By Maisie Anrod, Middlebury College 

Despite having arrived in Chile a mere two weeks ago, it seems as if it has been a month.  From our arrival in Santiago, we flew as a group to Balmaceda— our newly formed Team Puma, with Shannon, Emma S., Emma D., Zeke, Iván, Sara, Park, and myself.  We were met right off the plane by Shay, one of our instructors, and drove to Coyhaique.  In Coyhaique, we met two of our other instructors—Mateo and Feña—and explored the city during our orientation.  Next, we undertook the day-long drive to Cochrane, where we met Team Zorro, started classes, and got to know our base camp.  About a week ago, we set out once again—driving south to the fjord village of Tortel to catch an overnight ferry to Puerto Edén, our current home.  Below is an account of the past week.

Another rainbow embraces Puerto Edén, bringing light between rain showers. Photo by Shalynn Pack.

From the water, the world was a black-and-white photograph.  Starboard, a trio of ridges rose silently up into white snow melting, just before they faded into slate clouds backlit by the moon.  Ahead lay foothills—night-beached whales breathing with the rise and fall of tides.  Portside, the shore slid by—sleeping but for the sudden, startling flicker of spotlight from our boat.  The captain checked his reference points, feeling the bottom of Rio Baker curve gently in sandbars and deep carves, all the way to Tortel’s port.  The mechanical, radio-antennaed, gargantuan transbordadora anchored there did not even vaguely resemble the small boat on which we huddled.

The incongruity of tiny skiff next to massive transporter felt familiar.  Just before boarding the wooden boat, the team had rested at a lumber mill dealing ciprés.  The lumber was likely from illegally harvested trees, yet it felt near impossible to connect the ecological damage caused by over-harvesting ciprés to the warm, gracious family who runs the mill and fed all eleven of us dinner.  Now arrived at our destination, the incredibly remote costal village of Puerto Edén, the feeling has persisted.

Puerto Edén on the day of our arrival—shaded by its usual blanket of clouds. Photo by Maisie Anrod.

Here, bright houses straddle a landscape colored like the cholgas (mussels) that locals harvest—alternately pearly white, impassive gray, damp black, kelpy green, and ever-so-occasionally, shining mother of pearl blue and purple.  Our hostel, painted tangerine orange, is simultaneously cozy and frigid, oscillating depending on how the wood-burning oven is behaving at any given time.  Many of the homes and shacks are falling apart (relics of a time when the population was ten times what it is now—60 down from 600), and the economy is depressed due to the sporadic incidence of Red Tide, a toxic algal bloom that temporarily makes native seafood poisonous.

In many places, the ground is strewn with cholga shells, sprawling from houses and continuing into the waves.

Local resident Juan Milipichun greets us at his home, made by his own hands using tejuela craftsmanship from Chiloe Island, Chile. Photo by Shalynn Pack.

Due to the unique location of Puerto Edén, which is surrounded by a national park and untouched by any roads, locals cannot legally use resources from the mountain landscapes that shape the fjords – these landscapes are too rugged for farming, yet host to tree species valuable for firewood and construction.  In practice, locals do look to the surrounding slopes for firewood, but most everything else must be imported from more accessible towns such as Tortel and Puerto Natales.  When something breaks here, it is very difficult to fix.

Yet, in spite of the hardship that attends life in this environment, the people who live here make it a true home.  Some residents have even gone out of their way to welcome us, looking past our meager, non-Chilean-Spanish and blundering ways.  For example, Isabel and Maca welcomed us into their home and shared maté while we played with their daughter.

Drinking maté at our generous host’s home, after Isabel taught us her secrets to making delicious bread and weaving plant baskets. Photo by Shalynn Pack.

Our young friend teaches us the backstories of some local plants and boarwalk creatures. Photo by Shalynn Pack.

Puerto Edén residents and Team Puma flipping a boat for patching. Photo by Maisie Anrod.

More immediately, the tangerine hostel is feeling like our own, temporary home.  As a group, we have come together over a stove that seems to resist lighting (except for by Patricia, the owner), surprise dolphin sightings from the light-filled second story, slipping on the waterlogged and mossy boardwalk that strings together all of the houses in Puerto Edén, attempting to coax warm water out of a temperamental shower, adventuring up to the mirador (lookout tower), and discussing what role we might inhabit here as students and conservationists.

We come here to get to know the community of Puerto Edén in the hope that we might offer a proposal that supports the local economy by drawing sustainable tourism.  Although it is a daunting goal for our two weeks, we are all grateful for the chance to interact with these lovely people and be a voice of opportunity in a town that often feels forgotten.

Puerto Edén’s brief rays of sunshine enhance all the local colors. Photo by Shalynn Pack.

During a tour of the boardwalk led by Maca and Javiera the sky cleared a bit and the water reflected the pre-sunset sky. Photo by Maisie Anrod.