The Regions: Magallanes

[Findes]

Since I noticed that contributor Chalksquire has developed a “Guide to” page, using links to other contributions elsewhere on this site, I figured that a little intro-to-your-region posting and linking might be useful to some. If not then yes, I can stick my head in a bucket of slop.

XII REGION - MAGALLANES

OK, so it’s really called “La Región de Magallanes y de la Antártica Chilena.” Let’s get nasty early on: the redundant come-lately Chilean claim to the British Antarctic Territory was done in 1940, whilst the UK was busy with the Nazis in WWII, when Chile was cultivating links with those same Nazis. And yes, the famous Antarctic Treaty came along in time to keep the British gunboats from convincing the Chilean and Argentine squatters to vamoose.

You can look at it this way, or with the portion of Antarctica that is also claimed and shown on Chilean maps in rather blatant violation of both the spirit and the letter of the Antarctic Treaty.

Most of the XII region is locked up in national parks and similar reserves. You really don’t want to try to live here, and we don’t want you, either.

The region differs from the rest of the country in the origins of the inhabitants. Somewhere around 40 percent of the locals have Croatian DNA, and it shows. It was once said you could identify a magallanico by his/her/its ability to properly pronounce a name like Martinic. And that would be MartinEEECH. In fact we refer to the Croats here as “Eeeeches.” Rhymes with beaches teaches leeches. Here in Punta Arenas you will not be able to pronounce street names. Kusanović, Goic, Puratic, … Bradanovic.

There is a Barrio Croata here, featuring some of the earliest substantial architecture. Worth a visit, if you are into that sort of thing, but first do a study of what you will be seeing.

I said I would get nasty early on and so here it goes again: the opposite of the Eeeeches are the Chilotes. The Croats are generally tall, highly educated, good-looking by European standards, tend to occupy professional positions, and own a disproportionate amount of the valuable real estate, including about half of what people like to think of as Torres del Paine national park. You didn’t know that… that half of that national park is in private hands.
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The Chilotes on the other hand are the short-statured hobbits of the region, with conspicuous Huilliche features, and their shire is typically characterized by insubstantial structures with low ceilings and outcroppings of risible kitsch. That of course is cruel generalization, since many of them have now completed the octavo básico. It was the hardy and industrious Chilote contingent that took Punta Arenas from a penal colony to something of a city ready to receive the Croats at the end of the 19th century.

There is a Barrio Croata here, featuring some of the earliest substantial architecture. Worth a visit, if you are into that sort of thing, but first do a study of what you will be seeing.

But Punta Arenas is a seething cauldron of other national origins, and we cannot forget the descendants of the British and their considerable but now decaying influence. Here we have the Morrisons, Gibbons, MacLeans, Cameron,McKenzie, and so on. And yes, those names lean heavily toward the Scots. And that Scottish nature is hard to lose. One of my local billionaire Scottish friends here was seen not long ago alongside his Land Rover with a shovel, dressed like a shepherd, clearing roadside drainage ditches.

There is a “cementerio inglés” in Tierra del Fuego.

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This first post on the matter of “regions” is an experiment. If there is interest in the concept of displaying perceptions and biases regarding one’s own region, then we can proceed with the other matters, of economy and climate and advantages of living among the glaciers and the penguins. If not, there is a bucket of slop.

[chalksquire]

Great post @Findes. I had a good laugh too, as you brought up the legendary Hobbits from one of my beloved writers. It almost reads like Tolkien describing the curious folk of the land.

Although I do have to say that the wealthiest Chilean Andronico Luksic has hobbit features . Maybe the feet. It is after all PATA-GONIA.

[tombrad2]

That’s right, there was a massive immigration of Croats to Punta Arenas, but there was also another wave in the north of Chile, in Iquique and Antofagasta. The Croats who arrived worked in mining and fishing; they came to Punta Arenas due to a small gold rush that occurred at the end of the 19th century, and later many became landowners. My grandfather arrived in the town of Pisagua in the north (near Iquique), he had spent a few years during the gold rush in California and later was part of the one in Australia. Eventually, he landed in Chile in 1887 (I know, it’s many years ago, but my father had me quite late). In the north, many became wealthy from the nitrate industry, while others arrived in Antofagasta and mostly worked in fishing. Surnames ending in “vic” mean “son of”; for example, Bradanovic means “son of the barber” (brada = beard).

