. Monday to Sunday 12-11 PM. it was the scene of the scintillating The Hotel José Nogueira has decorated the “Shackleton Bar” with early 1900s and eloquent speech of Sir Ernest furnishings and a series of watercolors from architect Harley Benavente that Shackleton, along with the incredible show the experiences of “The Boss” and his men in the Weddell Sea. The bar images of photographer Frank Hurley, was inaugurated in 2005 in the presence of Lady Alexandra Shackleton, niece on the story of the ship Endurance. of the Irish-born explorer. During her visit to Punta Arenas she met Jaime and Fernando Pardo Huerta, the grandchildren of sea-pilot Pardo. Frank Worsley, Tom Crean, and

Shackleton reached Punta Arenas on RSOLAR The Shackleton Bar used to be the dining room of Sara Braun, sister of the 4th of July, coming in from Port Mauricio Braun and widow of the pioneer José Nogueira, whose mansion is Stanley on the Falkland Islands (Malvinas) following two attempts to rescue now a National Historical Monument, and is divided into a hotel and the Club their companions still marooned on Elephant Island. A large public gathering, de la Unión, open to members of the public undertaking visits to historical mainly of British settlers, was on hand to greet them with a long ovation at locations. the city government building on the 9th of July. Shackleton was introduced by Charismatic and tireless, Sir Ernest Shackleton Reverend Cater, opening the celebration with thanks to Punta Arenas, the Chilean (1874-1922) made his first sailing trip to Cape government, and the British Association of Punta Arenas, and there were jokes Horn when only 16 years old. While in the merchant marine he participated with Captain that drew nervous laughs from the audience. “I am only too sorry that I did not

CFMILWARD Robert Scott in the voyage of the ship Discovery realize before that from Punta Arenas there was an opportunity of making a in 1901-04, from which he was evacuated due to scurvy, following a southward trek of journey to rescue my comrades... I feel that we are going to rescue them.” All 92 days in the company of Scott and Edward the money from the entry tickets was donated to the Hospital de la Caridad, the Wilson. A voracious reader, Shackleton worked French military health service, and the British Red Cross. as a journalist for Royal Magazine and then as secretary for the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. Years later he led the Nimrod expedition Two months later, after the rescue predicted of 1907-09 which determined the location of the magnetic South Pole and opened a route to the by “The Boss”, the men enjoyed a series geographic South Pole, getting to within 160 km of social gatherings in Punta Arenas. Only of their goal. After returning he was awarded a Frank Hurley, the workaholic, preferred to knighthood by King Edward VII. keep himself in the darkroom of the local Shackleton’s legendary leadership allowed photographer Cándido Veiga after finding out the tragic Imperial Transantarctic Expedition on the 4th of September that the majority of of 1914-17 to reach a fortunate conclusion. As noted by Alexander Macklin of the ship his negatives and films from theEndurance Endurance, the men remained cheerful in spite tragedy had survived and could be developed. of their very precarious situation. Shackleton died at the age of 47 on South Georgia Island, With the help of naval engineer Dixon, who Portrait of Shackleton in Punta Arenas, 1916. at the beginning of the Quest voyage to Wilkes had a movie projector made, and the local Photograph by Cándido Veiga. Land in Antarctica. photographer Veiga, Hurley worked tirelessly until the first movie of Shackleton’s odyssey could be exhibited during a talk by Frank Wild at an exclusive premiere at the Municipal Theater.

Endurance trapped in pack ice, August 27th 1915. Photograph by Frank Hurley. The extraordinary photographs and films taken by the Australian Frank Hurley (1885-1962) during the Imperial Transantarctic Expedition were world-famous. An experienced polar photographer, Hurley was one of the first to bring images of Antarctica to the public eye around the world, though he had been criticized for retouching his photographs to get the “perfect image.”

26 27 19 St. James Anglican Church and The British School St. James Church: 454 Waldo Seguel street. m2247995. www.iapa.cl. Services on Sundays 11 AM. Services in English on the first Sunday of each month, between March and December. The British School: www.britishschool.cl. British Given the growing British presence in Magallanes, Waite Hockin Stirling, the first Anglican bishop for RSOLAR South America, sent missionary John Williams and his family in 1895 to construct a chapel for the Punta 18 Magallanes Regional Museum and Mauricio Arenas colony. In 1896 a school was established and Braun residence finally in 1904 a splendid parish church was built out of 949 Magallanes.m2244216 p [email protected]. October to April: Wednesday the fine-grained regional wood. to Monday 10:30 AM - 5 PM. May to September: Wednesday to Monday 10:30 - 2 PM. During Shackleton’s stay in the city, he was assisted The Magallanes Regional Museum is exhibits about the extinct fauna and by Reverend Joseph Cater, a friend of his from a Chilean National Monument and the the first inhabitants of Patagonia and Shackleton’s days as the secretary of the Royal work of architect Antoine Beaulier. Until Tierra del Fuego: the Yaganes, Kawésqar, Scottish Geographical Society. Tom Jones, manager 1981 it was the residence of the Braun- Tehuelches, Sélknam, and Haush, as well

of the freezer plant in nearby Río Seco, related RSOLAR Menéndez family. Its owner, Mauricio as the conflicts between these peoples that during a reception at The British School to let Braun, along with Adolfo Andresen, and the White Man. Other exhibits include the British colony get to know the famous explorer, Shackleton disappeared Juan Blanchard, and Pedro de Bruyne the discovery of the Straits, the first with the reverend and some friends, who had moved to a smaller meeting. of the Magallanes Whaling Company, voyages of exploration – mostly those The tremendous magnetism of “The Boss” - as Shackleton was known - kept initiated the hunting of whales in the of Dumont D’Urville and the HMS Beagle region and in 1906 established a base – the taking of possession of the region everyone from returning to their homes. Other at Deception Island, the first Chilean by Chile and the beginnings of the local mythology holds that the expedition’s settlement in the Antarctic seas. first settlement. photographer Frank Hurley had used the sacristy of St James church as a darkroom for Besides a glance into the rooms of The library, which is open to developing some of the photos from the fateful the mansion, the museum offers researchers, brings together travels of the Endurance crew. historic texts, literary works, Next door to the church, the school features musical scores, guidebooks, a room with documents from the British PRUIZ notebooks, and magazines as Historical Archive. Here you can see the well as the Mauricio Braun Fund visitor log from the old British Club, with the with personal files of the famous signatures of Ernest Shackleton, Captain businessman. The author Armando Frank Worsley, and Tom Braun Menéndez, son of Mauricio, Crean, introduced to the found material for his publications club by British consul in his father’s library, which he wove Charles Milward. into his works on the history of the extreme south. These included books such as Pequeña Historia Antártica Card of the Endurance expedition dedicated to (Short History of Antarctica), Pequeña Charles Milward. Historia Magallánica (Short History Mauricio Braun’s desk. of Magallanes), and Pequeña Historia Patagónica (Short History of Patagonia). CFMILWARD The first photographs of the Yagans, the “sea nomads”, The unshakeable Irish sailor Tom Crean (1877-1938) came from the French Cape Horn Scientific Mission under participated in the Antarctic expeditions of the ships the command of Captain Louis Ferdinand Martial of Discovery, Terra Nova, and Endurance. For his service the ship Romanche, which was based for one year at on the second of those ships he was decorated for saving the life of Captain Evan and the third mate. Orange Bay on Hoste Island, for the Transit of Venus Together with Shackleton and Worsley he lived through and the first international polar year (1882-83). The the historic open-boat voyage from Elephant Island scientists undertook research in astronomy, meteorology, to South Georgia on the tiny James Caird. They geophysics, zoology, biology, and ethnology, sending 200 then crossed the island’s mountains and glaciers boxes of samples collected in the Fuegian archipelago, to the whaling station, later reaching Punta Arenas, where the canoe Indians had lived for more than 6,000 which he had visited on his first Antarctic exploration years. The expedition bore testimony to the many deaths in voyage. The South Pole Inn, a pub in the Irish town of Ushuaia due to the tuberculosis that attacked the Indians at Annascaul, still has a portrait of the cutter Yelcho. the Thomas Bridges Anglican mission. 28 29 RSOLAR RSOLAR

Milward castle 20 Home of writer Francisco Coloane 959 Avenida España. Currently offices of the newspaper El Pingüino. m2247070. 21 305 Fagnano street. Monday to Friday 8 AM-7.30 PM. Saturday 8 AM-1.30 PM.

