Book description
Patagonia is the ultimate landscape of the mind. Like Siberia and the
Sahara, it has become a metaphor for nothingness and extremity. Its
frontiers have stretched beyond the political boundaries of Argentina
and Chile to encompass an evocative idea of place. A vast triangle at
the southern tip of the New World, this region of barren steppes,
soaring peaks and fierce winds was populated by small tribes of
hunter-gatherers and roaming nomads when Ferdinand Magellan made
landfall in 1520. A fateful moment for the natives, this was the start
of an era of adventure and exploration. Soon Sir Francis Drake and John
Byron, and sailors from Europe and America, would be exploring Patagonia
s bays and inlets, mapping fjords and channels, whaling, sifting the
streams for gold in the endless search for Eldorado. As the land was
opened up in the nineteenth century, a crazed Frenchman declared himself
King. A group of Welsh families sailed from Liverpool to Northern
Patagonia to found a New Jerusalem in the desert. Further down the same
river, Butch and Sundance took time out from bank robbing to run a small
ranch near the Patagonian Andes. All these, and later travel writers,
have left sketches and records, memoirs and diaries evoking Patagonia s
grip on the imagination. From the empty plains to the crashing seas,
from the giant dinosaur fossils to glacial sculptures, the landscape has
inspired generations of travellers and artists. Patagonia is the
ultimate landscape of the mind. Like Siberia and the Sahara, it has
become a metaphor for nothingness and extremity. Its frontiers have
stretched beyond the political boundaries of Argentina and Chile to
encompass an evocative idea of place. A vast triangle at the southern
tip of the New World, this region of barren steppes, soaring peaks and
fierce winds was populated by small tribes of hunter-gatherers and
roaming nomads when Ferdinand Magellan made landfall in 1520. A fateful
moment for the natives, this was the start of an era of adventure and
exploration. Soon Sir Francis Drake and John Byron, and sailors from
Europe and America, would be exploring Patagonia s bays and inlets,
mapping fjords and channels, whaling, sifting the streams for gold in
the endless search for Eldorado. As the land was opened up in the
nineteenth century, a crazed Frenchman declared himself King. A group of
Welsh families sailed from Liverpool to Northern Patagonia to found a
New Jerusalem in the desert. Further down the same river, Butch and
Sundance took time out from bank robbing to run a small ranch near the
Patagonian Andes. All these, and later travel writers, have left
sketches and records, memoirs and diaries evoking Patagonia s grip on
the imagination. From the empty plains to the crashing seas, from the
giant dinosaur fossils to glacial sculptures, the landscape has inspired
generations of travellers and artists.
