Porvenir

Before settlers arrived, the land around Porvenir had no permanent villages but lay within the traditional territories of the Selk'nam and Haush peoples, who moved across the steppe according to family ties. Its modern story began with gold. A police post was set up in 1883 during the gold rush on Tierra del Fuego, and immigrants from Croatia and Chiloé came to work the deposits; the wider rush that followed, from 1884 to 1906, drew Chilean, Argentine and Dalmatian miners to the island. The early settlement was rough: by 1894 it consisted of five houses, two of them liquor stores and a third a brothel.

Porvenir — Spanish for "hereafter", literally "yet to come" — was officially founded by presidential decree on 20 June 1894, at the request of the governor, Manuel Señoret, as Chile colonised the island and handed it to sheep estancias. The gold rush and the ranches together drove the Selk'nam genocide, in which the Selk'nam population fell from about 4,000 in the 1880s to a few hundred by the early 1900s; many survivors were sent to Salesian missions on Dawson Island. The Salesians later extended their work to Porvenir, opening the church of San Francisco de Sales in 1904.

As the gold ran out, most miners left, and those who stayed turned to sheep farming and fishing during the wool boom that made Tierra del Fuego a major producer. The town became the capital of the Chilean province of Tierra del Fuego, and it remains the island's administrative centre, with an army regiment and a high-security prison alongside its farms and fishing boats.

Porvenir's identity rests on its pioneers. Croatian families were among the first settlers, and the waterfront keeps a Croatian park and a monument to the pioneers, along with a park of machinery once used by the region's pioneers. Many local families trace their roots to Chiloé as well, and the mix of Croatian and Chilote heritage runs through the town's surnames and its pride in having built a community at the edge of the continent.

The Selk'nam are remembered above all in the Fernando Cordero Rusque Provincial Museum, created in 1980, whose photographs and archaeological collections are displayed beside the story of the gold discoveries. The old Salesian church, kept as a historic complex and museum, recalls the missions that played a contested part in that history.

Each year Porvenir and Río Grande, in Argentina, take turns as the start or finish of the Gran Premio de la Hermandad Argentino-Chilena, a car rally across the island. Football is organised through a local association of three clubs, and matches are played at the municipal stadium on synthetic grass because of the climate. Life is informal and practical, shaped by wind, long winter nights and the crossing to Punta Arenas.

Porvenir is a small place of about 6,800 people (2017), and it is the most populous settlement in the Chilean part of the island. It is the capital of both its commune and the province of Tierra del Fuego, and it is home to an army regiment and a high-security prison.

The economy rests on sheep farming, small-scale fishing and the processing of frozen fish and seafood. Wrecks in the bay keep large ships from mooring, so fishing boats are small. An abattoir works for only short periods of the year, some gold is still mined commercially, and tourism is growing slowly, though many visitors pass through on their way elsewhere on the island. The town has a small hospital, with more serious cases sent to Punta Arenas, three schools, a fire brigade dating from 1928 and a crowd of local radio stations.

Daily rhythms follow the ferry and the weather. Supplies and visitors come across the strait from Punta Arenas, patients needing more complex care are sent there, and wind can delay the crossing. Summer brings very long days and birdwatchers on the lagoons; winter brings frost, snow and only a few hours of light.

Porvenir eats in the style of Magallanes as a whole. Cordero magallánico, lamb raised on the Fuegian and Patagonian steppe and roasted for hours beside an open fire, is the dish of estancias and family gatherings, and sheep farming still surrounds the town. The cold waters of the strait supply centolla, southern king crab, as well as centollón, a smaller crab, sea urchins, mussels and southern hake, and the processing of frozen fish and shellfish is one of the town's main industries.

Calafate, the dark blue berry of a thorny Patagonian shrub, flavours jams and ice cream across the region, with the local legend that whoever eats it will return. Across Magallanes, Croatian and German settlers brought cakes and pastries. Everyday Chilean staples such as empanadas, cazuela stew and the loaded Chilean hot dog are eaten across the country, Porvenir has several restaurants, and the small stores and supermarkets stock the supplies for picnics on trips out across the island, where services are scarce.