Return from Bahia Thetis

Anchor from a shipwreck in Peninsula Mitre

After twelve days and much work, I've had a few days to rest and reflect on our mission to collect and sample sea lion, fur seals, kelp, water, birds, fish and shellfish from Bahia Thetis, one of the most remote parts of the island of Tierra del Fuego. And it was a absolute success: In total, we collected 101 left sea lion and fur seal jaws (the majority being adult female sea lions), around ~50 femurs, and 10 skin and fur samples from the 1940s factory site. In addition, we made three 50x50cm excavations of shell middens, containing numerous more bones, stone and glass artifacts and tools including the first harpoon point ever found in the peninsula.

I learned a lot about this part of the world, and Peninsula Mitre in particular, which I think is important for understanding the context of the work I'm doing here. Peninsula Mitre is different in a number of ways from the land surrounding the Beagle Channel. The Beagle Channel is characterized by steep mountains and sharp glacial features, drumlins, canyons and overall rocky with forest. The peninsula, and much of the Atlantic coast of Tierra del Fuego, has softer rolling hills, less forest, dominated by peat bogs, and shallow coastline with  a slowly descending continental slope that extends for hundreds of kilometers. This shallow coastline proved treacherous for navigating, resulting in many shipwrecks, many of which were scavenged to build ranch buildings.

A more recent shipwreck from the 1980s

Geographic differences also played out ethnographically between indigenous groups. The Yamana occupied the Beagle Channel and southern archipelago, the Selk'nam in the interior and northern parts of Tierra del Fuego, the Alakuf on the western archipelago in Chile and the Haush in Peninsula Mitre. It is important to note that boundaries were not absolute for these groups, language and culture mixed and created gradients. The Haush and Selk'nam commonly incorporated more terrestrial animals into their diets, especially Guanaco, but they also hunted sea lions and seals like the more marine oriented Yamana.

Bahia Policarpo, site of the Policarpo family sheep ranching operation

When European settlers arrived, such as the Anglican missionary Thomas Bridges, they first set up in the Beagle Channel. However, it didn't take long for others to settle in other parts of Tierra del Fuego. Estancia Policarpo was established in the late 1800s by a Chilean family southeastern Atlantic coast of Tierra del Fuego, extending from the easternmost part of the Island at Cabo San Diego to its northern border with Estancia Maria Luisa some 50 km away. Like the ranch at Harberton, Estancia Policarpo exploited sheep for their wool. Estancia Policarpo operated until the mid 20th century, succumbing to falling wool prices from technological innovations in synthetic fabrics and wool that was cheaper to produce elsewhere. A caretaker maintained the what was left of the ranch until the 1980s, but most of the ranch buildings fell into disrepair throughout the late 20th century. Today the estancia is operated as a cattle ranch.

Blubber boiling vats

One way to subsidize the cost of the operation of the failing ranch was the exploitation of pinnipeds. In the 1940s, over one hundred Chileans, experienced in seal in sea lion hunting more common on the western coast of South America, set up a seal oil production facility in Bahia Thetis. The company would raid the multiple sea lion colonies that existed along the shores of Estancia Policarpo, killing over 30,000 seals and sea lions over a decade. The pinnipeds would be killed at the site of their colonies, loaded onto boats and taken to Bahia Thetis, were they were skinned, stripped of blubber and thrown into the bay. The blubber was then boiled in large vats, producing oil, much in the same way as whale blubber. In 1952, sealing was banned and the operation abandoned, leaving behind ruins of both the seal greasery and the ranch.

Bahia Thetis, site of the 1940s seal greasery facilities

That's I've got for today, stay tuned for more!