Chile - in the wake of Magellan and the Cape Horners On board the Mare Australis (Documentary)

pepper cardamom cinnamon nutmeg all during the middle ages europe was gripped by a fascination for the spices that came from far off asia the spice route controlled by arab traders crossed the indian ocean and asia minor before reaching the shores of the mediterranean the spices were then sold to venetian merchants who would then resell them throughout europe where they were worth their weight in gold with their roots to the east controlled by the infidels christian europe sought out numeritum roots to reach the oriental spice gardens the portuguese set out for the east vasco de gama rounded the cape of good hope and reached india on the 23rd of may 1498. a few years earlier the historic voyage of christopher columbus in 1492 was considered a failure by the spanish sovereigns who had hoped to reach the riches of india in 1520 magellan succeeded in finding a western passage to asia without realizing it he had written the first chapter of an incredible maritime adventure that lasted right into the beginning of the 20th century when the last commercial sitting ships the cape horners were finally taken out of service the k-porn has been the scene of hundreds of shipwrecks in the 19th century the men who embarked on the huge ships sailing between europe and asia were well aware of the dangers that the voyage entailed but what about the first navigators that came here what about magellan he was of course a very brave seaman an important navigator his name has lived on down through the centuries from 1520 down to the present day several centuries have gone by and here you are talking to me in my cabin but the man whose name you pronounced is still present in our memory on the other hand apart from the italian chronicler who embarked with him we don't know anything at all about the brave man who were along with miguel and on his voyage monday the feast of st lawrence august 10 1519 the army supplied with all that was necessary with a crew composed of 237 men from different nations aboard five ships were ready to cast off from the pier of seville firing all our cannons we sailed under only or for sale to the mouth of the guadalcave [Music] this is how antonio picafeta described his departure from seville in the old world on ward magellan's carack the 15th of december 1519 the fleet reached rio de janeiro then after a stopover of several months in the land of the pentagons the giants magellan came inside of the strait after sailing and having reached the 52nd degree of the previously mentioned antarctic sea we as if by miracle came upon a strait that we call the cape of the eleven thousand virgins the captain sent two ships ahead the san antonio and the conception on reconnaissance to seek out the exit of the strait they took three days to go and come back and they told us that they had found the cape and the vast open sea and the captain overcome with joy began to weep and he named the cape cape desire for it was desired so deeply and for so long wednesday the 28th of november 1520 we sailed out of the strait and into the mar pacifica [Music] in the wake of magellan the southern tip of america was to become the scene of four centuries of incredible maritime adventures marked by exploits as well as shipwrecks [Music] in the 19th century the men who sailed for patagonia and terra del fuego were no longer adventurers or explorers but civil sailors in charge of handling the gigantic sailing ships loaded with wool copper or immigrants these men were the cape horners i'm a bit hesitant about what the title cape horner really means for me a cape horner is somebody who goes by sailing ship from east to west i'd like to emphasize just how difficult it actually is to go from east to west so you're up against all these elements that took time and there were people who lost their lives at it victims of the hostile elements unleashed around cape horn the men pray sing and drink to keep their fear at bay they have but one thought in mind to reach valparaiso up until 1914 with the opening of the panama canal when all of a sudden there was no more need for the long voyages around south america valparaiso incarnated the spirit and dreams of all the cape horners aroused from its slumber by the sirens of the boats moored in the harbor valparaiso slowly emerges from the morning mists oh all during the 19th century valparaiso the first port after rounding the cape horn harbored hundreds of sailing ships the town drew european captains welcomed immigrants it even became more important than santiago the capital of chile until it was abandoned in a far corner of the earth by the steamers that from 1914 on set their course for the panama canal so valparaiso the valley of paradise grew along with the activity of its port the city's funiculars often in a sorry state now date back to those days the inhabitants still use them to go home to their working-class neighborhoods where once stood splendid colonial mansions in spite of this decline the city continues to intrigue and attract sailors and travelers the mere mention