Patagonia
Patagonia is that portion of South America which, to the east of the Andes, lies south of the Neuquén and Río Colorado rivers, and, to the west of the Andes, south of (42°S.). The Chilean portion embraces the southern part of the region of Los Lagos, and the regions of Aysen and Magallanes (excluding the portion of Antarctica claimed by Chile). East of the Andes the Argentine portion of Patagonia includes the provinces of Neuquén, Río Negro, Chubut, Santa Cruz, and Tierra del Fuego, as well as the southern tip of Buenos Aires province.
Patagonia has become renowned as one of the few surviving regions of the world designated as an "eden" or region where pristine nature still exists. Known for its arid plains, breathtaking mountain vistas, and bountiful, diverse wildlife, Patagonia is an exciting lure for eco-tourists and outdoor sports enthusiasts.
Physiography
The general character of the Argentine portion of Patagonia is for the most part a region of vast steppe-like plains, rising in a succession of abrupt terraces about 100 meters (330 feet) at a time, and covered with an enormous bed of shingle almost bare of vegetation. In the hollows of the plains are ponds or lakes of brackish and fresh water. Towards the Andes the shingle gives place to porphyry, granite, and basalt lavas, animal life becomes more abundant and vegetation more luxuriant, acquiring the characteristics of the flora of the western coast, and consisting principally of southern beech and conifers.
Geology
Glaciers occupy the valleys of the main chain and some of the lateral ridges of the Cordillera, and descend to lakes San Martín Lake, Viedma Lake, Argentino Lake and others in the same locality, strewing them with icebergs. In Patagonia an immense ice-sheet once extended to the east of the present Atlantic coast during the first ice age, at the close of the Tertiary epoch, while, during the second glacial age in modern times, the terminal moraines have generally stopped, 30 miles (50 km) in the north and 50 miles (80 km) in the south, east of the summit of the Cordillera. These ice-sheets, which scooped out the greater part of the longitudinal depressions, and appear to have rapidly retreated to the point where the glaciers now exist, did not, however, in their retirement fill up with their detritus the fjords of the Cordillera, for these are now occupied by deep lakes on the east, and on the west by the Pacific channels, some of which are as much as 250 fathoms (460 m) in depth, and soundings taken in them show that the fjords are as usual deeper in the vicinity of the mountains than to the west of the islands. Several of the high peaks are still active volcanoes.
In so far as its main characteristics are concerned, Patagonia seems to be a portion of the Antarctic continent, the permanence of which dates from very recent times, as is evidenced by the apparent recent emergence of the islets around Chiloé, and by the general character of the pampean formation.
Population and land area
Population = 1,740,000 (2001 census).
Land Area = 787,000
Population Density = 2.21
Provinces and Regions
There are five provinces on the Argentinian side of Patagonia. They are Neuquen, Rio Negro, Chubut and Santa Cruz and Tiero Del Fuego.
Neuquen
Neuquén covers 94,078 km² (36,324 sq. miles), including the triangle between the rivers Limay River and Neuquén River, and extends southward to the northern shore of Lake Nahuel-Huapi (41°S) and northward to the Rio Colorado.
On the upper plains of Neuquen territory thousands of cattle can be fed, and the forests around Lakes Tiaful and Nahuel-Huapi yield large quantities of valuable timber. The Neuquen river is not navigable, but as its waters are capable of being easily dammed in places, large stretches of land in its valley are utilized; but the lands on each side of its lower part are of little commercial value.
As the Cordillera is approached the soil becomes more fertile, and suitable districts for the rearing of cattle and other agricultural purposes exist between the regions which surround the Tromen volcano and the first ridges of the Andes. Chos Malal, the capital of the territory, is situated in one of these valleys. More to the west is the mining region, in great part unexplored, but containing deposits of gold, silver, copper and lignite. In the centre of the territory, also in the neighborhood of the mining districts, are the valleys of Norquin and Las Lajas, the general camp of the Argentine army in Patagonia, with excellent timber in the forest on the Andean slope. The wide valleys occur near Rio Malleo, Lake Huechulafquen, the river Chimehuin, and Vega de Chapelco, near Lake Lacar, where are situated villages of some importance, such as Junin de los Andes and San Martin de los Andes. Close to these are the famous apple orchards supposed to have been planted by the Jesuits in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Río Negro
Río Negro covers 203,013 km² (78,383 sq. miles), extending from the Atlantic to the Cordillera of the Andes, to the north of 42°S.