By the way, us people from Chiloé (I lived in Chiloé for 4 years) say that the people from Punta Arenas are… “mezcla de hombre y capón, aturdidos por el frío y aweonados por la calefacción”

[Findes]

Hvala, Tomás

Dr Mateo Martinic has written a great deal on the Croatians in Chile, if anyone might be interested in such reading.

You can download a copy from “Memoria Chilena” here:

La inmigración croata en Magallanes - Memoria Chilena

Meanwhile, when I am in Porvenir in Tierra del Fuego, the “Club Croata” is where I stop to eat. Feels like stepping out of a time machine.

The “pioneer” architecture in Porvenir is worth a visit

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Here in Punta Arenas there is also a “Club Croata” with restaurant.

[mem]

Very interesting, thank you for sharing all of this

[Findes]

The Regions – Magallanes Part 2

As with Ushuaia over on the Argentine side of Tierra del Fuego, Punta Arenas got its first stripes as a penal colony. The previous settlement attempt at the Fuerte Bulnes site was generally unsuccessful. Curiously enough, the British had already surveyed the eventual site for Punta Arenas and their charts called it Sandy Point. Somehow, the subsequent Chilean colonists had missed the advantages that the British had earlier catalogued: fresh water, and low-grade coal. Things lacking at the Fuerte Bulnes site.

Sidebar: if you’re in the area, a visit to the Fuerte Bulnes site is expensive but may be worthwhile. I worked on the development of the visitor center there. But the visit to the grave site of Captain Pringle Stokes is free. He had commanded HMS Beagle on a voyage prior to the travels of Mister Darwin, but the conditions drove Stokes mad and he shot himself. The weather here will do that to you. We do discourage meaningless suicides.

The Stokes grave site, a short distance to the south of the Fuerte Bulnes site.

One earlier effort to maintain the grave site:

Another view of that little cemetery, showing the edge of the San Juan Bay on the Strait of Magellan and the Fuerte Bulnes peninsula in the distance.

[gringalais]

My husband and I have been to Porvenir and ate at the Club Croata several times. The food was excellent and I highly recommend the calafate sour. I had some king crab crepes that were excellent. We also did a tour to see penguins at Bahía Inútil and stopped off at the cemetery you show and a sheep ranch.

[Findes]

The Regions: Magallanes, Part 3

So we had the grave of Pringle Stokes to the south of Punta Arenas. There are other graves of British sailors down here in the Patagonia, and so we briefly divert our attention to Argentina.

This story started in May of 1826 when HMS Adventure and HMS Beagle (under Commander Stokes) sailed from Plymouth to survey the southern coasts of South America. Darwin was not on this first voyage of the Beagle but rather on the second, five years later.

When Stokes expired, Lieutenant Robert Fitz-Roy took his place. He retained command on that second voyage, while interviewing and accepting Darwin. Fitz-Roy and Darwin later took turns giving their names to geographical features down here. Just outside of Punta Arenas we have the Fitz-Roy Channel, separating Riesco Island from the mainland. Porpoises and occasionally whales can be seen in the channel. Riesco Island became an important coal mining area for the region, active even after the opening of the Panama Canal and the reduction in sea traffic stopping for provisions at Punta Arenas. .

Fitz-Roy Channel

On board HMS Adventure there was a Midshipman R.H. Scholl, promoted to lieutenant in September 1827 whilst underway, to serve on the Beagle. Scholl died the following January near what is now the Argentine town of Puerto San Julián. The crew of HMS Beagle came ashore to bury him. They may have been unaware that the selected site was rather close to where Magellan had passed the winter of 1520. On Argentine maps this place is shown as Punta Tumba.

Lieutenant Scholl tomb:

Although Argentine organizations continue to care for the tomb, the original spelling of Scholl’s surname has been altered.

Punta Tumba

Beyond Punta Tumba you can visit the old “Swift” frigorifico. Some of the bricks used for the construction were shipped down from New York.

