Strait of Magellan

Lonely reaches of the Strait of Magellan.

Painted Selk'nam people, who lived in the interior of Tierra del Fuego.


The Strait of Magellan is a difficult 350 mile passage, but safer than the Drake Passage between Cape Horn and Antarctica. This route was discovered in 1520 by Ferdinand Magellan on his voyage to find the Spice Islands of Indonesia. Until the Panama Canal was completed in 1914, the Strait was the main route for steam ships between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The Strait separates the mainland of South America and the Isla Grande of Tierra del Fuego and has been controlled by Chile since 1843. Along its remote empty miles we imagine the loneliness and self-sufficiency of long ago crews and ships.

Punta Arenas ("sandy point"), a center of commerce where forests and plains converge on the north side of the Strait, was founded in 1848. The immigrants were Spanish and Croatian. We walk up from the tender dock and along 21 de Mayo avenue to the main square. There is an information building in the square and there is a small market of booths selling handcrafted woolen items and jewelry. Vendors display deep blue lapis lazuli stones set in silver. There are earrings and necklaces. In Argentina, the national stone rhodochrosite (rose colored manganese carbonate) is cut, polished, set, and sold in much the same way.

Pan pipe music filters through the trees and we cross the square past the monument of Ferdinand Magellan on our way to the Sara Braun Palace. This grand old mansion is a museum, a hotel, and a restaurant. It is here that Henry discovers delicious chupe, the Chilean national dish. Then, after lunch, we find the Braun Menendez house, another museum displaying the households of the powerful early families in this community. The wealth of these families accrued from sheep production and control of about 10,000 sq km in southern Chile and Argentina. Unique to this mansion, is the open downstairs (basement) servant work areas and living quarters. After the Panama Canal was completed, commerce slowed considerably here in Punta Arenas.

Back in the square we note the bronze of the native Patagon at the base of Magellan's statue. His foot is brightly polished. Legend has it that those kissing that foot will return. Later we venture inside the Catholic church. We admire its enormous mosaic of Jesus's face above the altar and life-size statue of the beautiful St. Teresa of the Andes just inside the door. Walking back to the port area, a group of school-age young men in blazers and ties races past us to the intersection. They laugh and joke with all the exuberance of their youth.