Taitao Peninsula

Península de Taitao: The SRTM map doesn't show the connection between the Laguna San Rafael and the Moraleda Channel.

The Taitao Peninsula (Spanish: Península de Taitao) is a westward-facing landmass on the south-central Pacific west coast of Chile. The peninsula is connected to the mainland via the narrow Isthmus of Ofqui, over which tribal peoples and early missionaries often traveled to avoid navigating the peninsula's treacherous waters, carrying their boats and belongings overland between the Moraleda Channel and Gulf of Penas.[1] The Taitao Peninsula is situated in the Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Region, and part of the landmass is located inside the boundaries of Laguna San Rafael National Park. The Presidente Ríos Lake, with a surface area of 352 square kilometres (136 sq mi), lies in the center of the peninsula. A southward-incurving projection of its outer shoreline is known as Tres Montes peninsula, the most southerly point of the cape of the same name.[1]

Spanish explorers and Jesuits that sailed south from Chiloé Archipelago in the 17th and 18th centuries regularly avoided rounding Taitao Peninsula entering instead the Gulf of Penas after a brief land crossing at the isthmus of Ofqui.[2] While attempting to pass the Gulf of Penas in 1741, a storm caught the British ship, HMS Wager, causing it to wreck on (the eventual) Wager Island, on the Guayaneco Archipelago.[3][2] Some of the survivors, including John Byron, were led into the Spanish settlements of the Chiloé Archipelago by the Chono chieftain Martín Olleta via Presidente Ríos Lake.[2]

Writer Benjamín Subercaseaux visited the Taitao Peninsula in 1946, reportedly having seen footprints and fresh human feces he thought indicated the indigenous Chono people, as known from the historical record, still lived in the region.[4]

As result of its difficult terrain and rugged isolation, the peninsula is largely unexplored.[5]

  1. ^ a b Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Chile" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 143–146. spelled "Taytao"
  2. ^ a b c Vásquez Caballero, Ricardo Felipe. "Aau, el secreto de los chono" (PDF) (in Spanish). Retrieved January 24, 2019. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  3. ^ Sepúlveda Ortíz, Jorge. "Exploraciones efectuadas en la región de Trapananda antes del siglo XIX" (PDF). Boletín de la Academia de Historia Naval y Marítima de Chile (in Spanish): 95–110. Retrieved January 25, 2019.
  4. ^ Urbina Burgos, Rodolfo (2007). "El pueblo chono: de vagabundo y pagano a cristiano y sedentario mestizado". Orbis incognitvs: avisos y legados del Nuevo Mundo (PDF) (in Spanish). Huelva: Universidad de Huelva. pp. 325–346. ISBN 9788496826243.
  5. ^ Nelson, Eric; Forsythe, Randall; Diemer, John; Allen, Mike (1993). "Taitao ophiolite: a ridge collision ophiolite in the forearc of southern Chile (46°S)". Revista Geológica de Chile. 20 (2): 137–165. Retrieved December 23, 2018.