Puerto Eden

Our only stop during the trip was in this little town, the only means of transport between this town with the rest of the word is the NaviMag, stopping there twice a week, bringing in supplies and taken people from and back to the island. The significance of this Island is that it used to be the home of an indigenous group of people called the "Kawesqar", this group is almost extinct and there only remains 20 pure blood Kawesqar.

This indigenous group is very interesting, they lived on the banks of the channels, totally depending on the sea for there food. There many had a change build, very strong developed upper bodies and small undeveloped lower bodies, that is because spent most of there lives on boats rowing. The job of the men was to build the boats and hunt big sea creatures like seals, in addition to being the protectors of the family. The women on the other hands were the only one in the family who knew how to swim, one of their responsibilities was collecting muscles and oysters, they did it be diving naked in the near freezing waters, they were quite adapted to this apparently, since they should us a movie of a group of women performing this activity , and having fun while doing it ! This old life style of these people have disappeared, and instead of the hand crafted boats, you see now motorized boats on the island, and there is even a satellite dish providing an internet connection.

The group is almost extinct, many were either killed directly by the colonists, or indirectly by the diseases they brought, like common cold for example. Others could not deal with the disappearance of their old life style, and turned to alcohol or just lost the well to live, now only a handful of Kawesqar live, eight of them in Puerto Eden.