Part church and part castle, built by the architect ... Just as the children of today dream of traveling to

Miguel Bonifetti, this curious house still carries the other planets, I yearned to know what was on the other AEBNC name of its first owner, British consul Captain Charles side of Drake’s Passage, and so I invented it... Milward, who assisted Robert Scott in 1904 in FRANCISCO COLOANE mailing correspondence related to the ship Discovery. In 1905 he organized the South Georgia Island Exploration Company. In July 1916 he lodged Ernest Shackleton here during his first stay in Punta Arenas, on the third attempt to rescue the shipwrecked men novel contest with El último grumete of the Endurance. de la Baquedano (roughly translated: The Last Cabin-Boy on the Ship One night, during an interview with Charles Riesco, Baquedano). He won the contest again while nervously cleaning his revolver and shaking a in 1945 with Los Conquistadores de la glass of whiskey, Shackleton accidentally fired a shot Antártica (Conquerors of the Antarctic). RSOLAR that grazed Milward’s ear, passed through a drawing In 1947 Coloane participated in the first CFMILWARD of some dogs, and ended up stuck in the wall of the The author Francisco Coloane (1910- official Chilean expedition to the White Continent and in 1962 wrote El Camino Captain Charles Amherst living room. In those days of considerable tension, 2002) moved to Punta Arenas while Milward (1859-1928), formerly Shackleton had found unconditional support from an adolescent. He won his first literary de la Ballena (The Whale’s Path). He in the merchant marine with prize during Spring Fiestas in 1926. At won the National Literature Prize in the New Zealand Shipping the consul and the British Association of Magallanes, Company, had lived a life of whose president, Allan MacDonald, went on to the foot of the hill called Cerro de la 1964. Coloane’s narrations expertly adventure and passion that provide even greater support, becoming the great Cruz there is a plaque identifying the portray the geography and the people paled some of Shackleton’s house where he lived. of the extreme south and have been own feats. In 1898 he was explorer’s assistant when he was placed in charge of shipwrecked on the Mataura off British propaganda in South America during the First adapted to film as well as translated Desolation Island, and settled Orphaned at 17 years of age, Coloane into other languages, including English. in Punta Arenas. From there he World War. sent a piece of mylodon skin left high school at the Liceo de to England, which would later Bruce Chatwin introduced the Milward castle in his Hombres - now known as Liceo Luis Coloane wrote that his father, Juan drive the dreams and narrative Alberto Barrera - served in the military Agustín, a Chilote from Quemchi, of Bruce Chatwin, a distant classic book, In Patagonia : “...an iron gate painted relative of Milward. During his green, with crossed Ms twined about with Pre- and upon leaving became a shepherd became a sealer and whaler at a whale life in the city he was director for the very wealthy Sara Braun. He station south of Corral. There he had of the Bank of Punta Arenas, Raphaelite lilies, led into a shadowy garden where consul for the UK, Antarctic still grew the plants of my grandmother’s generation: began writing stories, alternating been captain of the cutter Yelcho, ship owner, and proprietor of an the blood-red roses, the yellow-spattered laurels. his residence between the city, the the first Chilean boat outfitted with a iron and bronze foundry. The house had high pitched gables and gothic plains, the Patagonian waterways, harpoon gun. It was the Yelcho that became famous for the rescue of the Manhole cover from the windows. On the street side was a square tower, and Santiago. In the latter he worked Milward foundry on the corner and at the back an octagonal one. The neighbors as a journalist for the newspapers shipwrecked men of the Endurance of O’Higgins and Pedro Montt Las Últimas Noticias, El Sol, Crítica, in Antarctica. The historian Jorge streets. used to say ‘Old Milward can’t decide if it’s a church or a castle,’ or ‘I suppose he thinks he’ll go to and La Nación. In 1940 he won the Berguño insisted, however, that the heaven quicker in a place like that.’” Although Zig-Zag magazine national juvenile- Yelcho never was a whaling boat. PRUIZ the garden is gone and the interior has been remodeled for the offices of the newspaper, El Pingüino, the castle-chalet really hasn’t changed much on the outside and it remains open for visitors. Even the octagonal tower.

30 31 Royal Hotel 23 Corner of O’Higgins and José Menéndez. (Site only; destroyed by fire. Site now occupied by the “Celebrity Pub.”)

A tidy kitchen and a spacious dining room, plenty of rooms for lodging, personalized attention, managed by the owner, F. Garnier

RSOLAR – this was the advertising around the end of the 1920s for the Royal Hotel, a favorite of the 22 Military History Museum English in the Magallanes region and the main Zenteno street, no number. Located at the Army base called “Regimiento Pudeto.” competition for the Hotel Cosmos. m2247409. Tuesday to Friday 9 AM-12.30 PM / 2.30-5.20 PM.

Antarctica is the only continent that has never known war. Despite the complete destruction of the When Man comes here he instinctively leaves behind his hotel from a blaze, its memory survives in a prejudices and pride and coexists with humble tolerance and couple of photographs that immortalize the respect for others… In Antarctica there is no money and scene in the front of the hotel with sea-pilot no easy riches; Man must toil, sharing his food with others. Pardo, Shackleton, and his survivors, who The night will startle him in his sleep, his face to the stars, on the third of September 1916 came to the filling his eyes with the infinite. Royal along with an enthusiastic crowd and ÓSCAR PINOCHET DE LA BARRA a band all the way from the pier. Shackleton introduced the survivors from a second-floor The military museum was founded in 1995 on José window and then made arrangements for Menendez street and moved in 2005 to the Army base getting them a more civilized appearance, known as the “Regimento Pudeto” where the writer with haircuts and new clothes. Francisco Coloane performed his military service. Inside,

the Ramón Cañas Montalva room recalls the life and RSOLAR Only “The Boss” and three of his companions works of that distinguished military thinker who was one stayed at that hotel since the majority were of the promoters of Chilean presence in Antarctica, theorist The walls of the “Hotel Boutique lodged in Punta Arenas homes that fought in national polar politics, and organizer of the first official Antártica” recreate the amazing over the honor of caring for these rough- expeditions. experiences of the heroic era and the tremendous fortitude of polar animal edged men, now unaccustomed to the city In the room called Proyección Antártica are the founding life. The theme setting of the library and its luxuries, still wondering why the local documents for the first two Chilean bases in Antarctica. provides even more tales, including those of the rescued men of the community was receiving them in such a The first was originally called Base Soberanía (Sovereignty), shipwrecked Endurance.29 Avenida warm and friendly manner. later changed to Base Arturo Prat, and inaugurated by the Colón.m2371525. Chilean Navy on Greenwich Island in 1947. The second www.hotelantartica.com. was Base O’Higgins, on the Antarctic Peninsula, founded During the heavy storms, on the days when we could not go out, we often heard in 1948. The room also contains photographs of flora Óscar Pinochet de la Barra what sounded like sea-pigeons pecking at our hut, as if they wanted us to know that and fauna, wooden skis, and a snowmobile used on Base in the first official Chilean O’Higgins until the year 2000. expedition to Antarctica. there were tiny beings capable of withstanding the furious Antarctic gales better than we, the kings of all Creation. Rounding out the exhibits are the rooms dedicated to the ethnic groups in the far south, including OTTO NORDENSKJÖLD a collection of “boleadoras” from General Cristián Cvitanic’s photography attempts Cañas, along with material on the taking of to capture the hidden warmth and drama in possession of the Straits and Fuerte Bulnes, the panoramas of the Antarctic, to obtain something well out of the ordinary, whether the Magallanes Battalion and the Chilean the portrait of an animal, the landscape, or Army V Division, and military armament. the human presence on the White Continent. m09-97102058. pcristiancvitanic@yahoo.

com. www.patagoniaphoto.cl. INACH CCVITANIC

32 33 RSOLAR PRUIZ 25 Antarctic Monolith At the end of Avenida Colón, in front of the high school Luis Alberto Barrera.

This solid piece of stone and concrete contains three plaques: one that represents the Chilean Antarctic Territory, and the other three provide homages to people and organizations 24 Urban mural linked to Chilean polar history. Waterfront avenue (“Costanera Estrecho de Magallanes”) between José Menéndez and Avenida Colón. The first inscription identifies Pedro Sancho de Hoz, Pedro de Valdivia, Designed by the architect Fernando Padilla, the and Jerónimo de Alderete, the latter

painter Luis Pérez and the student Víctor Nova, RSOLAR being the first governor of Chile this mural was inaugurated in September of 2012 with jurisdiction of the land called thanks to a project sponsored by the Chilean National Terra Australis. Others include the Council for Culture and the Arts. This architectural independence hero Bernardo O’Higgins, Whaling Company, a fleet established intervention deals with the history of Punta Arenas as and doctor Federico Puga Borne. in 1906 which founded the first seen from the waterfront, reflecting the beginnings Chilean settlement in Antarctica. The of the city, its classic architectural sponsors, the Puga was the senator, diplomat, and inscription commemorates also the legendary Roca street, the piers and other icons that government minister who promoted companies Braun & Blanchard; De symbolize the urban development and growth of this the settlement of the southernmost Bruyne, Andresen & Company; the regional capital. In the middle of the mural, in the regions and who, in 1896, supported Punta Arenas Salvage Company; and scene showing the port, you can make out the cutter an expedition to the South Shetland the Corral Whaling Company – all of Yelcho and the Piloto Pardo. Islands led by Otto Nordenskjöld, which whom left Chile’s indelible mark in never came to fruition. The plaque the Antarctic region. The cutter Yelcho was built in Scotland in 1906 with a steel also mentions president Pedro Aguirre hull and a 300 horsepower steam engine, along with large coal bunkers. It had no electric lighting, wireless telegraph Cerda, whose 1940 decree established The third inscription is in tribute to equipment, nor protection against the ice. The Yelcho- the limits of the Chilean Antarctic the members of the Chilean armed Palena company had used it as a transport ship for the The elegant former home of Territory. forces and the technicians who made small settlements that failed to prosper in the Aysén region Alfonso Roux is now the Air and in Tierra del Fuego. It was purchased by the Chilean Force facility (907 Avenida possible the outposts on the White Navy in 1908 and participated in oceanographic research Colón) where the majority Another plaque evokes the figures Continent, as well as the scientists of the Chilean air operations and ship salvage operations as well as naval patrols and whose research has promoted the movement of materials in the Beagle Channel, along and expeditions to the White of businessmen Mauricio Braun and with a census of the southern islands. In the historic events Continent are managed. Adolfo Andresen of the Magallanes knowledge of the Antarctic region. of 1916 the Yelcho towed the schooner Emma on the third attempt to rescue Shackleton’s 22 shipwrecked men in the Weddell Sea. On the 30th of August that year, still without Icebergs, microorganisms, penguins, satisfactory conditions, the fourth attempt succeeded. After and ice crystals are among the forms the rescue the Yelcho carried the men to Punta Arenas and and structures of the austral land and then later to Valparaiso. The ship was decommissioned in sea that are captured in the jewelry 1958 and dismantled in Punta Arenas. Part of its bow rests of goldsmith Marcela Alcaíno, whose in the center of Puerto Williams, capital of the province of examples of forged silver contain Chilean Antarctica. items from Drake’s Passage, stones from the beaches and mountains of A mural at the front Patagonia, enamels, and resins. of the high school Joyas de la Patagonia. 851 Maipú Luis Alberto Barrera street. m2244244. illustrates the natural www.marcelaalcaino.cl. and cultural histories of Monday to Friday 10 AM-1 PM / 3-8 PM. the region of Magallanes Saturday 10 AM-1.30 PM / 3 PM-7 PM. PRUIZ and Chilean Antarctica.