The Río Negro River runs along a wide transverse depression. the middle part of which is followed by the railway which runs to the settlement of Neuquen at the confluence of the rivers Limay and Neuquen. In this depression are several settlements, among them Viedma, the capital of the Rio Negro territory, Pringles, General Conesa, Choele Choel and General Roca. To the south of the Rio Negro the Patagonian plateau is intersected by the depressions of the Gualicho and Maquinchao, which in former times directed the waters of two great rivers (now disappeared) to the gulf of San Matias.
Chubut
Chubut, covers 224,686 km² (86,751 sq. miles), embracing the region between 42° and 46°S;
Chubut territory presents the same characteristics as the Río Negro territory. Rawson, the capital, is situated at the mouth of the river Chubut on the Atlantic (42°30'S). The town was founded in 1865 by a group of colonists from Wales, assisted by the Argentine government; and its prosperity has led to the foundation of other important centres in the valley, such as Trelew and Gaiman, which is connected by railway with Puerto Madryn on Bahia Nueva. Here is the seat of the governor of the territory, and by 1895 the inhabitants of this part of the territory, composed principally of Argentines, Welsh and Italians, numbered 2,585. The valley has been irrigated and cultivated, and produces the best wheat of the Argentine Republic. Between the Chubut and the Senguerr there are vast stretches of fertile land, spreading over the Andean region. This area has been occupied since 1885, where farms and colonies developed. The chief of these colonies is that of 16 de Octubre, formed in 1886, mainly by the inhabitants of Chubut colony, in the longitudinal valley which extends to the eastern foot of the Cordillera.
The streams which form the rivers Mayo and Chalia join the tributaries of the Rio Aisen, which flows into the Pacific, watering in its course extensive and valuable districts where colonization has been initiated by Argentine settlers. Colonies have also been formed in the basin of Lakes Musters and Colhué Huapi; and on the coasts near the Atlantic, along Bahia Camarones and the Gulf of San Jorge, there is extensive farming.
In addition, it is one of the highest critically acclaimed group of rivers in the the world for fly fishing. Every year thousands of fly fishermen flock there for the hope of catching "the big one."
Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, which stretches from the 46° to the 50°S. parallel, as far south as the dividing line with Chile, and between Point Dungeness and the watershed of the Cordillera, has an area of 243,943 km² (94,186 sq. miles).
The territory of Santa Cruz is arid along the Atlantic coast and in the central portion between 46° and 50°S. With the exception of certain valleys at Puerto Deseado (Port Desire) as far south as Puerto San Julian, where there is sparse cattle farming, few spots are suitable for cultivation because water is insufficient and salt lagoons fairly numerous. Puerto Deseado is the outlet for the produce of the Andean region situated between Lakes Buenos Aires and Pueyrredon.
Lake Buenos Aires, the largest lake in Patagonia, measuring 120 kilometers (75 miles) in length, poured its waters into the Atlantic even in post-Glacial times by means of the river Deseado; and it is so depicted on the maps of the 17th and 18th centuries; and so too did Lake Pueyrredon.
San Julian on Puerto San Julián, where Ferdinand Magellan wintered, was the centre of a cattle farming colony, and colonists have pushed into the interior up the valley of a now extinct river which in comparatively recent times carried down to Puerto San Julian the waters of Lakes Volcan, Beigrano, Azara, Nansen, and some other lakes which now drain into the river Mayer and so into Lake San Martin. The valleys of the Rio Chico, as well as those of Lake Shehuen, afford excellent grazing, and around Lakes Belgrano, Burmeister and Rio Mayer and San Martin there are spots suitable for cultivation. In the Cretaceous hills which flank the Cordillera important lignite beds and deposits of mineral oils have been discovered. The Rio Santa Cruz, originally explored by Captain Robert FitzRoy and Charles Darwin during the Voyage of the Beagle, is an important artery of communication between the regions bordering upon the Cordillera and the Atlantic. In Santa Cruz bay an important trade centre has been established. The present cattle region par excellence of Patagonia is the department of Rio Gallegos. Cattle ranching extends from the Atlantic to the Cordillera. Puerto Gallegos. an important business center, rivals the Chilean colony of Punta Arenas, on the Straits of Magellan. Owing to the produce of the cattle farms established there, the working of coal in the neighborhood, and the export of timber from the surrounding forests, the town of Punta Arenas flourishes.
