History Of Patagonia

Different indigenous races inhabited Patagonia thousands of years before the arrival of the Spaniards.  Their culture was not advanced and this is the reason why we find only a few traces of these peoples (funeral deposits, caves, cave paintings, stone…

There are several hypotheses regarding the origin of the name Patagonia. The most plausible is related to one of the tribes of aborigines who lived there, although it has nothing to do with the size of their feet! Before the…

Patagonia is one of the less populated regions in the world. There are certain areas where the demographic density is less than one inhabitant per square kilometer. This fact poses a contradiction: on one hand it is an advantage since…

Travelers and scientists are a different, special category of explorers. They no longer seek, like their predecessors, for gold or personal wealth. Instead, they are driven by the need of knowledge and the discovery of new species in order to…

There always is a pretext in order to submerge ourselves into the tradition of the welsh colonies in the south of Argentina, and the discovery of the remains of a 1850 ship is a more than sufficient reason to dedicate…

Different indigenous races inhabited Patagonia thousands of years before the arrival of the Spaniards. Their lives were conditioned by a very hostile environment. Learn the details of their history and what is their current situation.

Patagonia is one of the less populated regions in the world There are certain areas where the demographic density is less than one inhabitant per square kilometer. History tells that the first men arrived to the southern edge of Patagonia…

The story we want to tell you today is that of one of the most spectacular shipwrecks in the waters of the End of the World. The Monte Cervantes was a cruise that made the route Buenos Aires /  Puerto…

More than 100 years ago, on June 29, 1900, Antoine de Saint Exupéry was born in Lyon, France. The famous author of The Little Prince, was destined to create ties of affection, inspiration and love with Argentina, and in particular…

Patagonia: a word that transports the reader to a magic, fascinating territory. As vast as it is unknown, it is conjured up in our imagination in many different ways. It has always been a land of conquest and colonization, ever…

The Mapuche (people of the earth, in their language) was one of the major aboriginal groups in Patagonia. They arrived in Patagonia Argentina from Chile, where they originated. They were collectors and hunters, but one of their most relevant feature…

How it occurred, what reverberation it triggered, how the participants and the audience have experienced it, which old wounds were healed and which ones reopened… All this and more is told in this article. Around 60 thousand people attended Ceferino…

The first men arrived to the southern edge of Patagonia and the Tierra del Fuego Channels ten thousand years ago. Their ethnical origins were diverse but surely all of them came in from the north and belonged to tribes that…

It was 1865, long before Argentina began to show serious intentions of conquering and colonizing the south, when a group of Welsh settled in the lands that today belong to the Province of Chubut. This story deserves its own chapter.…

Patagonia is also home to other stories, strange, excessive, some at the border between fiction and reality. Here we tell you some of them.  

Ceferino, son of a Mapuche Chief, wanted to be a priest and even studied in Rome, where he met pope Pio X. Today he is worshipped all over the north of Patagonia and year after year thousands of pilgrims visit…

Patagonia is one of the less populated regions in the world. There are certain areas where the demographic density is less than one inhabitant per square kilometer.

The colonization method used by the Spanish was quite different from the one exerted in the United States, which was based upon rural colonization.  In our country the model followed was one of urban colonization and, as a consequence, huge…

It is not a secret that Patagonia shelters fantastic stories, inordinate men, almost impossible missions. Julio Popper and the search for gold is one of them. In this first part we tell you who this man was, how his life…

The stories of pioneers and settlers are part of the attractions that have Patagonia. Stories of feats, men and women making up a new destiny in the last end of the world. Here we offer some. And we invite you…

The famous bandits were in Argentine Patagonia in the beginning of the twentieth century; such a legend has been debated in a symposium in Trevelin, town located in the Andean area of the Province of Chubut. Last September, “The Second…

In these pages we will revisit the unbelievable story of the Yámana aborigine Jemmy Button, who was kidnapped in his town of Cape Horn by the officer of the British Royal Navy, Robert Fitz Roy. Together with other three members…

It is not certain who discovered Patagonia. Some say it was Americo Vespucio during his expedition in year 1502. However, the man who first spotted the inhabitants in this land, the Patagones, was Ferdinand Magellanin 1520. Elcano, the only survivor…

The story of Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid in Patagonia could well have been taken out from a Hollywood Western production of the 50’s. However, it was not, though much talk was made about the adventures of these two legendary…

Here is the second and last part of the story of the Gold fever in Patagonia. Julio Popper, the intrepid Romanian, settles in Tierra del Fuego and founds El Páramo, an  establishment dedicated to the extraction of gold. But it…

Dreams of uniting the white territory with the continent by air became true on October 29th, 1969, when Marambio Base was founded. The mission undertaken by the Soberanía patrol is remembered as a hallmark in the Argentinean pioneering history. A…

When people visit El Calafate and the Perito Moreno Glacier they often aren’t conscious that they are walking on a land that carries with it a terrible social and political history that was one of the worst moments for Argentina. …

This is the profile of one of the last explorers of the Extreme South: Father Alberto María de Agostini. A link between the old explorers and the modern travelers, Father de Agostini is an example of tradition and modernity united…

Around 1500 strikers were shot dead during the events of the “Patagonia Trágica” (Tragic Patagonia), which began with a conflict between landowners and workers due to the dismissal of farm workers and poor working conditions. The Radical government sent a…

The first explorers came in from the sea. At the same time but from the north and from the Andes, other travellers and explorers began to arrive as well. Travelers and Scientists are a different, special category of explorers. They are driven by…

The island of  Tierra del Fuego was inhabited by two large groups of aborigines: the Selk'nam on the mainland, and Yámana, who lived most of the time on canoes in the canals and the coast. The Selk'nam, better know as…

Today the aboriginal ethnic group with the most descendants in Patagonia is the Mapuche. We present you a brief summary of the living conditions and current distribution. The Mapuche indigenous population is concentrated between the central zone and the pre-Andean range in the Provinces of Neuquén, Río Negro and Chubut.…