“Shackleton and Pardo toward

the Pole... in a walnut shell.” RSOLAR Caricature in Sucesos magazine, November 1916.

34 35 RSOLAR The 1882 Transit of Venus observed from Punta Arenas

In front of the residence of military intellectual Ramón Cañas, there is a small plaza with the figures of sea lions, which memorializes former governor Francisco Sampaio, who was a strong supporter of growth in the city and port, and who built 26 Ramón Cañas Montalva residence the passenger pier. Between 1882 and 601 Lautaro Navarro street. CFCAÑAS 1883 Sampaio hosted the German and Brazilian “Transit of Venus” expeditions and the French scientific mission to The Germans outside the “tea house”, a This was the home of Ramón Cañas The soldier Cañas married a Punta Cape Horn during the First International small living quarters with kitchen and living Montalva, a multifaceted military man Arenas woman, Isabel Suárez Ladouch, room built by Chilean soldiers and delivered Polar Year, an endeavor that paid tribute and active player in Chilean Antarctic and made considerable efforts to by governor Sampaio to facilitate the night- to Sampaio by giving his name to the time observations and field work. In the first politics. His work led to president Pedro expand culture and sports to all levels row, from left to right: Gustav Steinmann, mountains on Hoste Island. Aguirre Cerda’s 1940 establishment of of society. He established the Sport geologist; Arthur Auwers, head of the The German scientific expedition of transit project and director of the Berlin the office for Antarctic affairs within the Foundation, and the stadium that today Astronomical Observatory; Friedrich Küstner, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and approval bears his name. He opened the Pudeto Arthur Auwers stayed for two and a half astronomer; in the second row: Friedrich of the decree on the boundaries for military base to the community and months in Punta Arenas during their Schwab, mechanic; Paul Kempf, astronomer; y Bohne, Auwers’ servant. the Chilean Antarctic Territory. Cañas created a small zoo and an ice-skating research related to the Transit of Venus Montalva sponsored Admiral Richard rink, and arranged many other activities - which is when Venus passes between observations during the afternoon of Byrd in Punta Arenas and in 1947 and both inside and outside the military the Earth and the sun. They installed an the transit, on the fifth of December 1948, as Chilean Army commander in facilities. In 1941 he was named Austral astronomical observation station near 1882. Nevertheless, the expedition chief he coordinated the first official Region Military Commander, which the lighthouse and conducted tests obtained a great deal of heliometric Chilean expedition to the White resulted in the creation of the V Division with an artificial model of Venus. Heavy data and observations of the planet Continent, along with the visit of Chilean of the Chilean Army. rain and thick clouds obscured their outside of the transit. President Gabriel González Videla. Ramón Cañas oversaw the Athletic and intelligent, educated reconstruction of Fuerte Bulnes, while in Germany, France, England, and asking that the government create Sweden, Ramón Cañas (1896-1977) national parks and monuments such as argued tirelessly for creating a separate Torres del Paine, the Mylodon cave, and political and administrative region the Cave of the Lioness. In Punta Arenas The town has at present only about one thousand five hundred inhabitants, and is for Magallanes, and for recognition he had statues erected to Manuel only a group of little wooden houses, scattered copiously on the sloping green lawn… of Chilean rights in the Pacific and Bulnes, Bernard O’Higgins, and “The A peculiar light-house forms the most prominent object on the beach, with a fantastic Antarctica. He arrived in Punta Arenas Shepherd.” As a prolific author he wrote colourful paint, fits perfectly into the landscape. in 1915 as a second lieutenant and was more than 300 works on geopolitics, secretary on the salvage commission created the Chilean Geographic ARTHUR AUWERS for the Ernest Shackleton expedition, magazine, belonged to the directors and with whom he met years later of the Chilean Scientific Society after The Brazilian team that observed who kept up correspondence with the Transit of Venus was made up the French Academy of Sciences in London while completing an his retirement, and presided over the of Luis Cruls and his mechanic, and while incognito, watched assignment with the British Army. 1957-58 International Geophysical Year. Moreira de Assis. They had been the transit in the Pernambuco In 1957 he became the only Chilean brought to Punta Arenas by the observatory. The expeditions visited CFCAÑAS Brazilian Navy frigate Parnahyba, Possession Bay, Orange Bank and delegate at the International Antarctic commanded by Captain Luiz Dirección Bank, the first and second Conference in Stockholm. Philippe de Saldanha da Gama, narrows of the Straits of Magellan, who wrote extensive trip notes for Cabo Negro, and Contramaestre the astronomical report, in spite of Island, where Saldanha performed Punta Arenas has many places that the bad weather that interfered with observations during the transit bear Cañas’ name: the sports stadium, a The astronomer their measurements. hours. The biologist George Luis Cruls, head Rumbelsberger put together a major avenue, the military hotel, the Ojo of the Brazilian The active participation of Brazil in botanical collection from Tierra del Bueno military facility, and a room in the expedition and the transit of 1882 was due to the Fuego for the National Museum of Military History Museum. director of the personal interest of Emperor Pedro II, Río de Janeiro. Río de Janeiro Observatory. Ramón Cañas acting in the silent film Juro no volver a amar (I swear I will never fall in love again), in 1925. 36 37 This is a half-day tour that can be done on foot, by bicycle or car, or using public transportation. There are 8 sites, starting at the northern end of the city and continuing to the historic Río Seco sector. This excursion includes the world-famous municipal cemetery, along with museums, wharfs, and piers - each with an engaging Northern story to tell about expeditions to the White Continent. Punta Arenas 38 39 28 Salesian Regional Museum

“Maggiorino Borgatello” RSOLAR

336 Avenida Bulnes . m2221001. www.museomaggiorinoborgatello.cl. Wednesday to Sunday 10 AM-12.30 PM / 3-6 PM.

A visit to the Salesian Regional Museum “Maggiorino Borgatello” covers more than a century of history and ethnography 27 Charity Hospital of Patagonia. Created by the Catholic Located at Bories and Magallanes streets between Croacia and Sarmiento. Salesian order and inaugurated in 1893, it is the oldest museum in the Magallanes region. It was here in this care center that waters. The Norwegian lived out his Its collection is housed on four floors, fostering Captain Adolfo Andresen died in 1940. last years in the rooming house of knowledge in regional culture, geography, fauna, Perce Blackborow, the young stowaway Delfina Guzmán, one block from the flora, mineralogy, paleontology, and business. Large on Shackleton’s ship Endurance, was present Hotel Savoy, site of the former dioramas recreate scenes from the lives of the indigenous hospitalized here for three months in Imperial Hotel where he had drowned Sélknam, Káwesqar, Yaganes and Tehuelches, with their 1916. All that remains of the building his sorrows. His favorite drinking spot, primitive tools and characteristic utensils, many of which were is a single wing of two floors on however, was the now-disappeared made at the Salesian missions at Río Grande and Dawson Island, Magallanes street, next to the Copec Scandinavian Bar, on Lautaro Navarro founded by Monseñor José Fagnano. gas-station. All that is left is the section street. that used to be the hospital laundry One large room is dedicated to Antarctica and shows a number of Perce Blackborow, the stowaway and facility. preserved examples of birds and marine mammals. A map shows youngest of the rescued crew from the locations of the Chilean bases and territorial claims in Antarctica, The Magallanes Assistance League the ship Endurance, had suffered from managed to assemble a community frostbitten toes and resulting gangrene along with display cases with objects and information related to the effort to establish a hospital after the on Elephant Island. The affected toes whaling industry, the rescue of Shackleton’s 22 men, and vestiges destruction of the first one during the were amputated on the island. When of items from Deception Island. Here, in 1955 in Péndulo Cove the “Mutiny of the Artillerymen.” The new he reached Punta Arenas he was still Pedro Aguirre Cerda base was constructed, only to be destroyed “charity” hospital, called the Hospital suffering from frostbite and was taken by a violent volcanic explosion in 1967. de la Caridad, opened on the second of by the Red Cross to the charity hospital August, 1899. It was staffed by what and babied by the nurses there. He had The museum contains a national photographic archive and library were called “pioneer doctors” from the no lack of visitors from the Shackleton with more than 2,000 titles, among them the works of Father little town, including Thomas Fenton crew, particularly those close to him Alberto de Agostini, the great Salesian explorer who made several and Lautaro Navarro. There were no who had been accomplices in his challenging ascents of Patagonian peaks and created graphical and government funds for the hospital, only introduction in Buenos Aires, including audiovisual records of the indigenous peoples who had inhabited private donations. Green the cook, William Bakewell, the extreme south for thousands of years. and Walter How. On November 8, It was here that Adolfo Andresen, 1916, Blackborow was released from commander of the Magallanes Whaling the hospital and began his return to PRUIZ Company, died in poverty, following England aboard the ship Ortega. Shaft cross carried to the South Pole in 2003. A copy made a many seasons of hunting in Antarctic similar pilgrimage to the North Pole and is now found in the Museum of the Arctic and Antarctic in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Being a stowaway on a ship headed for some exotic place is a fantasy for many, but few have known the experience as did Salesian meteorological observatory Perce Blackborow (1896-1949). The Welsh Perce and American The first meteorological observatory in Punta Arenas was established by William Bakewell were sailors on the ship The Golden Gate that request of the Congress of Venice to the Salesian Don Bosco and installed wrecked in Montevideo. In Buenos Aires in October 1914 they at the old San José school. It is now located on the sixth floor of the new found the Endurance, and Bakewell was hired. Blackborow was building and features a fourth station. Since 1887 it has recorded, considered too young and inexperienced but stowed away for three times a day, the temperature, precipitation, atmospheric what was to become one of the most fascinating voyages in pressure, relative humidity, hours of sunlight, and wind speed history. Once discovered, Shackleton announced that if the ship and direction. These data are necessary for understanding were in trouble and they needed to eat someone, it would be the the changeable weather conditions in the region and have young stowaway. The Boss gave him a position as steward and been needed by international scientific organizations he soon gained the acceptance of the crew. On the trip that took including the first German Antarctic expedition by the castaways to Elephant Island, Perce suffered frostbite and Von Drygalski on board the Gauss (1901-03) and gangrene, and the toes of his left foot were amputated by the the Swedish expedition of Otto Nordenskjöld doctors Alexander Macklin and James McIlroy. On those terrible in the ship Antarctic (1901-04). The museum nights, while Hussey played the banjo and the shipwrecked Perce Blackborow and maintains the observation records and data men dreamed of luxurious banquets, Perce could think only of Mrs Chippy, carpenter recorded by the observatory between its a piece of bread and butter. McNish’s cat, on board beginnings and the year 2003. the Endurance. 40 41 RSOLAR

