Amazing Quest: Stories from Chile | Somewhere on Earth: Chile | Free Documentary

[Music] [Music] somewhere on earth is off to visit the faraway land of patagonia one of the most sparsely populated regions on earth southern chile is a vast territory where the clouds seem within arm's reach at the extreme tip of south america the only limits are the sky the sea and the still unexplored peaks of the andes patagonia lifts the veil on its fragile beauty jorge aratia knows all the secrets of the balseros the raftsman of patagonia in this remote valley the lumberjacks harvest cypress wood and transport transported down the rio baker to the sea philip reuter's childhood dream was to explore the wildest places of our planet this enthusiastic mountaineer is a certified alpine guide and lives at the foot of the andes immense glaciers carlos baria is one of the southernmost men on earth he fishes the icy water of the beagle channel carlos is a seaman but also a cattleman his ranch is situated at the ends of the earth very close to the mythical cape horn [Music] i live thanks to nature [Music] here at the ends of the earth live people who can resist anything isolation and the glacial winds have forged the character of the inhabitants of patagonia perhaps the only place left where legends are still being written carlos a king crab fisherman and rancher lives beyond the end of the earth on the beagle channel the mountains and the sea are a never-ending test of courage for him carlos possesses the integrity of seafarers and the force of lands [Music] this is a very dangerous place in bad weather when the weather's like today we don't go out fishing for centoya the king crab the sea is too rough for our boats it gets very tricky i know this region like the back of my hand i've been working here for more than 30 years on the beagle channel and further south as well we're just across from the tierra del fuego that's argentina on the other side the canal is split in two one half's argentine the other half's chilean sailing here where two great oceans the atlantic and the pacific meet means taking a trip back in time [Music] the beagle channel a passage gouged out of the cliff faces at the tail end of the andes is the last straight in southern tierra del fuego the waterway discovered in 1825 gets its name from the british brig the beagle its captain robert fitzroy had undertaken several expeditions to patagonia on one he took aboard a young naturalist who would become one of the most famous scientists of his time charles darwin ever since they were discovered by magellan the icy waters of patagonia's channels have preserved traces of the great age of discovery these shores are a huge maritime cemetery this is both the beginning and end of the world one of our planet's most inhospitable regions this land of the high latitudes with its dreaded cape the legendary cape horn gateway to the vast south pacific at puerto williams on the island of navarino the fishermen are getting ready for the sentoya or king crab season their main source of income on board carlos's boat road remar things are going wrong the reversing gear is broken the only way to get it fixed is to take out the engine and ship it to punta arenas where they'll be able to replace the part i've got to hurry and get this engine onto the ferry boat there aren't any mechanics here in puerto williams the nearest one is in punta arenas the main port of patagonia two days away by boat the crab season starts in a week and i've got a motor that breaks down this is really rotten luck what carlos does not mention is that not only could he very well miss out on the crab season but he could also lose his crew many men in puerto williams earn their living from crab fishing and for them is out of the question to lose work on account of a faulty engine [Music] carlos knows this not only is his fishing season imperiled but he'll have to find a boat to take him to douglas where he has his ranch and a herd of cattle douglas is seven hours away by boat life on the edge of the earth has its constraints one needs to accept them [Music] [Music] i was 20 years old when i came here from puerto natales so i've been living in puerto williams for more than 30 years life was hard back then things are a little better now [Music] that's why i came here to work i like the spot for its peace and quiet so i stayed in puerto williams i became a fisherman here in the world's southernmost village i fell in love with this spot and that's why i stayed [Music] okay puerto williams on the shores of the beagle channel is chile's southernmost community the village located across from argentina's tierra del fuego is a formal naval base now the town has a population of just over two thousand half of which are military personnel once a week the yagan makes its regular run to punta arenas carlos may miss the beginning of the king crab season but he's taken care of part of his worries his mechanical problems will soon be solved but he'll have to be patient it will take a month to get the repaired motor back the southern storms swirl around the antarctic patagonia is the first land that the west winds and the pacific depressions encounter sailors call this part of the globe the roaring 40s and the furious 50s sailing conditions are some of the most extreme that navigators could ever encounter carlos is heading for douglas where he has his ranch way off the beaten track [Music] with his crab fishing boat out of order he boarded the orca a rapid boat that serves the isolated communities along the beagle [Music] channel i'm worried because i haven't been to check on the fellow that's working there for more than 20 days he's all alone and i haven't had any news from him i'm worried about his health i have no idea if he needs anything you never know [Music] douglas is an old anglican mission that was abandoned in the early 20th century [Music] carlos took over these lands at the end of the earth about 20 years ago he owns around 100 head of cattle as soon as he sets foot on dry land he gets to work with jose the silent caretaker of the campo jose has been totally cut off from the rest of the world for four months you have to have someone who knows how to work and even more important who can stand the isolation you have to like being alone because out here your only friends are the radio and the dogs there's no other company you have to get used to the solitude it's hard for those who can't live alone it's a real problem douglas is the only place between williams and cape horn where you can buy meat most of the animals we slaughter we sell to the fishermen they come through here for the crab season starting in february the boats that sail down south all pass through here and they buy their meat from me [Music] carlos