A day of sailing to the past begins, the Fjord history, exactly the Última Esperanza province in the Magallanes region. Land of pioneers and explorers, a magical and inhospitable place, full of beautiful age-old landscapes sculpted by glacier ice throughout the years.
Too early today, a beautiful sunrise delighted us from the Patagonian Andes, where the impressive Balmaceda hill is located, 30 nautical miles approximately to the north of Puerto Natales city. It has an altitude of 2,035 meters above sea level and belongs to the largest surface National Park in Chile (3,524,648 hectares) called Bernardo O’Higgins Park, created in 1969.
Coordinates: 51°28’30’’S 73°06’11’’W
Google Maps: https://goo.gl/maps/CmPHZCk5nZizYn6a6
Historical dock, Puerto Natales.
The Última Esperanza fjord isn’t just admired for the beauty and biodiversity of species that live in it, but it’s also considered a constructed and modeled landscape by the progress and decline of large glacier areas since about 19,000 years ago.
The ice swinging in the zone has left marks and traces on each rock, valley, and mountain, giving a big geology show along with the sea that connects to the Pacific Ocean, which is also the maritime entrance to the Torres del Paine National Park, by sealing the Serrano River.
Map of the Última Esperanza fjord by Google Maps.
A little of history… the fjord is a large sea extension located between Monte Balmaceda from the North to Isla Guanaco to the South and it’s the geographical limit of the Canal de Señoret in front of the coasts of the Puerto Natales city. The fjord was named Última Esperanza [Last Hope] by the Spanish sealer Juan Ladrillero, in 1557, who was looking for the entrance route to the Estrecho de Magallanes in his vessel called San Luis, but when he realized about the failed search and felt the frustration, he declared it as his last hope to find the channel by sealing from the Pacific Ocean. A year later, in August 1558, he finally found the Estrecho de Magallanes – a geographic location better known today as Bahía Posesión – on the eastern border of the Estrecho.
After Ladrillero’s discoveries, 300 years later, the second expedition that crossed these territories, in 1829, was the auxiliary schooner Reina Adelaida commanded by Lieutenant George Williams Skyring, and thanks to Pilot James Kirke, the entrance is appointed as the most useful entrance to the district and the Pacific Ocean.
The third expedition to arrive at the fjord, which was the first one belonging to the Government and the Chilean Navy, in 1889, was commanded by Commander Ramón Serrano Montaner in the Cóndor tender. Due to this expedition were given the place name to the glacier, Serrano river, and Cerro Benítez, where the Cueva del Milodón is located, in honor of the Ensign Alejandro Benítez.
In 1893, the German Captain Hermann Eberhard Schmith arrived at Puerto Consuelo, being one of the first settlers in the zone. In 1895, he – accompanied by sheepherders – discovered the Cueva del Milodón and prehistoric animals’ remains that lived in Patagonia around 14,000 years ago, by the end of the Pleistocene. Today, the Cueva del Milodón is an important tourist attraction in the Magallanes region and a conservation area according to the Natural Monument category.
Between 1919 and 1945, the explorer and Salesian missionary Alberto María de Agostini became the first and major diffuser of fjord landscapes and Patagonia channels during his travel to Buenos Aires and Brazil. Nowadays, he is considered the greatest expeditionary, photographer, and mountaineer due to his great passion for nature, describing the zone as “supreme beauty” in his book “The Patagonian Andes”. Also, De Agostini National Park in Tierra del Fuego was thus named to honor him, as well as the Torre Sur [south tower] (one of the three mountains in Torres del Paine National Park), where he stood out as a great mountaineer and mountain climber of the majestic mountain in Campos de Hielo Sur [Southern Ice Field].
Balmaceda glacier, a historical image taken by Alberto María de Agostini
Serrano glaciar, a historical image taken by Alberto María de Agostini.
In 1950, Joaquín Álvarez Estefo, a tourism pioneer in the Magallanes region, settled down in the Estancia Perales (a guided excursion zone) at the foot of the Prat hill. He initiated – accompanied by very few people – the first tourist sailings in the fjord to visit the Balmaceda hill in a small vessel called Roca [Rock], whose name was assigned due to the peninsula that provides the entrance to the Última Esperanza territory. Today, his family legacy “Turismo 21 de Mayo” [Tourism May 21] is one of the most important tourist attractions in the Magallanes region, based on the sailing toward the Balmaceda and Serrano glaciers and the nautical entrance route to Torres del Paine going up the Serrano river.
Vessels belonging to Turismos 21 de Mayo company.
Current record of Balmaceda glacier.
A Before and after
Following tourist visits and photographic records of the Balmaceda hill during the last years, we have observed and evidenced the considerable surface loss of the Balmaceda and Serrano glaciers because of the continuous climate change effect and the increase of temperatures in the zone. Also, less snow falls every year on accumulation zones causing a direct and faster impact in the last 15 years
Two images to compare the Balmaceda glacier.
The valleys and mountain ranges’ beauty are surrounded by waterfalls and rivers coming from glacier melting. They are essential to the evergreen forest’s ecosystem, where species proliferates such as Magellan’s beech (Nothofagus betuloides), Chilean firebush (Embothrium Coccineum), and Canelos (Drimis Winteri). In these zones, live together several species of mosses and lichens, most of them are autochthonous from the southernmost zone of the planet. During our trip, we could also find small communities of Sea Lions, observe landscapes that change and contrast with the winter snow, and listen to the typical strong summer wind in the fjords and channels in the south of Chile.
We also found more special friends during our trip throughout the fjord: the native birds such as the Magellanic Woodpecker (Campephilus magellanicus), the Kingfisher (Megaceryle torguata), the Imperial Cormorant (Phalacrocorax atriceps), and our birds’ king, the Andean Condor (Vultur gryphus), among others.
I want to thank and dedicate this article to the Álvarez family and their workers, especially to Miguel Iturriaga Saavedra, who was my instructor and captain, the first pioneer to sail the Serrano river with tourists in 1988. He also taught me to sail, be a tripulant, and tour guide in the nautical route that connects the Bernardo O’Higgins with the Torres del Paine National Parks.
References:
Última Esperanza en el Tiempo [Última Esperanza Over the Time], (2000) Mateo Martinic.
Andes Patagónicos. Viajes de exploración a la cordillera patagónica austral [Patagonian Andes. Exploration trips to the southern Patagonian mountain range], (1945) De Agostini.
Instituto Geográfico Militar (1970). Atlas de la República de Chile. Santiago – Chile – Instituto Geográfico Militar, Second Edition.
Instituto Hidrográfico de la Armada de Chile. Atlas Hidrográfico de Chile – Valparaíso – Chile – Instituto Hidrográfico de la Armada. First Edition.
Abstract and joint conversation with Francisco Martínez Vidal, Punta Arenas, August 2019.