30 Race Track (Club Hípico) Avenida Bulnes, no number.

This property, established in 1894, includes 23 hectares and served as the regional equestrian center until 2006. It was here that INACH in 1911 the Magallanes Rural Association was born, dedicated to Punta Arenas municipal cemetery promoting livestock and agricultural and a brigade of Boy Scouts who 29 029 Avenida Bulnes. m2212777. May to September: Monday to Sunday development. In the past there were passed in review in honor of Sir Ernest 8 AM-6 PM. October to April: Monday to Sunday 8 AM-8 PM. horse races, polo, charity events, Shackleton. In those days the field and other public activities. Today the was also used for testing airplanes, The Punta Arenas municipal cemetery European religious orthodox styles. track sees occasional Chilean-style with local people acting as passengers is highlighted by its magnificent entry Likewise here are the resting places of races as well as running greyhounds, following prior arrangements. portal and the refined, neoclassical- the Blanchard family, the Menéndez- horse training, and even football On March 3, 1940 a race was held inspired mausoleums, making it a Behety, the companies of firefighters, (soccer) matches. mandatory place for tourists to visit. In the Salesian congregation, and Lautaro here in honor of Richard Byrd. It was the small plaza near the center is the Navarro, among many others. Celtic It was here that in September of attended by General Ramón Cañas tomb of Captain Adolfo Andresen, a crosses adorn the graves of those 1916 the celebration took place Montalva and the principal authorities pioneer in the Chilean whaling industry. from the British colony, including for the rescue of the shipwrecked of the city. The explorer Byrd spent Charles Milward, the Reverend John men of the Endurance, with 5,000 that night at a cocktail party and dance Well-groomed Monterey cypresses Williams, Charles Riesco and Sir Walter people in attendance out of a given at the Navy officers’ dining hall, flank the avenues here, leading to Baldwin Spencer - the British biologist population of fewer than 20,000. a party attended also by the ladies the mausoleums of Sara Braun and and anthropologist who perished on The picnic included a gymnastics of Magellanic society, along with the José Nogueira, whose forms follow Hoste Island during an ethnographic demonstration put on by the local Chilean officers Federico Bonert and the architectural lines of Eastern expedition in 1929. Croatian sports club “Sokol Croata”, a Exequiel Rodríguez, crew members on squabbling soccer match, Byrd’s third polar expedition. Born in Sandefjord, a port Andresen became commander of the of Vikings and whalers, whaling fleet that reined from its base at Adolfo Andresen (1872- the South Shetland Islands. The pole lies at the center of an infinite plain.... once 1940) left his native reached there is nothing else to say. The effort in getting Norway to establish At Deception Island, the Norwegian and his himself in Punta companion Wilhelmine Schröder -probably there is all that counts. Arenas in 1894, the first woman in Antarctica- together RICHARD BYRD where he worked in with a talking parrot and an Angora cat, sealing and shipwreck were visited by the explorer Jean Baptist- salvage, which allowed Charcot, who was supplied with 30 tons him to observe the of coal. By 1912 he broke away from the Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd (1888-1957) was an large numbers of those operation as whale production was falling, Adolfo Andresen American Navy officer, pilot, and polar explorer. animals in the southern along with world prices for their products. Between 1928 and 1930 he led a private expedition to channels. After buying a harpoon gun in 1903 Andresen sold his ships and returned to Antarctica and was the navigator of the first flight over he contacted Mauricio Braun, whose business Norway. Then in 1933 he returned to Chile the South Pole. In his second expedition from 1933 to Braun & Blanchard prepared the steamship and together with 52 countrymen and a 1935 he spent six months alone in a small hut on the Magallanes for a fur-seal expedition. On Swede he formed the Chilean-Norwegian Ross Ice Shelf where he nearly died from prolonged their second campaign they captured three Fishing Cooperative. carbon monoxide poisoning. whales - the first for commercial operations The number of whales taken was in the southern hemisphere. This led to small and the market offered Affected by this experience, during a visit to Punta the formation of De Bruyne, Andresen, and poor prices. Andresen sold Arenas in 1940 he insisted on working for an Company, together with Alejandro Menéndez his ships to pay debts organization that would bring together people of Behety and Pedro A. de Bruyne. The factory and began his economic the American continents for the betterment of ship Almirante Montt gave even better results slide downward. He died mankind. His unusual visions turned him into a during the 1905-06 season. The business in poverty, alone in Punta “It is very difficult to myth: he proclaimed that in Antarctica he had expanded and became the Magallanes Arenas, on the night of express my gratitude for been attacked by Nazi flying saucers during Whaling Company. With nine ships, a base in January 12, 1940. the royal manner in which Operation Highjump, and having traveled to the El Águila Bay and another on Deception Island, we have been received in center of the earth through openings at the pole, Wilhelmine Schröder Punta Arenas”, said Byrd in finding amazing civilizations there, surrounded by his letter of appreciation. prehistoric animals and leafy vegetation. 42 43 32 Catalina Bay CFCALCUTTA (Bahía Catalina) 5 km north of Punta Arenas at the Tres Puentes wharf. Tests of the Northrup Texaco 20 aircraft were done here in 1934 in RSOLAR preparation for embarking the aircraft on the ship Wyatt Earp to perform Photo of the Northrup photographic flights over the Antarctic Texaco 20 in Catalina Bay. region. The Wyatt Earp, with its Norwegian crew and equipped by the American millionaire Lincoln Ellsworth, flight there. The Ellsworth Mountains 31 Patagonia Institute (Instituto de la Patagonia) had a rough time as it traveled from are named to honor his feat. 1855 Avenida Bulnes (across from the Zona Franca). its base on Deception Island to Punta m2207051. www.umag.cl/facultades/instituto. In 1843, after the possession of the Monday to Friday 8.30 AM-5.30 PM. Saturday 9 AM-1 PM. Arenas, and along the way was lashed by severe storms. Straits of Magellan was taken by Chile, Captain John Williams, - “Juan The Patagonia Institute (Instituto de la In the city, its commander Sir Hubert Guillermos”- and naturalist Bernardo Patagonia) was founded in 1969 as a center Wilkins was received by the English Philippi came ashore at Catalina Bay for research focused on the science and inhabitants and toasted at the Cosmos to seek out a place with favorable history of the Magellanic region. Within an Hotel and the British Club. Later, he conditions to establish a fort, which expansive park, the Museo del Recuerdo traveled overland to Río Gallegos, ultimately was built at Santa Ana Point, (“Museum of Memories”) brings together old Argentina, to get parts for the airplane 62 km south of what was then called buildings, carriages, furniture, and utensils that had been sent from Buenos Sandy Point or “Punta Arenosa”. But of the pioneer period. The José Menéndez Aires. The famous Ellsworth (1880- within five years life at that colony pavilion has on display a bowsprit found 1951) waited on Deception Island to became unsustainable. Governor on Greenwich Island in the South Shetland return to his scientific exploration José de los Santos Mardones decided Islands archipelago, recovered by the crew of in Antarctica. In 1935 he had to move the population for a better the Chilean Navy ship, the Piloto Pardo. flown from the tip of the Antarctic location: Sandy Point. And thus was The museum features a library specializing Peninsula as far as Roosevelt Island, born, in 1848, the city we know as in Patagonian and Antarctic subject matter, completing the first transcontinental Punta Arenas. Tractus Australior Americae Meridionalis including a cartographic collection and -a map by Frederick de Witt in 1690. From the collection of the Patagonia Institute. a special archive of old magazines. The Sir Hubert Williams (1888-1958) belonged to the second generation library has a book store for purchase of of Antarctic explorers, who in the main were aviators. But he was works published by the University also a photographer, soldier, geographer, and naturalist, serving of Magallanes, which took over the as the ornithologist for the Antarctic expedition of the ship Quest (1921-22), led by Shackleton before his death. Wilkins made the first Institute in 1985. Antarctic flight of discovery in December 1928, within the framework of the Wilkins-Hearst expedition (1928-30) which covered both the The botanist Edmundo Pisano created coast and the continental interior. On that year, the Australian Wilkins the Carl Skottsberg botanical garden, and Carl Ben Wielson were the first to fly across the Arctic, a feat with plant communities representing for which he was knighted. His fame grew during the unsuccessful expedition when he attempted to reach the North Pole in the the various biomass features of the submarine Nautilus. In accordance with his last wishes, his ashes region, including the Patagonian steppe, were scattered in the northern region that had filled his dreams. the deciduous Magellanic forest and the evergreen Magellanic forest. When Skottsberg was in Punta Arenas he After participating in Otto Nordenskjöld’s 1901-04 was merely a young Antarctic explorer, Swedish Antarctic Expedition, Carl Skottsberg but would soon become one of the (1880-1963) wanted to return to where they greatest botanists of the 20th century. had visited previously, and so he planned the Swedish Magellanic Expedition of 1907-09, this He described the city as it was over a time to study the geological changes resulting