[feargle]

As the above pics show, the region also has many monuments to failed human endeavour which add to its pervasive melancholy. Perhaps the most noteworthy example is the demise of the Sociedad Explotadora de Tierra del Fuego, a highly successful enterprise which was broken up by the Frei (Montalva) and Allende government’s ideologically-driven land reforms.

A good account of its history written by professor Mateo Martinic can be found here.

On the effects of the Reforma Agraria he writes:

Como manifestación de progreso social fue de efectos limitados pues sólo permitió mejorar los ingresos y niveles de vida de unos pocos campesinos (los antiguos asentados, después cooperados). Tocante al primer aspecto, la gestión incompetente condujo al descuido del suelo, agravando una situación que ya se venía manifestando desde largo tiempo antes, con reducción de la capacidad talajera de los campos, la disminución cuantitativa y cualitativa de la masa ovina[41], el deterioro de las instalaciones y la pérdida de parte del riquísimo acervo acumulado por la experiencia secular en materia de manejo ovejero. Casi un descalabro del que la Región conseguiría recuperarse parcialmente al cabo de varios lustros, hasta estabilizarse en un nivel de cualquier modo inferior al conocido para el mejor tiempo de la ganadería magallánica hasta 1970.

Chile showing its appetite for self-destruction, even back then.

[Findes]

Although the headquarters of the Sociedad Explotadora de Tierra del Fuego was in Punta Arenas, the most impressive and long-serving facility was the freezer plant, the frigorifico, just outside of Puerto Natales, in what became known as Puerto Bories.

When I visited the Puerto Bories plant in 1993 it was still in a minor degree of operation with some of the machinery and refrigeration equipment that had been installed prior to 1914. The equipment room, the sala de maquinas, looked like a portrait of the industrial revolution.

This view of the machinery was from the 1920s, IIRC.

That machinery room today.

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In 2001 the cold rooms were torn down, naturally without concern for occupational safety and environmental issues, covering the local area with friable asbestos from the original insulation.

That year I sifted through the debris of the old plant.

Then a few years ago I worked on an oral history project here, and we did video and audio recordings of local people who had worked at the frigorifico as late as the 1990s.

This little narrow-gauge railway ran between Puerto Bories and the town of Puerto Natales. The rails were removed long ago. The mostly British management of the frigorifico lived in the company town of Puerto Bories, 4 km from Natales, and required that the workers commute from Natales on that railway. Image from the 1950s, Life Magazine.

Today most of the grounds of the old plant have been converted to a five-star hotel. There is evidently still a small slaughterhouse/abattoir operation in a somewhat separate portion of the old plant, and residues are dumped untreated into the fjord (Last Hope Sound) along with untreated sewage from the Puerto Bories village nearby.

[Findes]

The Regions: Magallanes, part 4

The usual identifying characteristic that is mentioned about Magallanes is the climate, and in particular, the wind.

Once sawn boards became available, the notion of clapboard nailing of siding was still to be discovered. Even today, the exteriors of many structures in Punta Arenas and elsewhere retain their ancient board-and-batten nailing.

The result was predictable. Leaky walls.

Even with an attempt to construct an inside wall, sometimes involving a burlap covering, the wind would blow right through these places. When you see these homes being reworked these days, you observe that thermal insulation wasn’t a thing. And that avoidance remains today, even when the government standards require minimum insulation standards.

Structures constructed by the British, on the other hand, often included viruta (wood shavings) or aserrín (sawdust) for insulation. Later, once the sheep industry produced waste wool, that material was used in some walls and ceilings.

Kerosene sales were a major industry in the region. It wasn’t long before some people discovered that a pair of snips could liberate some very useful sheet-metal from a kerosene can. And thus the “casa de lata” came about. The British called them “tin houses.” Every settlement and city down here will have its versions.

The next step involved corrugated and galvanized steel sheets, also imported by the British. Because of the zinc content in the galvanising, the local nomenclature called these sheets “planchas de zinc” or “planchas de cinc.” Or more specifically, “planchas de zinc acanalada.”

