Ushuaia, Argentina

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ushuaia is the capital of the Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego. It is
commonly regarded as the southernmost city in the world. Ushuaia is located
in a wide bay on the southern coast of the island of Tierra del Fuego,
bounded on the north by the Martial mountain range and on the south by the
Beagle Channel. Its population is estimated today at about 64,000. It is the
only municipality in the Department of Ushuaia, which has an area of 9,390
km2 (3,625 sq mi).

Description

The city was originally named by early British missionaries using the native
Yámana name for the area. Much of the early history of the city and its
hinterland is described in Lucas Bridges's book Uttermost Part of the Earth
(1948).

During the first half of the 20th century, the city centered around a prison
built by the Argentine government to increase the Argentine population here
and to ensure Argentine sovereignty over Tierra del Fuego. The prison was
intended for repeat offenders and serious criminals, following the example
of the British in Tasmania and the French in Devil's Island. Escape from
Tierra del Fuego was similarly difficult, although two prisoners managed to
escape into the surrounding area for a few weeks. The prison population thus
became forced colonists and spent much of their time building the town with
timber from the forest around the prison. They also built a railway to the
settlement, now a tourist attraction known as the End of the World Train
(Tren del Fin del Mundo), the southernmost railway in the world.

Ushuaia is surrounded by Magellanic subpolar forests. On the hills around
the town, the following indigenous trees are found: Drimys winteri (Winter's
bark), Maytenus magellanica (Hard-log Mayten) and several species of
Nothofagus (Southern Beech).

Tourism

Ushuaia is a key access point to the southern regions and a popular vacation
spot for people from Buenos Aires. It receives regular flights at Ushuaia
International Airport from Buenos Aires and Santiago, Chile, and its
commercial pier is a major port for Antarctic tourist and research traffic.

Tourist attractions include the Tierra del Fuego National Park and Lapataia
Bay. The park can be reached by highway, or via the End of the World Train
(Tren del Fin del Mundo) from Ushuaia. The city has a museum of Yámana,
English, and Argentine settlement, including its years as a prison colony.
Wildlife attractions include local birds, penguins, seals, and orcas, many
of these species colonizing islands in the Beagle Channel. There are daily
bus and boat tours to Harberton, the estancia of the Bridges family. Tours
also visit the Les Eclaireurs Lighthouse. Les Eclaireurs is sometimes
confused with the "Lighthouse at the End of the World" (Faro del fin del
mundo) made famous by Jules Verne in the novel of the same name; but the
latter lies some 200 km (320 mi) east of Ushuaia on Isla de los Estados
(Staten Island).

There are a number of ski areas nearby, including Cerro Castor and Glaciar
Martial. The glacier is popular even during the summer months, when the
chairlift operates in both directions. Hiking trails lead from the city's
edge to the base of the glacier, which has receded dramatically over the
past century, as shown in photographs on display. On Cerro Castor, a
mountain located 27 km (17 mi) north of Ushuaia, it is possible to ski just
200 m (660 ft) above sea level. The summit reaches an elevation of 1057
meters (3468 ft) above sea level, and consistently cool temperatures allow
the longest skiing season in South America: winter temperatures fluctuate
between 0° and −5 °C (32 to 23 °F).

Cruise ships visiting the Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas) and Antarctica
dock at the port, as well as Princess Cruises, Holland America, Celebrity
Cruises which transit between Valparaíso, Chile, to Buenos Aires and beyond.
Lindblad Expeditions, Orient Lines, MS Marco Polo, Regent Seven Seas Cruises
Hurtigruten, and other ships provide expeditions to Antarctica out of
Ushuaia, such as Quark Expeditions. The cruise boats periodically provide
scenic cruises to Antarctica, as do expedition yachts such as S/V Seal and
S/V Pelagic. Between September and April, Australis Cruises operates three
night and four night cruises between Ushuaia and Punta Arenas, Chile with
trips ashore every day as they visit Cape Horn, the Pia Glacier, Magellenic
penguin colonies, etc.

Climate

Ushuaia has a subpolar oceanic climate. Temperatures average 1 °C (33 °F) in
the coldest month, and 9 °C (48 °F) in the warmest month. The record low is
−20 °C (−4 °F) (July), and record high 31 °C (87.8 °F) (December). The
record low ever recorded in summer is −6 °C (21 °F) (February). A similar
climate is found in Torshavn, Faroe Islands; Dutch Harbor, Alaska; Reykjavik
Iceland; and Stanley, Falkland Islands.

Despite receiving only 560 mm (22 in) of precipitation yearly on average,
Ushuaia is very humid. On average the city experiences 160 days of rain or
snow a year, with many cloudy and foggy days. The southwestern winds make
the outer islands wetter, reaching 1,400 mm (55 in) at Isla de los Estados
(Staten Island). Because temperatures are cool throughout the year, there is
little evaporation. Snow is common in winter and regularly occurs throughout
the year.

