La navegación por los canales australes en la patagonia occidental insular en los siglos coloniales: La ruta del istmo de Ofqui

Abstract

In this work, conclusions on a study regarding the experience of man and the interaction with the territory are presented, which involve the Hispanic-native way to navigate and travel through archipelagos, fjords and channels of the present-day Aysen Region during the colonial period, focusing in the land crossing through the Isthmus of Ofqui, in the Tres Montes Peninsula, Islands of Western Patagonia. Both the isthmus and peninsula interrupt the inlet connections (the Pacific Ocean in such coast). The significance of dealing with such matter lies, on the one hand, in assessing and investigating the native ways to communicate and travel through a territory, with an associated tangible and intangible culture and, on the other hand, how the Spanish in America adopted (and modified) the native customs to take a scenery. Dalcas, guide, practical, rower, ship wrights and female diver Indians represent trades and customs of the southern canoe groups used by the Spanish in Chiloe to travel from a highly diverse environment to familiar land, river and maritime geographies. In Chiloe, the Spanish had to adapt to a coastal and timber native culture, the absence of metal and a stormy sea towards to south.