Tierra del Fuego
Tierra del Fuego is an archipelago at the southernmost tip of Patagonia, divided between Argentina and Chile. It consists of the 47,992 km² of the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, and several minor islands.
Climate
The climate is less severe than was supposed by early travellers. The east slope is warmer than the west, especially in summer, as a branch of the southern equatorial current reaches its shores, whereas the west coast is washed by a cold current. At Puerto Montt, on the inlet behind Chiloé Island. the mean annual temperature is 11 °C (52 °F) and the average extremes 25.5 °C (78 °F) and −1.5 °C (29.5 °F), whereas at Bahia Blanca near the Atlantic coast and just outside the northern confines of Patagonia the annual temperature is 15 °C (59 °F) and the range much greater. At Punta Arenas, in the extreme south, the mean temperature is 6 °C (43 °F) and the average extremes 24.5 °C (76 °F) and −2 °C (28 °F). The prevailing winds are westerly, and the westward slope has a much heavier precipitation than the eastern; thus at Puerto Montt the mean annual precipitation is 2.46 m (97 inches), but at Bahia Blanca it is 480 mm (19 inches). At Punta Arenas it is 560 mm (22 inches).
Fauna
The guanaco, the puma, the zorro or Brazilian fox (Canis azarae), the zorrino or Mephitis patagonica (a kind of skunk), and the tuco-tuco or Ctenomys niagellanicus (a rodent) are the most characteristic mammals of the Patagonian plains. The guanaco roam in herds over the country and form with the rhea (Rhea americana, and more rarely Rhea darwinii) the chief means of subsistence for the natives, who hunt them on horseback with dogs and bolas. Bird-life is often wonderfully abundant. The carancho or carrion-hawk (Polyborus tharus) is one of the characteristic objects of a Patagonian landscape; the presence of long-tailed green parakeets (Conurus cyanolysius) as far south as the shores of the strait attracted the attention of the earlier navigators; and hummingbirds may be seen flying amidst the falling snow. Of the many kinds of water-fowl it is enough to mention the flamingo, the upland goose, and in the strait the remarkable steamer duck.
History
First human settlement
Human habitation of the region dates back thousands of years, with some early archaeological findings in the southern part of the area dated to the 10th millennium B.C.E., although later dates of around the 8th millennium B.C.E. are more securely recognised. The region seems to have been inhabited continuously since that time, by various cultures and alternating waves of migration, the details of which are as yet poorly understood.
The indigenous peoples of the region included the Tehuelches, whose numbers and society were reduced to near extinction not long after the first contacts with Europeans.
Early European accounts: 16th-17th centuries
The region of Patagonia was to be first noted in European accounts in 1520 by the expedition of Ferdinand Magellan, who on his passage along the coast named many of the more striking features — Gulf of San Matias, Cape of 11,000 Virgins (now simply Cape Virgenes), and others. However, it is also possible that earlier navigators such as Amerigo Vespucci had reached the area (his own account of 1502 has it that he reached its latitudes), however his failure to accurately describe the main geographical features of the region such as the Rio de la Plata casts some doubt on whether he really did so.
Rodrigo de Isla, despatched inland in 1535 from San Matias by Alcazava Sotomayor (on whom western Patagonia had been conferred by the king of Spain), was the first European to traverse the great Patagonian plain, and, but for the mutiny of his men, he may have been able to strike across the Andes to reach the Chilean side.
Pedro de Mendoza, on whom the country was next bestowed, lived to found Buenos Aires, but not to carry his explorations to the south. Alonzo de Camargo (1539), Juan Ladrilleros (1557) and Hurtado de Mendoza (1558) helped to make known the western coasts, and Sir Francis Drake's voyage in 1577 down the eastern coast through the strait and northward by Chile and Peru was memorable for several reasons; but the geography of Patagonia owes more to Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (1579-80), who, devoting himself especially to the southwest region, made careful and accurate surveys. The settlement which he founded at Nombre de Dios and San Felipe were neglected by the Spanish government, and the latter was in such a miserable state when Thomas Cavendish visited it in 1587 that he called it Port Famine.
