Explore the real-world places that appear in Patagonia by Colin McEwan. Each location on the map shows what happens there in the novel, the real history of the place, and what's there today. Featured locations include Fell's Cave, Pali Aike Cave, Strait of Magellan, Puerto San Julián, Aonikenk (Southern Tehuelche) Homeland and 8 more.
Magallanes Region, Chile — Early hunter-gatherer site
Fell's Cave is a key site in the story of the first peoples to colonise the end of South America. Excavations revealed that hunter-gatherers were living here some 11,000 years ago, hunting guanaco and now-extinct horse and ground sloth. It illustrates the volume's account of how bands of nomads settled Fuego-Patagonia as the glaciers retreated.
The cave was excavated by Junius Bird in the 1930s, and its stratigraphy gave the first firm evidence of very early human presence in the far south. It is known for its distinctive fishtail projectile points.
The cave lies on private ranch land (Estancia Dos Hermanos) near the Chilean-Argentine border and is not open for casual visits. It remains an important reference site for South American archaeology.
Pali Aike volcanic field, Chile — Ancient occupation near the Strait
Pali Aike Cave and its neighbouring cave complex show how the earliest Patagonians used shelters in a lava-strewn steppe. Remains of extinct animals alongside human tools demonstrate the adaptation of the first settlers to a harsh, cold environment.
The area was investigated by Junius Bird, who found evidence of occupation more than 10,000 years old. The volcanic landscape of Pali Aike is a protected area.
Parque Nacional Pali Aike protects the volcanic field and offers trails to caves and craters.
Visit: Pali Aike National Park (park)
Between mainland and Tierra del Fuego — Gateway of European contact
The strait is where sixteenth-century European voyagers first met the Aonikenk, Selk'nam, Yomana and Kaweskar. These encounters, beginning with Magellan's expedition, produced the tales of a race of giants that ever since has fuelled the European imagination of Patagonia.
Ferdinand Magellan navigated the strait in 1520, naming Tierra del Fuego for the fires seen on shore. It became a key route between the Atlantic and Pacific until the Panama Canal opened.
It is still a major shipping passage, with ferries crossing at Primera Angostura and cruise ships passing through.
Santa Cruz, Argentina — Magellan's winter harbour
At San Julián, Magellan's crew wintered in 1520 and encountered the Tehuelche people, whom Antonio Pigafetta described as giants. This meeting gave rise to the name Patagonia and the legend of the giants.
Magellan wintered here and put down a mutiny in 1520. Francis Drake later stopped here in 1578 and also executed a mutineer.
San Julián is a small port town with replicas of Magellan's ships and a local museum.
Visit: Puerto San Julián Historic Site (Nao Victoria Replica) (landmark)
Patagonian steppe near Río Gallegos — Mounted guanaco hunters
The Aonikenk, or southern Tehuelche, roamed the open steppe hunting guanaco and rhea. After they acquired horses, their mobility and range changed their way of life, and they became the people the first European explorers described as giants.
The Tehuelche lived across the Patagonian steppe for thousands of years. Disease and displacement by sheep ranching and military campaigns in the nineteenth century devastated them.
Descendants live in communities across Santa Cruz province, and the Río Gallegos area has museums that document their heritage.
Visit: Museo de los Pioneros, Río Gallegos (museum)
Northern and central Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego — Land of the guanaco hunters
The Selk'nam, or Ona, were land hunters of the Isla Grande who pursued guanaco across forest and steppe. Their ritual life, including the Hain initiation ceremony, is traced in the essays, as is their tragic near-extinction following the arrival of sheep ranchers and gold miners.
The Selk'nam lived on Isla Grande for millennia. In the late nineteenth century, settlers, ranchers and missionaries disrupted their way of life, and disease and violence nearly destroyed them.
Their descendants keep their heritage alive, and the area is mostly sheep estancias and small towns such as Río Grande.
Beagle Channel — Canoe nomads of the southern archipelago
The Yomana, or Yahgan, were canoe-using sea nomads who hunted seals and gathered shellfish along the Beagle Channel. The essays describe how their fires, seen from passing ships, gave Tierra del Fuego its name, and how missionary settlements and imported disease nearly erased them.