Strong winds whip the town. Trees in Ushuaia tend to follow the wind
direction, and are therefore called "flag-trees", for their uni-directional
growth pattern.

Southernmost city

Ushuaia has long been described as the Southernmost City in the World. While
there are settlements farther south, the only one of any notable size is
Puerto Williams, Chile, a settlement of some 2000 residents (mostly families
of the nearby military bases) that also calls itself the world's
southernmost city. (The Chilean government defines a city as an urban entity
with more than 5,000 inhabitants.) A 1998 article in the newspaper Clarín
reported that the designation "Southernmost city in the world" had been
transferred to Puerto Williams by a joint committee from Argentina and Chile
but this was denied by Argentine authorities, and the Secretariat of
Tourism of Argentina continues to use the slogan in official documentation
and web sites.

Ushuaia qualifies as a city, defined as a "center of population, commerce,
and culture; a town of significant size and importance". It has a fully
functional hospital, an international airport, and primary and secondary
schools, as well as institutions of higher learning. Its 64,000 residents
enjoy an organized public transportation system and a functioning
municipality, and its industrial sector, led by the Renacer Grundig
electronics plant, is among the largest in Patagonia. Ushuaia also serves as
the provincial capital of Tierra del Fuego.

History of settlement

The Selk'nam Indians, also called the Ona, first arrived in Tierra del Fuego
about 10,000 years ago. The southern group of the Selk'nam, the Yámana,
occupied what is now Ushuaia, living in continual conflict with the northern
inhabitants of the island. The British ship HMS Beagle under the command of
Captain Robert FitzRoy first reached the channel on January 29 1833 during
its maiden voyage surveying Tierra del Fuego.

The name Ushuaia first appears in letters and reports of the South American
Missionary Society in England. The British missionary Waite Hockin Stirling
became the first European to live in Ushuaia when he stayed with the Yámana
people between the 18th of January and mid-September 1869. In 1870 more
British missionaries arrived to establish a small settlement. The following
year the first marriage was performed. During 1872, 36 baptisms and 7
marriages and the first European birth (Thomas Despard Bridges) in Tierra
del Fuego were registered.

The first house constructed in Ushuaia was a pre-assembled 3 bedroom home
prepared in the Falkland Islands in 1870 for Reverend Thomas Bridges. One
bedroom was for the Bridges family, a second for a Yámana married couple,
and a third served as the chapel. During the 1880s many gold prospectors
came to Ushuaia following rumours of large gold fields, which proved to be
false.

During 1873 Juan and Clara Lawrence, the first Argentine citizens to visit
Ushuaia, arrived to teach school. That same year the Argentine President
Julio Argentino Roca promoted the establishment of a penal colony for
re-offenders, modeled after Tasmania, Australia, in an effort to secure
permanent residents from Argentina and to help establish Argentine
sovereignty over all of Tierra del Fuego. But only after the Boundary treaty
of 1881 between Chile and Argentina did formal efforts get under way to
establish the township and its prison. The prison was formally announced in
an Executive Order by Roca in 1896.

On the 12th of October 1884, as part of the South Atlantic Expedition,
Commodore Augusto Lasserre established the sub-division of Ushuaia, with the
missionaries and naval officers signing the Act of Ceremony. Don Feliz M Paz
was named Governor of Tierra del Fuego and in 1885 named Ushuaia as its
capital. In 1885 the territory police was organized under Antonio A Romero
with headquarters also in Ushuaia. But it was not until 1904 that the
Federal Government of Argentina recognized Ushuaia as the capital of Tierra
del Fuego.

Ushuaia suffered several epidemics, including typhus, whooping cough, and
measles, that decimated the native population. But because the Yámana were
not included in census data the exact numbers lost are not known. The first
census was held in 1893 with 113 men and 36 women living in Ushuaia. The
population grew to 1,558 by the 1914 census. By 1911 the Yámana had all
practically disappeared, so the mission was closed.

In 1896 the prison received its first inmates, mainly re-offenders and dangerous prisoners transferred from Buenos Aires but also some political prisoners. A separate military prison opened in 1903 at the nearby Puerto Golondrina. The two prisons merged in 1910, and that combined complex still stands today. It operated until 1947, when President Juan Perón closed it by executive order in response to the many reports of abuse and unsafe practices. Most of the guards stayed in Ushuaia, while the prisoners were relocated to other jails farther north. After the prison closed, it became a part of the Base Naval Ushuaia (Spanish), functioning as a storage and office facility until the early 1990s. Later it was converted into the current Museo Maritimo de Ushuaia.