The Beagle Channel and its Islands

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Ushuaia is the capital of Tierra del Fuega and sits on a bank of the Beagle channel, named after the ship of English flag that explored this part of the world in the eighteen thirties.

We took a small craft ride along the Beagle Channel, Chile along one bank, the Argentine along the other, an opening to the Pacific on the one side, another to the Atlantic on the other. Islands of both countries are scattered about their side of the channel, establishing territory and scenic context. A passage down the middle of the channel is shared peacefully by both countries and gives access to the Antarctic Ocean. We travelled out from the harbour, our captain tacking in the wake of a huge cruise boat, I hoping he would not get caught up in some unwise chase to the Atlantic.

The shoreline, in its persistent hard rock state, was even more imposing close-up, to the point of a stark severity, but for the presence of huge, green cotton balls of turf interspersed among the rocks. And there was a band of human gaiety above the shoreline, offered by the gingerbread homes of town folk, which then gave way to mountain slopes in dark green, embroidered in white with snow.

Before long, we were at the Argentine islands in the residences of cormorant birds, industrious and resilient, they fly, float and fish; sea lions in families, each of a male, his spouse and ten pups or so, tummies prostrate on the rocky slopes, which they amiably share with even tempered cormorants; noisy South American terns in giddy flight, nervous about our intrusion. Surveying it all, the predatorial albatross, malevolent, swooping, laying siege to the eggs, the young and the frail of all that is not of its genre.

The surface terrain, vegetal to depths of some six feet, hosts a wide variety of stunningly flowered miniature plant life, rock gardens au naturale, including a bush that has grown at the rate of a millimetre per year for the past three hundred and fifty years, bearing forbidden fruit; and tolerating parasites, with nary a crimp to its longevity. Two other plants of riveting appearance were berberis buxifolia, sharp green foliage, blazing yellow fleurs; and the flaming Chilean fire bush.

But now the wind was up, we had strayed far from home base, and our return trip would take about an hour so, our Capitan turned us around. And his crew, effervescent recent hospitality graduate, stoic helmsman, served us hot chocolate and cookies, with tea and coffee also on offer, and set about telling of earlier times in this land.

This region is said to have been the last place on earth inhabited, archaeological digs attesting. The Yamana and other tribes lived in these parts for some seven thousand years, heating with the fires I had read about as a boy, and using blubber from seals and whales as body insulation. When Captain Robert Fitz Roy of the good ship Beagle came upon them in the eighteen thirties, he was so intrigued by the fact and circumstance of their existence that he brought Darwin to visit, whereupon he declared them to be the “missing link” in his theory. They are now extinct, save for one last, very old man.

A hearty soup of king crab meat, with a local beer on the side, was all we could manage for dinner.

Vernon

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