Getting to know “The Magellan Times”
In 1914, at the height of the wool industry, the newspaper “The Magellan Times” was founded in Punta Arenas. The owner and editor was Charles Arthur Thomas Riesco, who was born in 1881 in Great Britain, son of a Chilean diplomat and a Scottish mother. Riesco identified strongly with his native country, being an active...
Commuting in Patagonia
Passenger transportation or Commuting in Patagonia had a rather slow start. It was only around 1920 that the road system gradually improved and allowed the passage of travelers in larger vehicles such as buses. In Comodoro Rivadavia – Chubut, Argentina – buses connected the urban center with the different neighborhoods outside the city. These neighborhoods...
The Rural Society in Patagonia
The need to create a “Sociedad Rural” arose mainly from the region’s cattle ranchers. It was a way of connecting with the most economically important sectors to defend their interests and articulate their collective demands to the national government. These “Rural Societies” were created in the main cities of each Patagonian territory. They acted as...
Patagonia and Antarctica
It is not difficult to understand the relationship between Patagonia and Antarctica. Only 1,000 kilometers separate Argentina’s southernmost city, Ushuaia, from the Antarctic Peninsula. It was only a matter of time before the closest countries had firm settlements and claims to this continent. Until then, Antarctica was a place little known and even kept secret...
The raft on the Neuquén River
The raging Patagonian rivers were from time immemorial one of the greatest challenges for the inhabitants of the region. On the one hand, they brought the freshness of life that gave them the energy to face a new day in this region. But on the other hand, they divided the land, separating families, populations or...
To the south
When I was 18, I went to Patagonia. I was in the first year of my tourism studies and was lucky enough to get an internship in Tierra del Fuego. The internship was at the oldest estancia on the island: Estancia Harberton. I didn’t know what to expect, but this was my first small step...
The Beagle Channel
The Beagle Channel is a waterway located south of Tierra del Fuego and north of Cape Horn. The famous English ship, on which Darwin and Fitz Roy made one of the most important scientific voyages in history, sailed through it twice. During these voyages, the stop of HMS Beagle in this channel had an important...
Tierra del Fuego
This island has a special name.Tierra del Fuego. And some say that it was once known as the Land of Smoke.Legend has it that Magellan, after his expedition through the strait that now bears his name, remembered seeing smoke rising from the coast of this island.When these stories reached Europe, someone decided to arbitrarily change...