hundred years ago as a cosmopolitan from the Ice Age, along with the formation of the HGÓMEZ place, “…a babel of tongues. Pretentious Patagonian channels and the Andean valleys, the stone buildings, interspersed with flora and fauna, and the indigenous groups. On his second trip to Chile in 1916-17, the famous corrugated-iron houses, dozens of botanist collected and classified hundreds of examples of plants from places that included hotels and American bars, howling Surfbirds, sanderlings, southern wigeons, and Chilean pintails are all common in the wetlands Chiloé, Easter Island, and Robinson Crusoe gramophones, the rattling of cocktails next to the Tres Puentes area north of Punta Arenas, and likewise are sometimes found in Island, where he photographed the last surviving the archipelagos of the South Shetland Islands, the Orcadas, South Georgia Island, and in the in the mixing - that is the first endemic sandlewood. Among the Patagonian Antarctic Peninsula. More than 90 species of birds can be seen just minutes from downtown impression”. species he described, we find this forest violet Punta Arenas in one of its most important green zones. (Viola reichei) with bright yellow flowers. 44 45 RSOLAR RSOLAR

“Nao Victoria” Museum and Shackleton’s 34 Shackleton pier 33 Río Seco, 13 km north of Punta Arenas. “James Caird” replica 7.5 km north of Punta Arenas, on the beach just off the road into the town of Río Seco. It was eight in the morning of the third But as a good showman, “The Boss” m 09-96400772. www.naovictoria.cl. Monday to Sunday 9 AM-6 PM. of September, 1916 and the little ship decided to delay and prepare the This private museum features replicas boarded the three lifeboats and for the Yelcho, conspicuously decked out, proper atmosphere for a triumphal of three emblematic craft of the region: first time in 497 days reached solid tied up at the pier for the Río Seco return. freezer plant, a business funded by the Victoria, flagship of Hernando ground, on Elephant Island. The Magellan Times described de Magallanes, who discovered the British and Magellanic capital and Shackleton announced that he and the awakening of the city after the passage that bears his name and featuring all the latest technology of Worsley, Crean, McNish, Vincent, and announcement: “the news spread whose ship posthumously completed the era. Shackleton was greeted by a McCarthy would try to reach the South like wildfire; the firebells rang out the first circumnavigation of the earth; supervisor of the sheep-processing Georgia Islands. They carried food to advise the populace; flags were the schooner Ancud used by John plant who said “Welcome Captain for six weeks and captain Worsley’s hoisted, and the townspeople of all Williams, who took possession of Scott”, to which Shackleton replied, basic navigational equipment. The nationalities, hurried to the mole to the Straits for Chile and established “Captain Scott be-so-and-soed! He’s James Caird proceeded slowly, give a Punta Arenas welcome to the Fuerte Bulnes, the first Chilean colony; been dead for years!” with sail and oars. Bobbing through intrepid men who have suffered so and the lifeboat James Caird in which blizzards, ice, and huge waves, they Tom Jones, manager of the freezer much in the cause of science and Shackleton and five others sailed from made land on the tenth of May, 1916. plant, belonged to the inner circle at knowledge. Never before, in the history Elephant Island in search of help, in Shackleton determined that they the British Association of Magallanes of Magallanes, has a crowd been a hazardous crossing to reach South would cross to the other side of the and had helped to collect funds seen such as that which gathered to Georgia Island. island. With Worsley and Crean they to charter the schooner Emma witness the entrance of the Yelcho.” for the third attempt to rescue the The reproduction of the James Caird reached the Stromness whaling station Eight years earlier, on the third of shipwrecked men of the Endurance. was built in 2011 with the original after 36 hours of working their way December, 1908, the French explorer As a witness to Shackleton’s calls to plans. The craft is a double-ended around mountains, glaciers, and Jean-Baptiste Charcot, his wife governor Edwards and his friends, whaleboat, designed by Colin Archer, crevasses. From then on, Marguerite Cléry, and the officers of Jones notes in his book Patagonian who planned the ship Fram for Fridtjof they made four desperate the ship Pourquoi-Pas? sat down to a Panorama that the docking at Río Nansen and Roald Amundsen, the attempts to rescue luncheon at the freezer plant, an event Seco was unnecessary since they Norwegian explorer who conquered the the shipwrecked attended by authorities and special could easily have gone directly to South Pole in 1911. men on Elephant invitees. Island, culminating Punta Arenas at 9 that morning. The Scot Sir James Caird was one of in the successful those financing the Imperial Trans- After the sinking of the Endurance, its captain, voyage of the the New Zealander Frank Arthur Worsley (1872- Antarctic Expedition (1914-17). After cutter Yelcho 1943) took over one of the lifeboats, the Dudley the Endurance sank, the crew moved Docker, and guided its crew toward Elephant from Punta from “Ocean Camp” to “Patience Island. Later, with only a sextant for navigation Arenas. on the James Caird, he reached the coast of Camp” where they confronted hunger, South Georgia Island. Together with Shackleton cold, and other suffering. The 28 men and Crean they began a trek toward Stromness. He took part in the Antarctic expedition of the ship Quest (1921-22) and three years later was one of the leaders

RSOLAR of an Arctic expedition. Replica of the Victoria, flagship of Ferdinand Magellan, who in 1522 showed that the earth was round. His discovery of the island Worsley, Shackleton and of Tierra del Fuego made him believe that Crean in Punta Arenas, this was the Terra Australis of Greek legend. 1916. 46 47 For almost five centuries, sailing ships headed forTerra Australis and the South Pole have sailed the turbulent waters of the Straits of Magellan, seeking protected anchorage in the bays covered in this tour. Here are 16 sites that figure in the historical, biological and geological links between Antarctica and South America. A number of sites (36, 37, 39, 40, Straits of 41, 44 y 45) can be reached by regular transport, and there are options for visiting the remainder on outings lasting up to several days. Magellan tour

48 49 35 Point Dungeness 36 First Narrows 270 km to the northeast of Punta Arenas, 170 km to the northeast of Punta Arenas, via Routes 9, 255, and Y-545. via Routes 9, 255, and 257. In 1579, when Sarmiento de Gamboa entered the Straits of Magellan, he conceived of an iron chain stretched between the continent at the First The only vascular (flowering) plants Narrows, and Tierra del Fuego, to prevent access that grow in Antarctica are also found by pirates and corsairs such as Sir Francis Drake, at First Narrows: Antarctic hair grass

MOPORTOT (Deschampsia antarctica - upper a favorite of Queen Elizabeth I of England. photo) and the Antarctic pearlwort (Colobanthus quitensis - lower photo). At Point Dungeness there is a morraine southeastern part of Tierra del Fuego, To the south, at San Gregorio Bay, are the front that belongs to the oldest period where he had seen a group of Yagán wrecks of the steamship Amadeo and the clipper of glaciation in the Magallanes region Indians in the same bay where James Ambassador, which together with its sister ship - nearly one million years ago. This is Cook had spotted other Yaganes the Cutty Sark, connected China with England in where the waters of the Atlantic meet in 1769. Another famous Antarctic the tea trade. Facing the beach is the estancia the Straits of Magellan. Its lighthouse expedition, with the ship Belgica, came (ranch) San Gregorio, the first of its kind in is the first of eight erected along the around Point Dungeness in November Patagonia. Built in 1870, there are still sheep and channel, the scene of many shipwrecks of 1897. The beach on the eastern side cattle grazing here, just as were seen by the men between the sixteenth century and was dotted with pieces of iron from of the Belgica on their voyage to Antarctica. the beginning of the twentieth. This the hull of the ship Cleopatra, and on lighthouse is on the border with the western shore were the remains of 37 Cabeza del Mar Argentina and is the most easterly several wooden ships. As they headed 46 km to the north of Punta Arenas, via Route 9. point in continental Chile. Like the for Primera Angostura - the “First Sir Francis Drake discovered