of valparaiso evokes the legends of the sea and the mythic cape horners has always attracted sailors why well after a long trip aboard these large sailing ships at the time when the sailors would come into this semi-developed port city they would be able to go ashore if the captain authorized it and so this was really a pleasant stopover and all the old-time sailors that put in here have warm memories of valparaiso the old sailing songs talk about valparaiso as an ideal spot a good place to come after a long sea voyage club we met with two delightful ladies the history of the cape horners is part of their life for their father henry merkins was captain of the isback when this german captain sailed into valparaiso in 1914 after rounding cape horn war broke out and his ship was requisitioned but he stayed in chile married and was named once again captain of his large sailing ship which overjoyed his children dad was at home only during the vacations the rest of the time he was mostly out at sea i think the happiest time of our life was when we were out sailing it was a thousand times better than the steamers because of all the noise from the motors on the sailing ships all you feel is the wind and the rocking you know we'd pass the time watching the foam to feel the speed of the boat it was really wonderful for us chile american country stretches over more than 4 300 kilometers from the peruvian border to the chera del fuego yet it wasn't until the middle of the 19th century that chile began to take an interest in its southern provinces the first attempts at colonization had began a long time before the spanish who wanted to protect the strait decided to send down the most impressive fleet ever assembled three thousand men and twenty-three ships under the orders of sarmiento de camboa the governor of the strait of magellan desertions shipwrecks when the expedition sailed into view of the strait on the 2nd of february 1584 there were only 529 men and four ships left in spite of it all the colony was founded as sarmiento relates in his log book the 25th of march 1584 by the grace of god and in the name of the most holy trinity pedro salmiento chose his counselors and established the town council and confirmed them in the name of your majesty then he chose the site of the tree of justice and laid the plans of the town which he then christened rey don felipe victims of famine and cold none of the colonists left by sarmiento survived and the town of reydon felipe is remembered under the name of port famine it was three centuries later before another attempt was made to colonize the tierra del fuego in 1843 just a few kilometers from the site of port famine the chileans founded fort bulnes today in its place there is a faithful reconstruction a few years later the inhabitants decided to move their small community to a more favorable location sandy point a puntarenas puntarenas which was a penal colony when first founded is now the capital of chilean patagonia puntarenas with its 120 000 inhabitants and its colorful houses is wedged in between the strait of magellan and the wide open patagonian plains broken up by the last foothills of the andes puntarenas far removed from the world's great cities and proud of it now it draws an increasing number of tourists eager to discover patagonia chiara del fuego and the antarctic further south in the 19th century puntarenas was a port of call for the clippers that preferred to brave the changing currents and winds of the strait of magellan than the storms of cape horn and it developed as the region's natural resources were exploited first whaling and seal hunting and more recently oil natural gas and coal but the principal resource of the city remains sheep raising and even more than magellan whose statue thrones in the middle of the plaza de las armas the real hero of puntarenas is jose menendez this spanish chilean owned a 3 million hectare ranch he went into partnership with another immigrant maurice brown a russian and together they owned over 1 billion hectares [Music] the former brown menendez mansion which is now a local history museum is the symbol of a success story in 1906 puntarenas was even more so than today a remote outpost and yet italian marble english furniture and wallpaper nothing was too fine too expensive to show off the power and riches of these two sheep barons during the 19th century chile encouraged european immigration to fill the needs of the developing south germans italians french and particularly croatians came to settle in puntarenas in the cemetery these colonists from all over the world lie beside the mausoleums of the powerful cattle-raising families the indians driven from their lands by this new wave of colonization and the spread of cattle raising fell victim to famine and disease feelings of guilt a heartfelt homage a mystical right this statue of a little indian is an object of devotion for the inhabitants of puntarenas uh at first about 10 years ago the statue was at the entrance of the cemetery but there were so many people that they decided to move it over here whether it be for professional financial or