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El Calafate was created in 1927 and named after the thorny bush with dark fruit that spreads across the entire Southern Andean Patagonia. This picturesque village located on the shores of Lake Argentino constitutes the highest hierarchy tourist center in Santa Cruz.
Resting on the slopes of the surrounding plateaus, it has a very mild micro climate that turns it into an amazing oasis for the tourists that reach this place after traveling the arid scenery of the Patagonian plateaus. The Calafate creek, which divides the village into two parts, is a peaceful backwater with a rocky bed, surrounded by the willows that grow on its banks.
This is the closest city to the Los Glaciares National Park and its famous Perito Moreno Glacier, declared World Natural Heritage by the UNESCO.
The buildings of El Calafate have composite roofs to avoid the effects of the snow weight. The local flora is typical of the Andean Patagonian forest, with lengas and sour cherry trees. There is good hotel and gastronomical structure, tourist guides and agencies that organize many land and lake excursions, restaurants, discos and transportation means in very good condition.
The First Settlers:
Before the arrival of the Europeans, the present territory occupied by the Province of Santa Cruz would be dwelled by Indian peoples who belonged to the Tehuelche cultural complex – nomadic guanaco and choique hunters. Their campgrounds were easily transported and located in warm places, such as deep valleys or ravines, or close to the forests, where they could get firewood supplies. In their journeys, the first settlers of Santa Cruz weaved a path design and tracks in two directions: one of them was longitudinal, corresponding specially to communication among the various tribes, and the other one was parallel to the rivers, which would join the mountain range valleys with the coast. Quite significantly, towns and cities, as well as provincial and national routes, today follow the old routes outlined by the Tehuelche Indians in the sites of their ancient campgrounds. During the summer, they would dwell the areas of the mountain range which were free of snow, and in the winter, they moved to the coast, where the weather was more temperate. It was right at this spot where Magellan came across them.
Los explorers:
For centuries, the inner part of the territory would be practically unknown for the European. For the sailors from the old world, however, the coastline -with its gulfs, bays and inlets- would constitute a shelter where they could spend the winter on their way to the Pacific and get water and food supply. When the interest of other colonial powers on the southern end of America began to grow, Spain resolved to have a more permanent presence in the southern Atlantic. The long list of explorations began in 1520 with Magellan, who spent the winter in San Julián and then in Santa Cruz. In 1535, Martín de Alcazada arrived in Río Gallegos, settled down in the territory and attached it to the ephemeral kingdom of Nueva León. In 1578, when the English pirate Francis Drake toured the area and crossed the Strait of Magellan to attack several Spanish ports in the Pacific, Pedro Sarmiento de Tamboa was appointed the task of fortifying several shores of the strait and, thus, close it to English navigators. In the frame of this project, on February 11, 1584, near Cape Vírgenes, he founded the Nombre de Jesús colony in Las Fuentes Valley, and shortly afterwards, not far from the place where Punta Arenas stands today, he raised Real Felipe. Later, the English pirate Cavendish, who crossed the strait in 1587, after having stopped at Puerto Deseado –named after his ship “Desire”-, he gave a new name to Real Felipe and called it Puerto Hambre (Port of Hunger). In the mid XVIII century, the trade derived from whale, seal and sea lion hunting awoke the appetite of England, France and Holland for the southern coasts of America. Spain resolved to activate its presence in the area. In 1745, Olivares and Centeno, accompanied by the Jesuits Strövel, Cardiel and Quiroga, toured the territory but came to the conclusion that it was a hard job to strengthen Hispanic presence. |
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| Colonization:
In 1776, when the Río de la Plata Viceroyalty was created, Patagonia, which so far had been part of the Río de la Plata jurisdiction, became part of the Viceroyalty and started to depend on the Buenos Aires Intendency. Spain sent Juan de la Piedra and Francisco de Biedma to found military colonies on the Atlantic shores. On April 19, 1780, Antonio de Biedma founded the New Colony of Floridablanca, in San Julián, but it only lasted for 4 years. The crown created the Royal Sea Company to exploit fauna products and founded a factory at Deseado, which worked until 1807, when its dwellers moved to Carmen de Patagones. Thus, the region was left to the mercy of foreign fishermen and whalehunters. The national independence did not introduce any changes to this situation. That is the reason for the English occupation of the Malvinas in 1833. The Santa Cruz territory was involved in border conflicts with Chile. In 1874, Carlos Moyano and expert Francisco P. Moreno went up the Santa Cruz River and got to Lakes Argentino and Viedma. Finally, in 1878, President Nicolás Avellaneda ordered Commodore Luis Py to proceed with the military occupation of those lands. In 1878, the creation of the Patagonia Government, whose head was located in Viedma, laid the definitive foundations of national sovereignty.