others, this lighthouse was designed Narrows” - they were accompanied RSOLAR what came to be known as by the Scottish engineer George Slight. by a number of whales, sea lions, Drake’s Passage, showing It was inaugurated in February of 1889. dolphins, albatross, and penguins, that there was no land - in much the same way as Dumont visible, anyway - to the south It was near here that in 1584 Pedro of Cape Horn, putting an D’Urville observed them on the same end to the legend of Sarmiento de Gamboa founded the route. Terra Australis. Spanish settlement called Nombre de Pecket Harbour - originally called Río Pescado - was Sara Braun’s favorite estancia, and Jesús, and its misfortune was shared Point Dungeness is a good place for received visitors that ranged from explorers by the second attempt, adjacent to birdwatching and spotting southern like Richard Byrd to political figures. Point Santa Ana, called Ciudad del right whales (Eubalaena australis) Cabeza del Mar is an area of an oceanographer and geophysicist, Rey don Felipe but better known that come from the Atlantic. A colony considerable geological interest along climbed some of the drumlins to in the region as Puerto Hambre, or of Magellanic penguins (Spheniscus the Straits, being an extensive field observe some of the vestiges of the “Port Famine.” Nearly 240 years later, magellanicus) - a species that does of drumlins: mounds whose smooth Ice Age, including the layers of soil and the Englishman James Weddell, a not inhabit the Antarctic- is found near sides were formed by ancient ice, and the scratches on the rocks resulting curiously well-educated sealer, entered the lighthouse, which is operational showing the direction of travel of the from the movement of the ice. To the the eastern approach to the Strait, and open to the public for tours. glacier some 18,000 years ago. scientist it seemed as though the large believing that the north side would The ships Jane and Beaufoy at latitude At Pecket Harbour in 1837, Jules ranch owners were exploiting their be suitable for agriculture. He had 68° South, on February of 1823. Sketch Dumont D’Urville and his crew came shepherds, which were mostly poor sailed from Buen Suceso Bay in the from “A Voyage towards the South Pole”, by James Weddell. upon a Tehuelche Indian camp. 60 Croatians from Dalmatia. The Pole years later, Emil Racovitza was lodging noted that too much was demanded at the Cabeza del Mar Hotel, a month of them, and wrote “were it not for before Braun invited Henryk Arctowski them, people like Mauricio Braun would and Frederick Cook to watch the not have such good businesses and shearing at Pecket Harbour. Arctowski, become millionaires.” RSOLAR

The second expedition of James Weddell (1787-1834) to the South Shetland Islands (1822-24) allowed him to explore the sea that bears his name, and to reach latitude 74 degrees South. The main objective was the hunting of fur seals for the Samuel Enderby & Sons company, which supplied fat and hides to the English market. Weddell maintained his doubts about the 50 existence of land around the South Pole. 51 RSOLAR CGODOY

38 Islands Isabel, Contramaestre, Magdalena, and Marta By boat, about 35 km north of Punta Arenas. www.conaf.cl/parques/monumento-natural-lospinguinos .

The so-called “penguin islands” have observations at Contramaestre Island been visited by many of the expeditions for the 1882 Brazilian Transit of Venus that have sailed the Straits and those expedition. Magallanes National Reserve - River of the Mines bound for Antarctica. 40 8 km to the west of Punta Arenas via Av. Salvador Allende or Ignacio Carrera Pinto street. Magdalena Island hosts a reproductive www.conaf.cl/parques/reserva-nacional-magallanes. The expedition of the Challenger -which colony of Magellanic penguins that crossed the Antarctic Circle and set up numbers as high as 140,000 individuals The Magallanes National Reserve, In 1897, Amundsen, Racovitza, and modern oceanographic bases - anchored between September and March. Sir filled with birds and forests of lenga Arctowski visited the coal mines here in 1876, performing one of the Francis Drake came here as well, hunting and coihue, is the source of the River and gold workings. At midday they first stratigraphic excavations in South more than 3,000 of these birds in a single of the Mines - the “Río de las Minas.” unsaddled the horses and mules, America. In 1897, the Belgian Antarctic day. Together with Marta Island, with its Along the banks we see layers of lit a fire and prepared anasado al Expedition hunted Patagonian geese colonies of sea lions and cormorants, marine fossils, with bivalves and palo, a lamb on the spit, “the best here, collecting eggs and arrowheads Magdalena Island has been declared a shark’s teeth, alternating with strata possible grilled lamb steak”, as Roald as well. Saldanha made astronomical National Monument. of terrestrial prehistory, with imprints Amundsen said. Henryk Arctowski of leaves, tree-trunks, and coal. The noted: “It is truly amazing the 39 Otway Sound and Skyring Sound oldest of these layers is dated at about thickness and extent of these marine 40 million years ago. The coal was strata – a large part of Patagonia is 70 km to the northwest of Punta Arenas via Routes 9 and Y-50. discovered here in 1584 by Sarmiento made up of these same layers”. The inland seas of Otway and Skyring blocks, rocks that had been transported de Gamboa. Almost three centuries Years later, the valley would be visited were ancient glacial lakes that in time above or below the surface of ancient later, Governor Óscar Viel started to by, among others, Jean-Baptiste- became connected to the Pacific glaciers. The Carl Skottsberg expedition exploit that coal, and promptly found Charcot, from the French Antarctic Ocean. They are joined through sailed through here in April of 1909, gold in the riverbed. Both minerals, Expedition of the ship Pourquoi-Pas?, FitzRoy Channel, where you can disembarking at several places, formed following long geological and the expert on fossil deposits from spot Commerson’s dolphins, Peale’s including Escarpada Island. They found processes, propelled the economic the Swedish Magellanic Expedition, dolphins, and Chilean dolphins. A in the area a wide assortment of flora development of Punta Arenas until the Thore Halle. Paola Vezzani sculpture evokes the and fauna, fossils, and signs of human 1940s. movements of the humpback whales occupation, including abandoned and the Kawésqar Indians. Many Kawésqar Indian huts. Rodolfo Philippi English place-names originated during had in 1887 already described the the hydrographic surveys of the British bivalve fossils of Skyring Sound and Admiralty (1826-34) and the ships Riesco Island. Seasick from crossing the Jean-Baptiste Charcot and his Atlantic, the Romanian HMS Adventure and HMS Beagle. wife Marguerite at the Loreto ““An erratic rock is mute testimony to naturalist Emil Racovitza Mine (1908). (1868-1947) left the Belgica In 1897, after crossing the plains the glaciers that years ago dominated the landscape”. EMIL RACOVITZA in Río de Janeiro, where he from Puerto Consuelo, Emil Racovitza grabbed a fast packet-boat heading towards Punta Arenas. reached Otway Sound at the Roca While sailing he met Perito estancia where he was greeted with Francisco Moreno, who invited calafate wine and Chopin on the piano. him on a 20-day trip together with geologist Rudolf Hauthal. With the Racovitza noted immense erratic gaucho Ardou and two workers, they traveled RSOLAR on horseback as far as the Payne River, where Racovitza updated his notebooks and assembled a collection of plants and other specimens ranging from guanaco skins to aquatic insects. He would become the first researcher to take botanical and zoological samples beyond the Antarctic Circle. During the 1920s he founded

INACH the science of speleology - the study of caves and caverns. 52 53 RROBERTSON RSOLAR Laguna Parrillar Nature Reserve 41 Useless Bay (Tierra del Fuego) 43 50 km to the south of Punta Arenas, via Routes 9 and Y-620. 100 km to the southeast of Punta Arenas. www.conaf.cl/parques/reserva-nacional-laguna-parrillar.

Along this broad bay (Bahía Inútil) you can sometimes see killer There are two trails in this reserve, which whales (orcas) (Orcinus orca) as well as other other cetaceans, draws its name from the Magellanic currant such as sei whales (Balaenoptera borealis) and the lesser rorqual (Ribes magellanicum) growing there. Other or common minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata), species species include various bushes, orchids, whose strandings were appreciatively celebrated by the Sélknam mosses, lichens, liverworts, and forests of Indians of Tierra del Fuego. Anthropologist Anne Chapman Nothofagus, the southern beech trees that related that the shamans would send “magic arrows” through include lenga, coihue, and ñirre, the vestiges their songs to attract a whale to the coast. Various writers of an ancient arboreal population that had mention that Ochen, the whale, was a mythological ancestor of extended to Antarctica 60 million years ago. The Erebus and the Terror, under the command the Sélknam from the north, who incorporated the animals in of Sir James Clark Ross, were the first ships their body paintings during the initiation in the “Hain” ceremony. Sedimentary rocks from the Laguna to penetrate the Antarctic ice, and in doing so Parrillar area contain fossils that belong discovered what are now called the Ross Sea, A colony of king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) became Ross Island, Victoria Land, Mount Erebus - an to the Magellanic Basin. Here in 1978 the established in Useless Bay around 2009, which now number more active volcano - and peaks of more than 4,000 Magellanic resident Hans Roehrs found meters. In 1840 they reached latitude 78° South, than 90 individuals in spring and summer. This bird normally the fossilized fin of a plesiosaur, a a record that stood until 1900. In their travel settles to the north of latitude 60° South. After the emperor Tanu, the minke whale through the Fuegian archipelago, the botanist marine reptile that lived in the seas penguin, it is the largest of the penguins and both incubate their figure in the Sélknam Hooker observed a surprising abundance of Indian “Hain” initiation 70 million years ago, while the mosses and lichens, more than three times the eggs on top of their feet. rite, 1923. number seen on any other Antarctic or dinosaurs ruled the earth. The sub-Antarctic island visited during Parrillar plesiosaur is about as old as their long voyage. On Hermite 42 Admiralty Sound (Tierra del Fuego) those found at Seymour Island, in the Island alone they collected By boat, about 170 km to the southeast of Punta Arenas. 100 species of James Ross Basin in Antarctica. mosses. Together with Useless Bay, Admiralty Fjord, so named in 1826 for the Sound (Seno Almirantazgo) is an Admiralty hydrographic expedition Port Famine exceptional area for Antarctic animals. in honor of Sir Edward Parry, who 44 54 km to the south of Punta Arenas via Route 9. Part of the waterway is included in attempted to discover the legendary Parque Historia Patagonia http://www.phipa.cl/?lang=en. Alberto de Agostini National Park, with Northwest Passage in the Arctic. The rock formations at Point Santa Ana and the San its fjords, glaciers, and high mountains. On the floating ice in Parry Fjord Isidro lighthouse are outcroppings of the Magellanic there are some ten leopard seals Basin, and date from 75 to 65 million years ago. The In Ainsworth Bay, where the Marinelli (Hydrurga leptonyx) comprising the basin, a depression with a maximum depth of 8,000 Glacier meets the sea, there is a only continental group of this species meters, is filled with layers of marine and terrestrial unique breeding colony of elephant in the world. Across from María Cove sediments, offering fossils of ammonites and other seals (Mirounga leonina) that ranges at Albatross Island there is a breeding marine invertebrates. between 20 and 40 individuals. These colony of black-browed albatross This area was occupied by the Kawésqar canoe Indians huge animals are also found at Parry (Thalassarche melanophrys). and the Tehuelches, a hunting group. In 1587 the corsair Thomas Cavendish baptized the unsuccessful Ciudad del Rey don Felipe settlement “Port Famine” or “Puerto del Hambre”. This was one of two of the outposts along DGONZÁLEZ the Straits established by Sarmiento de Gamboa that failed. The tragedy there was well known, but the earth swallowed up all traces of it, and later cartographers erroneously placed its location a couple of kilometers to the south, at San Juan Bay. 54 RSOLAR 55