The Yahgan lived along the channel for some 6,000 years or more. Anglican missionaries established a station at Ushuaia in 1869, and epidemics soon devastated their population.
Ushuaia is now a major tourist port. The Museo Yámana documents Yahgan life, and the last speaker's family keeps the culture alive at Villa Ukika near Puerto Williams.
Visit: Museo Yámana (museum)
Chilean fjords and channels — Canoe people of the west
The Kaweskar, or Alakaluf, travelled the stormy western channels in bark and plank canoes, living off seals, birds and shellfish. The volume traces how contact and disease reduced them to a small remnant by the twentieth century.
The Kaweskar lived in the western archipelago for thousands of years. European sealers and settlers brought disease and disrupted their way of life, leaving only a few survivors.
A few Kaweskar descendants live around Puerto Edén, which is accessible only by boat or air. Parque Nacional Bernardo O'Higgins protects much of the territory.
Hornos Island, Chile — The southern extremity
Cape Horn marks the uttermost end of the earth, the southern limit of the world reached by mankind's long migration. European navigators who rounded it in the following centuries sometimes encountered the Yahgan.
The cape was first rounded in 1616 by Dutch navigators Willem Schouten and Jacob Le Maire, who named it after the town of Hoorn. It became a notorious sailing route for clipper ships.
Cape Horn National Park is home to a lighthouse, a chapel and a monument to lost sailors, reached by boat from Puerto Williams or Ushuaia.
Visit: Cape Horn National Park and Monument (monument)
Ushuaia, Argentina — Anglican mission settlement
The Anglican mission at Ushuaia, founded by Thomas Bridges and the South American Missionary Society, brought Yahgan people into permanent contact with European settlers. The essays show how this contact, with its clothes, new diseases and sedentary life, contributed to the collapse of Yahgan society.
Missionary Allen Gardiner's earlier attempts failed, but Thomas Bridges founded a lasting settlement at Ushuaia in 1871. Bridges compiled a Yahgan dictionary and later ran Estancia Harberton.
The Museo del Fin del Mundo in Ushuaia presents the history of the region's indigenous people and early settlers.
Visit: Museo del Fin del Mundo (museum)
Beagle Channel, Argentina — Bridges family estancia
Harberton was the first estancia on Tierra del Fuego, established by Thomas Bridges on land granted by Argentina. Its sheep farming illustrates the colonisation that displaced the Selk'nam and Yahgan from their lands.
Founded in 1886 by Thomas Bridges, the estancia remains in the hands of his descendants. It is one of the oldest ranches in Tierra del Fuego.
The estancia offers guided tours and houses the Acatushún Museum of Antarctic and Southern Ocean birds and marine mammals.
Visit: Estancia Harberton (historic site)
6 Burlington Gardens, Mayfair, London — Exhibition venue
The essays were published to accompany an exhibition on Fuego-Patagonia at the Museum of Mankind, London. The show gathered artefacts, photographs and records of the four peoples, bringing their largely unwritten history to a European audience.
The building at Burlington Gardens served as the British Museum's ethnography department from 1970 until 1997. It was originally built in the 1860s for the University of London.
The building now houses the Royal Academy of Arts' Burlington Gardens galleries, and the ethnographic collections are at the British Museum.
Visit: Royal Academy of Arts, Burlington Gardens (museum)
Punta Arenas, Chile — Regional history museum
This museum in Punta Arenas holds material on the region's Selk'nam, Kaweskar, Yahgan and Aonikenk peoples and the colonial era that transformed their world, reflecting the themes of survival and extinction in the volume.
It is housed in the Braun-Menéndez mansion, built in the early twentieth century for a wealthy wool-baron family.
The mansion is open as a museum with period rooms and exhibits on regional history and indigenous cultures.
Visit: Museo Regional de Magallanes (Palacio Braun Menéndez) (museum)
More by Colin McEwan: All Colin McEwan books