has created a refuge for himself in douglas a parcel of forgotten land that is an ideal spot to appreciate the full measure of the beauty of the world carlos has left his worries behind him for the moment there will always be time to get back out to sea meanwhile he can still do some fishing here without a motor even though i had a problem with the motor and had to send it to punta arenas i can still work and fish for crabs now that i'm here in douglas to see if there are any sentoya i'll set some more these are all males we're not allowed to keep the females if we catch any females we have to throw them back i'm lucky they'll sell well where i could come and recharge my batteries and work a little as well but i really like it i'm still learning about ranch work in fact i'm still more of a fisherman than a cattleman [Music] [Music] only people passing through like fishermen for the moment it's completely uninhabited for a moment this place means a lot to me it has a very important place in my heart right after my wife and [Music] i children that on the island of navarino here i'm living in the southernmost spot on earth if i hadn't settled here i would have found somewhere even further [Music] [Music] philippe an alpine guide eager for adventure has a keen instinct for the extreme [Music] this is really the kind of spot where there are no limits no limits to the forces of nature no limits to the adventures you can experience without seeing anyone else no limits to the distances they are vast there are no limits to anything [Music] here [Music] this is practically unexplored territory with thousands of places where man has never set foot a vestige of long gone ice ages the valley of the rio leones is a gateway to the summits of patagonia for almost 20 years now philippe has been opening trails for the climbing expeditions that he organizes the rio leonis is one of his itineraries not the easiest but it leads to the glaciers without passing by the sea and the pacific ocean [Music] now we have some work to do in the river we're going to remove some stones that are a hazard when we go upstream by boat there are two big stones that are a little tricky to get past when the river is low so we're going to try to get them out i hope the water won't be too high to work in today you lost a cow we can see the stones sticking out of the river there apare we should be able to get the job done [Music] every summer philippe has to negotiate with nature for a rite of passage on the rio leones with puny means and the folly of those who dream of moving mountains philippe takes on this unusual job [Music] [Music] this is what i like about this work creating assembling constructing today i'm dredging this stone i come so close to it every time i come by here i think i'm going to wreck the boat and end up in the water if we can get it out today it'd be a great relief one stone a day oh we have to spend hours in the cold water move tons and tons of stone by hand but nature lends a hand we take out the stone and she carries away the rest that's how it goes [Music] at last the way to the summit is clear it's summer in patagonia the best season for the andinist the mountaineers of the andes [Music] after a lifetime of pushing his limits philippe came to live on the shores of lake carrera general in the heart of patagonia philippe was born at the foot of the french alps into a family of avid mountaineers then he spent a large part of his childhood in santiago ever since he has been following his dreams of peaks and pinnacles he decided to put down roots in the village of puerto guadal a veteran of everest and extreme challenges he is one of chile's best climbers i was raised in the great outdoors my father was an alpine guide i remember when i was two and a half i walked on the summit of parmelan in the french alps when i was four i climbed la tournette i was raised outdoors all my professional activities were connected with the outdoors and nature photographer ski instructor then alpine guide like many things you catch the nature bug when you're little and that's what happened with me when i'm out in the wild i don't think about anything apart from the stone or the tree i have to move or the cabin i have to build it's a way of doing yoga it's my own brand of yoga it's life reduced to its simplest expression eating sleeping walking that's all there is to it it really does me a world of good [Music] [Music] philippe is taking a group of climbers to the foot of the leones glacier the base camp for the expeditions of monte san valentin over four thousand meters high it's one of patagonia's tallest peaks there are three passes to cross the climb will take 20 days the success of an expedition always depends on the weather conditions but perhaps even more so here with the cold and wind the weather is extreme identical to the nearby antarctic only 10 percent of the climbers who tackle this mountain managed to reach the peak from here on you'll be crossing glaciers climbing rocks clamoring up a crest and all your encampments will be on ice the main problems are the distances and the climate know that you're in for a rough time you're doomed to sleep in your tent during a storm that will last one or two days so if things go bad you have to start rationing before it gets too late so that the trip can leave your head full of breathtaking images the rest is a human experience that you will live to the fullest mission accomplished for philippe his alpine guides will take charge of the mission from here on [Music] [Music] after the arctic and the antarctic this is the largest frozen expanse on earth patagonia is home to the world's third largest ice field all along the cordiera of the andes the ice sheets stretched north and south for close to 500 kilometers [Music] this is the realm of the willowah the cold violent and unpredictable wind that barrels down the mountain slopes at speeds up to 300 kilometers an hour oh [Music] as soon as the weather permits philippe makes for the leonis glacier it's a fascinating monument an imposing mass and a fragile testimony to the upheavals of our planet well it gives me a feeling of sadness the chunk that dropped off today was very high it gave the glacier its characteristic height you can see another one that's falling i know from experience and the saddest part of this whole thing is that there's no going back we'll never recover that that's very old ice there's not much precipitation in the region anymore so the glacier really took a body blow today and that's sad back then the glacier touched the rocks on both sides the face was much higher and covered the width of the lake about five years ago we started noticing a definite acceleration in the melting of the ice that we didn't have in earlier