The district in the neighbourhood of Puerto Deseado, explored by John Davis about the same period, was taken possession of by Sir John Narborough in the name of King Charles II of England in 1669.
Patagonian giants: early European perceptions
According to Antonio Pigafetta, one of the Magellan expedition's few survivors and its published chronicler, Magellan bestowed the name "Patagão" (or Patagoni) on the inhabitants they encountered there, and the name "Patagonia" for the region. Although Pigafetta's account does not describe how this name came about, subsequent popular interpretations gave credence to a derivation meaning 'land of the big feet'. However, this etymology is questionable.
The main interest in the region sparked by Pigafetta's account came from his reports of their meeting with the local inhabitants, who they claimed to measure some nine to twelve feet in height —"...so tall that we reached only to his waist"—, and hence the later idea that Patagonia meant "big feet". This supposed race of Patagonian giants or Patagones entered into the common European perception of this little-known and distant area, to be further fuelled by subsequent reports of other expeditions and famous-name travellers like Sir Francis Drake, which seemed to confirm these accounts. Early charts of the New World sometimes added the legend regio gigantum ("region of the giants") to the Patagonian area. By 1611 the Patagonian god Setebos (Settaboth in Pigafetta) was familiar to the hearers of the Tempest.
The concept and general belief persisted for a further 250 years, and was to be sensationally re-ignited in 1767 when an "official" (but anonymous) account was published of Commodore John Byron's recent voyage of global circumnavigation in HMS Dolphin. Byron and crew had spent some time along the coast, and the publication (Voyage Round the World in His Majesty’s Ship the Dolphin) seemed to give proof positive of their existence; the publication became an overnight best-seller, thousands of extra copies were to be sold to a willing public, and other prior accounts of the region were hastily re-published (even those in which giant-like folk were not mentioned at all).
However, the Patagonian giant frenzy was to die down substantially only a few years later, when some more sober and analytical accounts were published. In 1773 John Hawkesworth published on behalf of the Admiralty a compendium of noted English southern-hemisphere explorers' journals, including that of James Cook and John Byron. In this publication, drawn from their official logs, it became clear that the people Byron's expedition had encountered were no taller than 6 foot 6 inches, tall perhaps but by no means giants. Interest soon subsided, although awareness of and belief in the myth persisted in some quarters even up into the 20th century.
Expansion and exploration- 18th-19th centuries
In the second half of the 18th century knowledge of Patagonia was further augmented by the voyages of the previously-mentioned John Byron (1764-65), Samuel Wallis (1766, in the same HMS Dolphin which Byron had earlier sailed in) and Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1766). Thomas Falkner, a Jesuit who resided near 40 years in those parts, published his Description of Patagonia (Hereford, 1774); Francesco Viedma founded El Carmen, and Antonio advanced inland to the Andes (1782); and Basilio Villarino ascended the Rio Negro (1782).
The expeditions of HMS Adventure (1826-30) and HMS Beagle (1832-36) under Philip Parker King and Robert FitzRoy respectively were of first-rate importance, the latter especially from the participation of Charles Darwin; however nothing was observed of the interior of the country except for 200 miles (320 km) of the course of the Santa Cruz.
Captain George Chaworth Musters in 1869 wandered in company with a band of Tehuelches through the whole length of the country from the strait to the Manzaneros in the north-west, and collected a great deal of information about the people and their mode of life.
Culture and Religon
The official language of Argentina is Spanish. Immigrant settlements and tourism has introduced international flavor to this region and Welsh, Italian, French and English speakers can be also be found. Small communities of indigenous peoples speak Mapuche, Guarani and a few other native languages.
Roman Catholicism is the dominant religious faith of the region, brought by the Jesuits in the 18th century. There is freedom of religous pratice in Patagonia and the other religious faiths found there include Protestant denominations, Judaism, Islam, Greek and Russian Orthodox as well as indigenous religion.
Generally the cuisine of Argentina is found in Patagonia although some regional specialties influenced by the Welsh settlers such as scones served with clotted cream in teahouses and Italian pastas served with roasted beef, venison or lamb are common.
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