even domestic problems the first thing they do when they come is to light a candle some leave money they touch the indians they say a prayer then they go home at peace with themselves [Music] about not knowing more about these people that were here before us in this all but forgotten region of patagonia we studied about the indians in school but it was so little [Music] we learn about the wars we learn about independence but they never really go into the question of the indians that used to live here in patagonia here [Music] the australis sets out leaving puntarenas behind during the southern summer this chilean cruise boat explores the fjords and channels of the cherry del fuego and on board we continue our voyage in the wake of magellan sarmiento francis drake and all of the great navigators who over the centuries have contributed to our knowledge of these far-off landscapes [Music] [Music] the red glow of dawn outlines the silhouette of the isla magdalena which floats like a mirage on the waters of the strait of magellan so every year between september and march close to sixty thousand pairs of penguins congregate here to nest an intriguing mystery of nature for how long have they been coming here to celebrate this ritual of life we don't really know just when the penguins started coming here to nest but we do know that antonio pigafeta who came here with magellan's expedition talked about the penguins which he described as wild geese we don't know why the first penguins chose this island to nest but season after season it's become the rule year after year the same penguins return here to mate in the 1960s it became a national park so it's protected by the state given its size it's truly a natural monument it's just this island and the next one over there that our state preserves because of the nesting penguins unlike other species of penguins the magellan penguins build their nests underground they lay their eggs there which hatch 60 days later antonio pigafeta confronted with this totally unknown species describes them as follows it would be impossible to estimate the number of these wild geese for we loaded all five ships in just one hour these wild geese are black and covered all over with feathers they do not fly and live on fish they were so fat that instead of plucking them we skinned them the sea wolves of these two islands are of several colors and they are as big as cows they have heads like calves and small rounded ears they have long teeth no legs but attached to their body they have feet that look like human hands with small nails and skin between the toes like geese and if these animals could run they would be dangerous and cruel but they don't leave the water they swim and live on fish hmm uh leaving the isla magdalena we head south and enter into the channels that lead to the alberto agostini national park [Music] [Music] [Music] when i started about 50 years ago we had to take our bearings from the natural landmarks back then they didn't have any channel beacons [Music] in the early 19th century with the beginning of the industrial age and before steamships came into their own the english were in search of shorter maritime roots to reach their far-off colonies in asia and the south seas and thus captain fitzroy discovered a new channel to the south of the strait of magellan which he named after his ship the beagle on board was a young english scientist of 22 charles darwin before reaching the galapagos islands where his theory of the evolution of species would take form the voyage of the beagle took darwin to the chiera del fuego january 19th in the afternoon we entered the eastern mouth of the channel and shortly afterwards found a snug little cove concealed by some surrounding isolates the next day the 20th we smoothly glided onwards in our little fleet and came to a more inhabited district few if any of these natives could ever have seen a white man certainly nothing could exceed their astonishment at the apparition of the four boats january 29th early in the morning we arrived at the point where the beagle channel divides into two arms and we enter the northern one the scenery here becomes even grander than before the lofty mountains on the north side compose the granite axis or backbone of the country and boldly rise to a height of between three and four thousand feet with one peak above six thousand feet they are covered by a wide metal of perpetual snow and numerous cascades pour their waters through the woods into the narrow channel below in many parts magnificent glaciers extend from the mountain side to the water's edge it's scarcely possible to imagine anything more beautiful than the berry-like blue of these glaciers [Music] the soundings and readings taken by fitzroy were so accurate that they're still used on today's sailing charts as for the landscapes described by darwin they've hardly changed since the beginning of the 19th century except perhaps for the size and location of the glaciers [Music] glacier which is part of the alberto agostini national park it's about 90 meters high and 100 meters wide there are at least 50 or 60 glaciers that