The leopard seal, a common Antarctic predator, is found in Admiralty Sound. TDUPRADOU PCÁCERES RSOLAR

Point Santa Ana 45 54 km to the south of Punta Arenas via Route 9. Parque Historia Patagonia.

Protected bays, fish and shellfish, fresh water and timber - these were the 46 Mount Tarn elements that made Point Santa Ana 72 km to the south of Punta Arenas. a milestone for sailors in the Straits. Observatory at Port Famine. Drawing by Louis Le Among them were the captains from Breton, in “Voyage to the South Pole and Oceania The HMS Beagle, with Captain Robert Bougainville after anchoring L’Aigle in the corvettes L’Astrolabe and La Zélée”, by FitzRoy and the naturalist Charles Jules Dumont D’Urville (1846). and L’Etoile here in 1766, when they Darwin, anchored in the bay at Port Although Charles Darwin (1809-92), father encountered a group of natives. geological, and botanical studies. Along Famine (Point Santa Ana) in June of the theory of evolution, never visited Suffering from depression, Pringle Antarctica, he had several ideas derived the way they encountered the Tehuelche 1834. From there, Darwin conducted Stokes, first captain of theHMS from his knowledge that had to do with this and Kawésqar Indians. geological explorations, analyzing continent: he hazarded theories surrounding Beagle, committed suicide in his cabin the fossil layers and the invertebrates the glaciation, the expansion of the ice toward in August of 1828, during the first the pole, and the influence in the patterns They spent 12 days at Point Santa Ana. found there. These he linked to the hydrographic survey expedition of the There they found an “ocean letter-box” of abundance and distribution of plants and sediments at Mount Tarn, 18 km to animals on earth. British Admiralty. – a discovery recounted by the author the southwest, where he collected Victor Hugo in his novel The Toilers The sailor and botanist Jules Dumont some interesting chambered nautilus On December 22, 1837, the surgeon of the Sea. Later, after returning to the D’Urville commanded an expedition Hombron, the hydrographer Dumoulin, San Juan (or Sedger) River to hunt wild specimens, which would result in attempting to reach the magnetic and several officers from the D’Urville geese, D’Urville thought of the pleasures the first description of ammonites in South Pole and claim it for France. expedition set out from Point Santa Ana that the fowl would bring to his table, South America. When descending from With the two ships, L’Astrolabe and to climb Mount Tarn, for the purpose together with “the gudgeon fish that we the summit, Darwin noted “So thick La Zélée they traveled to the South caught in great quantities with poles, was the wood, that is was necessary of making botanical, barometric, and Shetland Islands, the Orcadas, the to the enormous mussels that we to have constant recourse to the magnetic studies. On the ascent they Strait of Bransfield, and the northern dragged out of the rocks, and the celery encountered forests and clearings, end of the Antarctic Peninsula. After compass.” salad... how often, later, I regretted the cooked a wild goose for lunch, and found returning to the South American abundance at Port Famine.” firewood but little water, and thus had to continent and sailing to Oceania, they In 1839, four ships from the United States Exploring Expedition, commanded by Charles dig a well. They camped before reaching returned to the White Continent at At Point Santa Ana, Emil Racovitza Wilkes, discovered land at latitude 66° the summit and to warm themselves Adélie Land in 1840. They remained collected samples of the flora and fauna South. The frigate Relief nearly came to grief they lit a fire, which spread to the trees in the Straits of Magellan between in 1897. In 1916 Sir Ernest Shackleton upon entering the Straits of Magellan, while December of 1837 and January undertaking scientific research. It was carrying and bushes. The next morning they were passed by here, and likewise Richard aboard naturalists, taxidermists, a philologist of 1838, performing hydrographic Byrd in 1940, under the invitation of and a mineralogist. Their contributions to surprised to see rain and hail. On the peak surveys along with cartographic, General Ramón Cañas Montalva, who the North American sciences were crucial, they suffered from the cold and snow, had promoted the reconstruction particularly in the area of oceanography. and on the descent the fog complicated of Fuerte Bulnes, the first Chilean finding their camp, where they had left settlement on the Straits of Magellan. their weapons and food. They found the camp with the aid of the compass and the section of forest they had burned, which was still smoking. They returned to Point Santa Ana exhausted on the December Ramón Cañas Montalva at 23, at four in the afternoon. Fuerte Bulnes (1942). 56 57 PCÁCERES INACH

47 El Águila Bay (Eagle Bay) 49 Francisco Coloane Maritime Park 76 km to the south of Punta Arenas. By boat, about 170 km to the southwest of Punta Arenas.

Just before reaching the restored San This park is the first protected marine area around Carlos III Island they form Isidro lighthouse - the most southerly area in Chile and is located in the pods of up to nine whales each, with on the South American continent - we area of Carlos III Island, covering the an overall population of about 120 come to beautiful El Águila Bay, named biological corridor of the humpback individuals during the season. An adult after the ship belonging to Louis whale as well as sea-lion colonies can reach up to 16 meters long and its Antoine de Bougainville, who anchored and nesting areas for the Magellanic fins may be up to 6 meters in length. here in February of 1765 to take on penguin. Each humpback whale is uniquely differentiated by color, tail markings, supplies of wood and plants for the new The humpback whale (Megaptera and the shape of the dorsal fin. These French colony in the Falkland Islands. novaeangliae) of the Straits reproduces characteristics allow scientists to along the coasts of Panama, Colombia, In the summer of 1905, Adolfo become familiar with individuals and and Ecuador, migrating each year Andresen set up a factory complex company had another plant on follow their natural histories over time. toward Antarctica and the Patagonian here, shared with the Magallanes Deception Island, in the South Shetland The hunting of these whales has been channels to feed between December Whaling Company. The establishment archipelago, where Jean-Baptiste prohibited everywhere in the world and May, primarily on krill, langostinos featured the factory and lodging for Charcot was invited in 1910 to share a since 1966. workers, an administration office, a day on board the Almirante Valenzuela. (squat lobsters), and sardines. In the drydock, furnaces, garden, blacksmith The bacteriologist observed that the shop, warehouse, and kitchen. Although indiscriminate hunting of whales was more than half of the meat was lost, 50 Santa Inés Island reducing their number and believed that By boat, about 175 km to the southwest hundreds of whales were processed the day would come when they would of Punta Arenas.. here between 1905 and 1916. The disappear completely. Located at the western entrance of the Straits of Magellan, Santa Inés Island, next 48 Cape Froward to Carlos III Island, features seven glaciers. 90 km to the southwest of Punta Arenas. Hidden behind Ballena Sound, the Capella Glacier offers an exceptional location for Cape Froward is the southernmost The cape was named in 1587 by the In 1767, the United Kingdom sent James sailing or kayaking, along with the Gregorio point on the South American continent. English corsair Thomas Cavendish. Cook to explore the Southern Hemisphere Glacier in Helado Sound, which provides to determine the presence or absence of the It is possible to reach it, following a legendary Terra Australis, the great continent At the top of the tall rock that makes superb possibilities for sighting humpback sometimes vague trail of moderate in polar opposition to the Arctic, that had up the cape there is the famous Cruz whales. been imagined since the ancient Greeks. In difficulty that starts at Point Árbol and de los Mares, the “Cross of the Seas” December 1773, the Englishman reached passes by the San Isidro lighthouse. Santa Inés Island has been skirted since as far as latitude 67°15’ South, with the first – in homage to Pope John Paul II, who crossing in history of the Antarctic Circle. The cape is mostly visited from the sea, the sixteenth century by expeditions sailing visited Punta Arenas in 1987. The first During the voyage, Cook did not see the and the turbulence of the waters here is in the Straits and toward Cape Horn. In coast, only icebergs and pack ice. cross was erected in 1913, but the legendary. 1774 Captain James Cook approached harsh climate has made it necessary to the island, anchoring the ship Resolution replace it on several occasions. in Navidad Channel, near Cape Horn. The name Navidad, meaning “Christmas”, commemorates the date of Cook’s second visit, with his first having been in 1769, along with Cook Island and Cook Bay, to the MPOBLETE west of Hoste Island. TDUPRADOU