years scientists said the glacier would lose six centimeters a day in summer and one centimeter a day in winter there's no way to get that back i think that in five years it won't even come down to the water's edge anymore [Music] this is the pulse of the planet a little finger on the planet's pulse there are other spots where it beats stronger but this is my own pulse [Music] the village of tortell ensconced in the gulf of penas was for a long time isolated from the rest of the world it was not until the early 2000s that the arrival of route 7 la caratera austral broke the isolation of the inhabitants [Music] jorge was 14 when he came to tortell like everyone else here he became a lumberjack saw the light of day thanks to cypress wood was founded in the 1950s by the balseros the raftsman they assembled thousands of rafts in order to transport logs to the sea [Music] jorge knows all the secrets of the balseros and he wants to transmit his knowledge to his sons they're going to make a descent of one of patagonia's major rivers a voyage through the heart of dark forests in the wake of the old raftsmen the memory of the rio baker [Music] thanks to the cypress trees people have been able to settle in this valley now jorge is no longer allowed to log the green wood only the trunks burned in the tragic forest fires of the 1960s which destroyed a part of patagonia's virgin forest we depend on them their source of work for us the trees give us everything we need cypress wood is very resistant to rain and humidity you don't need to treat it for it to age well it has a natural property it is rot resistant unlike the other trees here that's its number one quality [Music] boss [Music] and he's the descendant of the early settlers in the region of rio baker and tortured his father was one of the very first settlers here getting to know these people has been the best thing that's ever happened to me they were very special people and they made a lot of sacrifices they were brave braavos as we say in [Music] patagonia [Music] [Music] are going to spend the day in the forest they have to gather the timber to complete the rafts before the bad weather sets in we've made huge sacrifices to make this land our own a lot of sacrifices and despite the progress it's still hard even now we woodsmen who've made this place our land you know we don't get much help from the government in the 1940s a few pioneering families like louise's settled in this valley here in southern [Music] chile it was a handful of men and women who decided to colonize this untouched land far off the beaten track the early settlers had nothing but their courage and a healthy dose of hope now some 60 years later life hasn't changed much for the men and women of patagonia here on the banks of the rio baker in the forest everyday life is still laced with adventure luis and diego jorge's youngest sons have long dreamed of the day they would finally raft down the rio baker they grew up listening to tales of the balseros those men of the forest who carved in wood the legendary history of this corner of the world [Music] the valley flanked by steep mountains is difficult to access there's no road no machine can fray a path into this forest oxen are still the best way to haul the cypress wood time has stood still here in the baker valley today 70 years after the arrival of the first pioneers jorge and jimenez are carrying on the tradition of the balseros [Music] everything is difficult here because of the great distances between one place and another between one village and another the job we're doing today is very tricky they say you must walk slowly over pebbles that's another patagonian everything we learned here has been transmitted by the pioneers the early settlers we've learned it all from them they have left us the heritage of the balsaros the art of log rafting it's a privilege to be able to do this and to maybe one day pass it on so that it doesn't die out these people are like living treasures i think it's the most valuable aspect of our culture jorge and his sons have finished constructing five rafts now they'll take them down to the rio baker one by one to assemble them all into one large timber raft [Music] because i've been doing this for years more than 20 years back then i would work with the old-timers i didn't take things so much to heart it was just my everyday life [Music] now there are more than 400 cypress logs assembled into one huge timber raft i've done this all my life and i've never had a problem thank god it's not pleasant work but it's god's will this is how we make our living here [Music] it's too hard for modern conveniences but if they were to come here they wouldn't be able to stand it it's just too harsh this morning the weather is perfect to tackle the descent of the rio baker and reach the northern region of patagonia's channels [Music] if el signor baker as they call the river is in a good mood it will take them two days riding the current to reach tortell when the winter is harsh and the summer mild the water level can rise quite suddenly upstream the glacier melt and the tributaries carry tons of alluvium trees torn from the banks form dams that will suddenly give way in flood periods the river dwellers know that these natural phenomena can submerge the valley in a few hours all the balsaras remember those who lost their lives on the baker the balceros are at the mercy of the river and its whirlpools [Music] the river has a very strong current it sweeps you along and tosses you from side to side it's really swift nature will not give you any breaks you have to respect her and even so always anticipate nature is good but all the same you should never forget that she is the one who's in charge you have to navigate at home is we have a lot of respect for el senor jorge is quite proud of his sons and they're not about to forget their first descent of the baker a lot of folks from the city even if it is the most beautiful and posh city in the world would envy this pleasure this is one of life's greatest riches [Music] [Music] is [Music] is [Music] foreign the men and women of patagonia possess a good number of qualities they are able to overcome difficult situations to live in isolated areas wild untamed regions where the smallest job requires a great effort all that is [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign you

Channel: Free Documentary

Views: 358,592

Rating: 4.8267517 out of 5

Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full documentary, HD documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), somewhere on earth, amazing stories, amazing stories from chile, amazing quest, chile

Id: CzLYSWGGLmY

Length: 49min 45sec (2985 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 13 2021