flow down from the ice fields in different directions to the north some of them flow towards the ceno almeron and in the south most of them flow into the beagle channel that's where they're at the most according to certain indications we think that two or three hundred years ago glaciers covered this whole region it's probable that in the 17th century these glaciers touched the part of lake agostini and even stretched as far as the region of the magdalena channel and even beyond that into the strait of magellan and about 100 years ago they began to shrink back very quickly they receded so quickly that the glaciers freed areas that until then had been covered in ice to a depth of 800 meters and all that in the last 100 or 200 years [Music] cavendish fitzroy darwin century after century the enthusiasm that drew navigators and scientists again and again to explore the tierra del fuego continued unabated in 1882 under the auspices of the international polar year an expedition christened cape horn scientific mission embarked aboard the three master la romansh under the orders of captain martial they crisscrossed the labyrinth of the fuegan channels in memory of this expedition certain glaciers lining the beagle channel were named after the countries represented onboard la homos german glacier french italian [Music] holland [Music] this whole area was covered with glaciers 40 000 years ago and before that 80 million years ago there was a collision of three continental plates the antarctic plate into the south american plate and between these two a third little-known tectonic plate the scotia plate the uplifting resulting from this collision produced mountains and some of them are two to three thousand meters high this whole area was covered with a layer of ice more than 2 000 meters thick those glaciers would advance at an incredible speed between 30 and 40 meters a day and so they would gouge out channels in a very violent and aggressive way around 12 000 years ago they began to melt and recede the sea flowed into the space that was freed up and continued to advance to its present position producing very narrow fjords and channels two to three kilometers wide but several hundred kilometers long [Music] [Music] [Music] was on a scientific mission to make magnetic and meteorological observations but it also carried out ethnological and anthropological studies the accounts described the encounters with the amana villages in the southern part of the tierra del fuego [Music] the marie australis is coming into puerto williams [Music] know [Music] puerto williams ushuaia's rival for the title of southernmost city of the american continent is situated in the heart of the former yamana territory [Music] um here on the island navarino is where fitzroy embarked four young yagans another name for the yamanas on the first voyage of the beagle fitzroy convinced of the righteousness of his mission and his moral rectitude wanted to instill in these natives the principles and values of an english education when he brought them back along with darwin two years later on the second voyage of the beagle one of the amanas nicknamed jimmy buttons by the sailors because he had been traded for a mother of pearl button immediately took up his old ways that was almost two centuries ago and the yamana culture was thriving today it has completely disappeared however certain rumors tell of a woman living in the little village of okika near puerto williams it's said that she's the last authentic yamana living in tierra del fuego and yet in ukika none of the inhabitants that we questioned claimed the slightest bit of indian heritage a sort of fatality the deep black hole of oblivion i'm chilean all the kids are mixed breeds the only ones that are true indians are those two sisters on the day we arrived rasula the last yamana died in a hospital at puentarenas the first indians reached tierra del fuego around ten thousand years ago after a long migration honas al-akhaloof jagans and a few other ethnic groups all lived on this territory was most likely the center of the yamana culture rather fragile canoes they were fishermen and they also hunted sea lions they lived off the resources of the sea to a large extent when they landed in a bay they would stay 12 to 15 days to stock up on supplies then when they needed food again they would move on to another bay to find provisions is and leave the ground littered with the empty shells so all through this whole area you can find the leavings of their meals then they build their hats they cross two branches to form a hemisphere then they would cover them with sea lion pelts and foliage so located on the north side of the beagle channel almost opposite puerto williams ushuaya is in the argentinian part of tierra del fuego it's a town of three hundred 000 inhabitants with a mixture of architectural styles and no particular charm like all the towns of the region ushuaia is a pioneering town and was founded fairly recently at the end of the 19th century ushuaia visited by tourists curiosity seekers and true nature lovers has no real interest except as a jumping off point for