In the Barrio Croata in Punta Arenas, the lata lisa is sometimes burned by hydrochloric acid for better paint adherence, and then river sand is added to the paint, resulting in a texture. (We did that in New Zealand as well).

Typical traditional middle class structure here. The foundations often consisted of cypress logs that would resist rot for several decades.

Occasionally you’ll see a bit of “hybrid Chilote” influence, such as the use of folded metal shingles to replicate the more traditional wooden siding seen among the Chilotes.

Chilote maestros also participated in the so-called “chalet” style in Magallanes

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Once a private home, this was a student residence when I stayed here for a short time during the dictablanda. It fell into decay and disuse in the 1990s but is now the Conservatorio de Música de la Universidad de Magallanes.

[mem]

Findes - Wow…the breadth of knowledge and info in this thread is stunning.

I and others methinks would like to hear about how/what/why/when you came to chile and the origin story. You have a fascinating history alluded to in these posts

[Findes]

@mem

Thank you for the kind words.

As far as personal history, let’s not , since some of it is a bit sensitive and may be inappropriately linked to work that some find distasteful

At times it seems necessary to make it clear that I am not the late “Hugh Bicheno” as some have alleged, though yes, we have/had much in common.

Go ahead - ask me why I live here

[Findes]

The Regions: Magallanes – Part 5

The Falkland Islands actually played a role in the development of the economy of the Magallanes region, and southern Argentine Patagonia as well. And that was through the introduction of sheep and the associated (mostly British and Commonwealth) personnel and infrastructure. Likewise, the British provided the markets for the wool.

Once refrigeration on ships became possible, meat from Magallanes also found its way to the UK markets. The “conventional wisdom” that Punta Arenas dried up once the Panama Canal opened is not entirely correct, since active trade with Europe and the US continued after that time, albeit on a more limited scale.

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Image from 1958: One of the “Blue Star Line” refrigerator ships that carried meat from Magallanes plants to Europe.

An account of a crew member from one of the Blue Star Line ships, taking on frozen sheep carcasses in Magallanes in the 1950s:

We were there for about 10 days, as the loading was very slow. As the junior Cadet I was dispatched ashore at 0400 every morning, to become a tally-clerk at the “frigorifico”. The lamb arrived already pre-slung, one load of approx. 1 ton to a dolly. The job entailed counting the legs/carcass ( broken legs were rejected), and then watch as the dolly moved along a small gauge rail line to the ship at the end of the line, about one mile away…P.Natales was a small town, and our visit was one of the annual highlights. The owner of the “estancia” ( ranch) where the meat came from, invited the ship’s officers to dinner, and that was quite an event. The ranch house was like something from “Gone with the Wind”, and he had a cellar of fine Chilean wines. He also had a penchant for accurate World News, and listened to the BBC on Short-wave radio every night. His second language was Welsh, there having been many Welsh people that had emigrated to this part of the world over two centuries ago… I was impressed by the ecological effort they were making, to find the best grade of grazing grass, and they had about 40 different varieties that they monitored, to find the “best fit”…

When we returned to Puntarenas, the pattern was similar, but now I had to go a long way in a rickety bus, with the work-force, to the “Frigorifico”,- again at 0400 in the dark of early morning. The difference here was that I ate my meals with the foremen, and the food served in the canteen was good. (I especially remember the good-looking young waitress!)

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Earlier export destinations, and quantities: 1909

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A lot of the 19th century sheep industry infrastructure can still be seen around Magallanes

Sheep shearing and wool bailing are still done in the old galpones de esquila from the 19th century, using machinery brought in by the British. This particular scene is from estancia Caleta Josefina in 2004.

And a wool bailing press circa 1900

For the managers of the larger estancias, the sheep stations, there were a few perks to soften the discomforts of living in this region. In this case, the mansion was a residence of the Menéndez-Behety family.

The larger estancias featured rather substantial windbreaks.The ones in this image were in place as late as 2003 when I led a tour of the grounds through Estancia San Gregorio. These have since been taken down, and the manor house is empty.

This is inside the shearing shed at estancia San Gregorio. It has been out of use for many years.

Past glories

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Worth a visit if you are in the territory