Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
TIERRA DEL FUEGO
AND ANTARCTICA
The remote archipelago of Tierra del Fuego really does feel like
el fin del mundo
- the end of the world - where the great Andean
mountain range finally meets the sea. Only the continent of Antarctica
lies beyond, and the area serves as the main jumping-off point for
intrepid travelers eager to glimpse this sparkling, shifting mass of
blue and white ice, the world's last great wilderness.
Tierra del Fuego is separated from the rest
of South America by the Strait of Magellan.
The archipelago consists of a main island,
Isla Grande, and a group of smaller islands.
Its land mass is divided equally between
Argentina and Chile, the border between
the two countries running from the Strait
in the north to Canal Beagle in the south.
The Strait is named for Portuguese
explorer Ferdinand Magellan, who
became the first European to discover
the archipelago, in 1520. He called it
Tierra del Fuego (Land of Fire) for the
numerous fires he witnessed along its
coastline, warning signals from one
indigenous tribe to another that
something unusual had arrived.
The Selknam, Kaweskar, Manekenk,
and Yámana tribes would later draw the
attention of English naturalist Charles
Darwin, before Anglican missionaries
became the first outsiders to settle the
region in 1871, near the present-day city
of Ushuaia. Sheep farmers followed,
together with further missionaries in the
form of the Salesians of Don Bosco, who
established their mission near what is now
Río Grande, the region's biggest city.
Antarctica, the world's coldest and driest
continent, sits 620 miles (1,000 km) across
the Drake Passage from Ushuaia. For
centuries a source of mystery - the ancient
Greeks thought it a populated and fertile
land, only blocked by monsters - the
continent was not discovered until the
1820s. Today, Antarctica is experiencing a
tourist boom, with up to 30,000 visitors
drawn each year to its silent world of
icebergs and glaciers, a haven for an
astonishing array of marine fauna.
Cormorants crowding the rocks on an island in Canal Beagle, near Ushuaia
Ice cave formed by collapse of a glacial wall