the wide open spaces of tierra del fuego [Music] it was here in this landscape buffeted by the patagonian winds that in the 19th century pastor thomas bridges decided to found his estancia harberton [Music] along with the everyday activities of a ranch thomas bridges pursued his overriding passion the study of the amana culture and in particular their language he is the author of an almost thirty thousand word dictionary [Music] the natives the um the native indians the yamana or jagan most of them lived in canoes where nomadic people along the coast they hunted they lived mainly on fur seals was their main food but also birds and mussels and things but the fur seals had been mostly depleted killed off by the sealers and it was very difficult for them to find enough food so one of the things thomas bridges tried to do was to teach them to grow vegetables potatoes and rutabaga and other vegetables and to begin with animals with cattle and sheep so they would have more food he was most interested in the language and so he spent many years studying and revising and recopying his dictionary which was eventually published english yoga and dictionary he was able to speak with them very well so during almost a century the only maritime route connecting europe and asia was the strait of magellan in the early 17th century the dutch took over the control of the spice trade from the portuguese they founded the dutch east india company and banned all free trade ships from using the strait of magellan or the cape of good hope to reach the spice islands [Music] shuten and lemare two dutch traders decided to quite legally circumvent this prohibition by seeking out an alternate route to the strait of magellan [Music] the 31st of january 1616 they rounded the cape further south they christened it cape horn in honor of their hometown horn [Music] thus opened the commercial route that all the cape horners would use from then on [Music] days the captains were very qualified very competent professionals there's no question about it the ship owners naturally chose the most highly qualified to sail the cape horn on the other hand they were much less demanding when it came to recruiting the crews the crews were usually recruited in bars in the ports sometimes they were enrolled by force and the crew was small for economic reasons the crew would number no more than 40 to 44 men so they couldn't carry out maneuvers on more than one mast at a time and that entailed a certain risk a rare privilege we set foot on cape horn but we are not the only human beings on this site a representative of the chilean navy lies here with his wife beyond the horizon lies only the antarctic and before us the ocean stretches out as far as the eye can see the wind here is always at least 40 50 knots we've had winds of 100 to 120 knots and for here that's normal the swell can get very big there are sometimes very high waves between 4 and 10 meters that's what the sea's like here very stormy it's a bit scary it's scary because we're afraid of getting swept away the whole house shakes it's as if the wind wanted to carry it off able to help me would be my husband and vice versa anyway we have our ups and downs but i can't say we have any real problems my best memory apart from a personal and spiritual aspect is god's blessing the fact that he protects us all year round so nothing happens to us another fond memory is the friendly relationships with the people that come to visit us here yes i have fond memories of things like that [Music] 10 to 15 freighters a day going by here my job is to control the maritime traffic of this whole sector of the whole ocean you get all kinds of boats coming through here you even get i can yachts ever sleep the whole night straight through because we always have boats coming through sailboats they need our help for the meteorology to find out what the weather is like in the sector and we're ready to help them out and give them the support they need the heaviest traffic took place around 1850 when they discovered gold in california they say in one year about seven hundred ships came through here from new york for example they would round cape horn towards valparaiso where they'd put in for a time then they would continue their voyage onto san francisco in california then for different reasons the sailing traffic declined over the years the main reason was the construction of the panama canal so from 1914 on the traffic declined and in the 1950s the traffic of the sailing ships stopped [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Stop Over - Documentary, Discovery, History

Views: 20,436

Rating: 4.6721311 out of 5

Keywords: TravelChannelTV, 601ProductionLTD, travel, adventure, boat, sail, trip, ocean, sea, river, sailboat, cruise, stopover, stop, over, Queen Elizabeth 2, Royal Clipper, Le France, Le Norway, Sun Boat II, Classica, Vat Phou, Bolero, Wind Song, Grigoriy Mikheev icebreaker, Silver Cloud, destination, voyage, Stopovertv, Discover, Travel, travels, explore, Stop Over, History

Id: yvlJfIOS8WI

Length: 53min 33sec (3213 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 23 2013