58 59 TRACKS OF ANTARCTIC EXPLORERS IMAGES Roald Amundsen: sites 6, 7, 10, 35, 36, 38, 40. Collections: Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH), National Maritime Museum Robert Scott: sites 1, 9, 12, 14, 35. (MMN), Punta Arenas Naval and Maritime Museum (MNMPA), Fernando Calcutta Jean-Baptiste Charcot: sites 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 40, 47. (CFCALCUTTA), Silvestre Fugellie (CSFUGELLIE), Milward Family (CFMILWARD), Carl Skottsberg: sites 4, 6, 13, 31, 39, 40, 42. Writer Archive of the National Library of Chile (AEBNC), Cañas Family (CFCAÑAS). Ernest Shackleton: sites 1, 8, 9, 10, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 23, 30, 33, 34, 45. Piloto Luis Pardo: sites 1, 8, 9, 10, 13, 15, 23, 24, 28, 33. Photographs: Rosamaría Solar (INACH), Pablo Ruiz (INACH), Elías Barticevic Ramón Cañas Montalva: sites 1, 2, 4, 22, 26, 45. (INACH), Reiner Canales (INACH), Sergio González, Andrea Araneda, Jaime Richard Byrd: sites 1, 4, 8, 30, 37, 45. Cárcamo, Kayak Agua Fresca, Mirko Vukasovic, Cristián Cvitanic, Humberto Gómez, Mónica Oportot, Claudia Godoy, Rosemary Robertson, Thierry Dupradou, Daniel SUGGESTED READINGS González, Marcelo Poblete, Patricio Cáceres. Aguayo, Anelio, Acevedo, Jorge, Cornejo, Sergio. La Ballena Jorobada: Conservación Front cover: Photo composition by Pablo Ruiz (INACH). Piloto Pardo, Sir Ernest en el Parque Marino Francisco Coloane. Santiago: Ocho Libros - Fundación Biomar, Shackleton, and the rescued castaways from the wreck of the Endurance are shown 2011. outside the Hotel Royal in Punta Arenas (photo from the National Maritime Museum Alexander, Caroline. The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition. collection). The photo of the Antarctic historical plaque is by Rosamaría Solar New York: Knopf, 1998. (INACH). Berguño, Jorge. Shackleton’s 22. Punta Arenas: Douglas Nazar Publicaciones, 2011. Back cover: Icebergs in the Straits of Gerlache: photograph by Cristián Cvitanic. Boletín Antártico Chileno. Punta Arenas: Instituto Antártico Chileno, 1981-. v. View of Punta Arenas from Cerro de la Cruz: photograph by Pablo Ruiz (INACH). Chatwin, Bruce. In Patagonia. New York: Penguin Books, 2003. Coloane, Francisco. Antarctica. Santiago: Editorial Puelche, 2005. Inside front & back cover: Descriptio terræ subaustralis, map by Petrus Bertius Cook, Frederick A. Through the First Antarctic Night (1898-1899). Montreal: McGill- (Amsterdam, 1616). Queen’s University Press, 1980. Inserts: Highlights of the facade of the Magallanes Regional Museum (Central Cook, James. A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volumes 1 Punta Arenas); photograph by Rosamaría Solar (INACH). Haemisphaerium and 2. Tredition Classics, (Reprint, 2011). Scenographicum Australe Coeli Stellati et Terra (Northern Punta Arenas). Map by Charcot, Jean-Baptiste. The Voyage of the “Why Not?” in the Antarctic; the Journal Andreas Cellarius (Amsterdam, 1661). The Corvettes “L’Astrolabe” y “La Zélée” at of the Second French South Polar Expedition, 1908-1910. New York, London: Anchor in San Nicolás Bay (Straits of Magellan tour), illustration by Louis Breton, Hodder and Stoughton, 1911. with lithography by Bichebois and Meyer. Darwin, Charles. A Naturalist’s Voyage Around the World. London: Murray, 1886. Decleir, Hugo (ed.). Roald Amundsen’s Belgica Diary: the First Scientific Expedition ANTARCTIC INFORMATION to the Antarctic. Bluntisham, England: Bluntisham Books, Erskine Press, 1999. Instituto Antártico Chileno (INACH). Plaza Muñoz Gamero 1055. m56-61-2298100. Decleir, Hugo and De Broyer, Claude (eds.). The Belgica Expedition Centennial: www.inach.gob.cl. Monday to Thursday 8.15 AM-1 PM / 2-6.15 PM. Friday 8.15 Perspectives on Antarctic Science and History. Brussels: Brussels University Press, AM-1 PM -5.15 PM. 2001. TOURIST INFORMATION CENTRES Dumont D’Urville, Jules C. Two Voyages to the South Seas. Volume II: Astrolabe and Tourism Information Office - National Tourism Service (SERNATUR).999 Lautaro Zelee 1837-1840. Honolulu, Hawaii: University of Hawaii Press, 1988. Navarro street. m56-61-2241330/2225385. p [email protected]. October Gerlache de Gomery, A. de. Fifteen months in the Antarctic. Bluntisham, England: to March: Monday to Friday 8.30 AM-8 PM. Saturday, Sunday, holidays 9 AM-1 PM / Bluntisham Books, Erskine Press, 1998. 2-6 PM. April to September: Monday to Friday 8.30 AM-6 PM. Lansing, Alfred. Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage. New York: Carroll & Graf Saturdays and holidays 9 AM-1 PM / 2-6 PM. “Carlos Ibáñez del Campo” Airport: Publishers. 1999. Monday to Sunday 12.30 PM- 6.30 PM. Pinochet de la Barra, Óscar. La Antártica chilena. Santiago: Andrés Bello, 1976. Racovitza, Emil. Hacia el Sur, por Patagonia y Hacia el Polo Sur. Punta Arenas: Tourism Information Center - City of Punta Arenas. Plaza Muñoz Gamero, no Ediciones Universidad de Magallanes, 1998. number. m56-61-2200610. [email protected]. Monday to Friday Ross, James C. Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic 8 AM - 5.30 PM. Regions During the Years 1839-43. London: John Murray, 1847. Antarctic exploration: Sir Ernest Shackleton. The James Caird Society Journal (6). AustroChile - Punta Arenas Chamber of Tourism. Avenida Costanera del Estrecho, Norfolk: The James Caird Society, 2012. number 4 (corner of Avenida Colón and Ignacio Carrera Pinto). Shackleton, Ernest. South. New York: Signet, 1999. m56-61-2710625/2617193. [email protected]. Monday to Friday 9 AM-6 PM. Skottsberg, Carl. The Wilds of Patagonia: A Narrative of the Swedish Expedition to Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego and the Falkland Islands in 1907-1909. London: Edward ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Arnold, 1911. The Chilean Antarctic Institute thankfully acknowledges the contribution of the Weddell, James. Voyage Towards the South Pole, Performed in the Years 1822-24. following institutions and individuals in the production of this guide: First Corps Charleston, SC: Bibliobazaar-Nabu Press, 2010. of Firefighters, Punta Arenas Naval and Maritime Museum, Magallanes Regional Wilson, Edward Adrian. Diary of the Discovery Expedition to the Antarctic Regions Museum, Salesian Regional Museum “Maggiorino Borgatello”, Silvestre Fugellie, (1901-1904). London: Blandford Press, 1966. Alfredo Prieto, Fernando Calcutta, Mateo Martinic and Sergio Lausic. 60 61 Traces of Antarctica around Punta Arenas and the Straits of Magellan: subtítulo en inglés / Chilean Antarctic Institute. Rosamaría Solar, ed. lit.; Robert Runyard, trad.-1ª ed.- Punta Arenas: INACH, 2013. 64 p.: il.; 21 x 11 cm. ISBN 978-956-7046-05-8 1. Punta Arenas (Chile) - History. 2. Antarctica - Discovery and Exploration. I. Chilean Antarctic Institute. II. Solar, Rosamaría, ed. lit. III. Runyard, Robert, trad. 983.64 DDC

Director and legal representative: José Retamales Espinoza. Researcher and editor: Rosamaría Solar Robertson. English translation: Robert Runyard. Art director: Pablo Ruiz Teneb. Editorial board: José Retamales Espinoza, Elías Barticevic Cornejo, Reiner Canales Cabezas, Marcelo Leppe Cartes. Design: Pamela Ojeda Cárdenas. Photo editing: Fabián Mansilla Paredes. Proofreading: Lorena Díaz Andrade. Printing: Impresos La Prensa Austral (Waldo Seguel 636, Punta Arenas).

© Instituto Antártico Chileno, 2013. Registro de Propiedad Intelectual Nº 227.582 Partial or total reproduction of the contents of this publication is authorized provided that the source is mentioned. The first printing consists of 2,000 copies. Distribution is free. Chilean Antarctic Institute, Plaza Muñoz Gamero 1055, Punta Arenas, Chile.

62 63 Here is a guidebook for visiting 50 locations in Punta Arenas and along the Straits of Magellan, in the footsteps of Captain Cook, Roald Amundsen, Robert Scott, Jean-Baptiste Charcot, Sir Ernest Shackleton, Piloto Pardo, Richard Byrd, and other great men of Antarctic exploration who came to Patagonia during their voyages of discovery and survival amidst the ice.

Discover the polar heritage and identity of Punta Arenas in its public places, buildings, and monuments. Visit the museums and libraries that hold the treasures of Chile’s historical links to Antarctica and its connections with the latest epics of Western exploration. Explore the Magellanic coasts and protected natural areas, and observe the scientific evidence that reveals the prehistoric geographical connection between South America and the Last Continent. Spend some time living within the spirit of polar adventure that is so much a part of the region of Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica.

This guidebook is a cultural contribution of the Chilean Antarctic Institute, in celebration of its 50 years of service to the nation.

64 www.inach.gob.cl