Coyhaique

For a long time Chile showed little interest in the remote Aysén region. Settlers began arriving at the end of the 19th century, some from Araucanía by way of Argentine Patagonia and others from the Chiloé archipelago. After the 1902 British arbitration fixed the border with Argentina, the state encouraged settlement by leasing huge tracts of land: in 1903 the valleys of the Coyhaique, Mañihuales and Ñirehuao rivers were granted to Luis Aguirre of Punta Arenas, who passed his rights to the Sociedad Industrial de Aysén, a company of Magallanes capitalists led by Mauricio Braun. In 1906 it set up its headquarters on the Pampa del Corral, where the Simpson and Coyhaique rivers meet; several of those buildings are now a national historic monument. Clearing the land for livestock meant burning vast areas of native forest, some fires lasting years.

The town itself was founded on 12 October 1929 under the name Baquedano, after the Chilean general Manuel Baquedano, and was renamed Coyhaique in 1934 to avoid confusion with a place of the same name in the north. The name adapts an Aónikenk word meaning "camp by the lagoon". Growth was quick. By 1940 more than 4,000 people lived in the district, a municipality followed in 1947, and by the end of the 1950s Coyhaique had overtaken Puerto Aysén as the region's largest town.

In 1974 the military government moved the regional capital here from Puerto Aysén, and from 1976 it pushed the building of the Carretera Austral, which gave many families overland access for the first time. In February 2012 protests over the cost of living and neglect by Santiago disrupted the town.

Coyhaique's culture is that of the Patagonian frontier. Its first inhabitants were Chileans from Chiloé, Araucanía and Los Lagos who had lived for years in Argentina, and they brought back Argentine customs and a River Plate lilt that is still heard. The ranching economy that built the town is honoured in the monument to the shepherd on Avenida General Baquedano, and in the regional museum that opened in 2018 to tell the story of the town and of Aysén.

The five-sided Plaza de Armas, designed in honour of the Carabineros because one of their generals helped found the town, is the setting for flea markets and public gatherings. Since 2015 Coyhaique has hosted the Festival Internacional de Música de la Patagonia, which draws visitors from across Chile and performers from Europe and the Americas. The writer Ivonne Coñuecar, who won Santiago's municipal literature award in 2019, comes from the town.

Outdoors life matters as much as anything. The Simpson and Coyhaique rivers are known for fly fishing, the hills around town are walked and skied — the small El Fraile ski area has a couple of lifts — and people speak of the town as a place of mountains that may carry snow all year.

The commune had about 58,000 people at the 2017 census, most of them in the town itself, which makes Coyhaique by far the largest place in Aysén. It is above all a government town: the regional government and council, the presidential delegate, the court of appeals and the regional offices of the ministries are all here, and the University of Aysén has its base in the town. Public spending has driven the local economy since the decline of ranching in the 1970s, alongside livestock trading, commerce and tourism.

The town is laid out on a grid around the plaza, with shops and services in the centre and residential streets spreading towards the rivers and the hills. Its isolation from the rest of Chile has eased since the Carretera Austral and Balmaceda Airport opened it up, but goods still arrive from far away and prices are high.

The town's great problem is its winter air. Most homes are heated with wood stoves, and in June and July the smoke is trapped between the ridges by temperature inversions. A World Health Organization study of 2018 found that Coyhaique had the worst air quality in the Americas, and in 2016 the government declared it saturated with fine particles. Authorities are promoting cleaner heating and wind power; the Alto Baguales wind farm nearby opened in 2001.

Food in Coyhaique follows the ranching life of the surrounding steppe. Lamb is the meat of celebrations, roasted slowly on an iron cross beside an open fire as cordero al palo, and beef asado is nearly as common. Bread is often baked at home in wood-fired stoves, and tortas fritas, rounds of fried dough, and sopaipillas are eaten with mate, the bitter herbal infusion shared from a gourd through a metal straw.

The rivers and lakes around town are known for trout and salmon, and fish and shellfish come up from the fjords near Puerto Aysén, among them merluza austral, the southern hake, and mussels. Calafate, the dark blue berry of a thorny Patagonian shrub, turns up in jams and sweets, and rhubarb goes into jams and sauces.

In town, everyday eating means Chilean set lunches, pizza and grilled meat in the restaurants around the plaza, and a hearty meal at the fire station's canteen on General Parra. Craft beer is brewed locally, and a small brewery across the Simpson River serves its full range at the source.