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A Brief Summary of the history of the Parque Nacional Queulat y Fiordo Queulat Ecolodge, Patagonia Chile
ByPatricio Silva Armanet
Magallanes, Patagonia Chile
Between 1766-67 FatherJose Garcia Alsue, a Jesuit missionary, was the first white man to explore a few kilometres into the fiord and the River Queulet valley.He was trying to find theCity of the Cesares, which came from a legend started in the Americas at the verybeginning of the Spanish conquest.Later on in 1897, the explorer Hans Steffen made a similar trip a few kilometres into the area.Before this period the Chonos, an indigenous pre hispanic group of seafarers, were the only group who knew the coastal area of this region.
The Queulat valley up until the pass where it joins the the River Cisnes remained a wild and unexplored region until 1985 when Ernest Hein, an experienced pilot, did an exploratory fly over and showed it to Antonio Horvath Kiss, the civil engineer in charge of designing and building the Southern highway.Antonio Hovarth was looking for a potential pass to join the Cisnes and Puyuhuapi valleys to shorten the highway and make it more economic to build.Antonio Hovarth, who is at present a Chilean senator, was the director of transport for Aisen.He completed his exploration of the Quelat pass after two attempts, one from the south to the north inmid winter in 1976 and the other from north to south in October of the same year.
Later on the Southern highway (to see relevant photo gallery click on Southern highway) was built through this pass and was operational by February of 1982 from Chaiten to Coyhaique crossing through Queulat.Recently, in October 1983, the Queulat national park, covering an area of 154.093 hectareswas created and included allunowned and unoccupied areas of land..
Simulanteously, in 1970 a sailor from Chiloe who had arrived and settled in the Queulat fiord gained titles to the land in 1982.He then sold part of the titles to his son-in-law who had arrived there on the newly opened highway, fallen in love with and married one of his daughters.And it is from his son-in-law, who is of Italian descent, that we bought the first two sections of landin the Queulat valley at the mouth of the River Queulat where it meets the sea.We bought the titles to a third lot from his wife which was later bought by the Chilean treasury.
Thus we iniciated the Fiord Lodge project, which officially opened its doors to the public in 1991, when we finished building the first two native wood cabins- all the wood used was carefully chosen from the surrounding virgin forest where the sea breezes play and the sound ofbeautiful waterfalls and a variety of native birds can be heard; a paradise on earth with which we are deeply in love.
The cabins are strategically located right at the mouth of the river Queulat.At a later date we acquired two more lots, one which includes 2.5 kms on the southern banks of the Queulat fiord and a little island with a spectacular view onto the hanging glacier at the end of the fiord.Between 1988 and 2003 we have been gradually developping our Ecoturism lodge project, focussing on the park´s flora and fauna, the unexplored areas around the lodge such as sailing in the fiord and fly fishing, which we carry out on different rivers nearby.Protecting the area has been one of our main priorities.We are very happy about the decision to commit to thislife long project in the wild and untouchable native Chilean forests.
Vista Aerea de la Desembocadura del Río Queulat rodeado de terrenos del Lodge Queulat. A la izquierda se distingue la Ruta Austral |