The Province:
The organic law of the national territories passed in 1884 subdivided the Patagonian Givernment into the Governments of Neuquén, Río Negro, Chubut, Santa Cruz and Tierra del Fuego. Taking as a basis the natural features of Santa Cruz, this area was divided into four districts: Puerto Deseado, San Julián, Santa Cruz and Río Gallegos, historical nucleus of its settlement. The City of Santa Cruz was appointed capital. In 1904 and 1915, the territory was object of new district subdivisions. The creation of the Comodoro Rivadavia Military Zone, on May 31, 1944, represented a substantial modification of the borders between Santa Cruz and Chubut. Law 14,408, passed on June 15, 1955, created the Provinces of Río Negro, Neuquén, Chubut and Patagonia. The military government of Comodoro Rivadavia was restored to Patagonia, which included the territory of Santa Cruz, and the sea government of Tierra del Fuego, the islands of the southern Atlantic and the Argentinian Antarctic Sector was added to that province. This territory was torn out in 1957 to become part of the National Territory of Tierra del Fuego, Antarctica and the Islands of the southern Atlantic. Santa Cruz recovered its original name and surface, now with the definitive hierarchy of a province as an autonomous federal state.
The Patagonian Travelers:
In 1826, when England was already the first colonial power, two British ships to the service of the Admiralty carried out a long campaign of reconnaissance along the coastline of southern Patagonia and the Tierra del Fuego channels. The Adventure and the Beagle sailed across these waters during 4 years and discovered the strategic channel that joins the Atlantic and the Pacific and that has been named after the second ship. In 1831, the next excursion across the Beagle in charge of Captain Fitz Roy was joined by the young biologist Charles Darwin, whose Journal and Remarks on the Voyage of the Beagle state valuable information about the present features of the Province of Santa Cruz and Patagonia in general. The famous author of the evolutionist theory was amazed by the sceneries he would discover. "In many places -he pointed out-, the bottoms of the valleys are covered in an extraordinary manner by myriads of great loose angular fragments of the quartz rock, forming 'streams of stones'.These have been mentioned with surprise by every voyager since the time of Pernety." It was then that the English corvette Clio occupied the Malvinas Archipelago by force. In 1837, France entered the scene. The expedition led by Captain Dumont d` Urville, recommended the settlement of military and commercial bases in the area after touring the littoral. Three English expeditions enrichened the geographical knowledge of the region: the Nassau Corvette, led by Captain Maine, in 1866; George Nares' expedition, between 1878 and 1882, and the one led by L. Wharton, in 1881. In 1866, the naturalist E. Gigliolo also toured the shores of Santa Cruz on board the Italian ship Magenta. Other Italian ships did likewise: the Vittor Pisani, in 1882; the Caracciolo and the Cristoforo Colombo, in 1883. The Academy of Sciences of Paris sent the ship Romanche to the Patagonian region in 1882, and the German government sent the Albatros cruise, which toured the southern Atlantic littoral from 1883 to 1885. Despite all these reconnaissance voyages, the inside of the Patagonian lands remained as terra incognita. The first ones to attempt a cultural penetration in the central plateau were the Anglican missionaries, but they failed. In 1848, the Patagonian Missionary Society chartered an evangelizing group led by Allan Gardiner, who settled down a venue called Baner Cove on Picton Island. The experience had a tragic end. |
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