South Chile (1945)

[Music] here is our world held in space like an imaginary transparent Globe seen from a point opposite the South Pole in the center is the great anent of Antarctica and we see South America part of Africa and Australia on the further side of our transparent Globe are the dark masses of North America Europe Asia and the rest of [Music] Africa in 1519 melan sail from Spain crossed the equator and set out for the new world seeking a channel to the Pacific he discovered in 1520 the straight which Bears his name today he crossed the Pacific making real what Columbus had only imagined the linking of Europe and Asia by sailing Westward mellan died in the Philippines but one of his five original ships completed the voyage back to Spain the first circumnavigation of the [Music] globe thus mellan was the first European to set eye on the region we know as Chile when he made his way through the tip of South America which of all the continents lies nearest the South Pole down the Pacific coast stretches the 2600 mile length of Chile the central part is today rich and prosperous but the southern part is still remote comparatively unpopulated largely unknown yet how richly it deserves to be known this land of beauty this region so full of contrasts in its gifts from [Music] nature this is the land of the arcanian Indians whose ancestors in the days of the Spanish Conquest for centuries ago were the only people the Invaders never conquered today they are only a remnant of that great tribe the arcanian still spin their wool in the way their ancestors spun Yama wool when the wondering gaze of Europeans first fell upon the Indians of America through the years the growing settlements of the white man gradually forced the orican Southward here in southern Chile they live on reservations like North American Indians but this Homeland is their own secured to them by the Treaty of 1883 with the Chilean [Music] government traditional and beautiful is the woman's headdress made of hundreds of tiny silver [Music] coins they cling tenaciously to their old ways such as this method of cleaning [Music] peace strange wooden poles are grave markers when these people need rain they tie a black bull to the pole when they want clear weather they use a white animal and they keep the forms of their old religion as the Medicine Woman chants and beats her drum her daughter performs the dance of Thanksgiving for the favors of the tribal [Music] [Music] God [Music] More than 70% of Chile is mountains some of these mountains are volcanoes which may become active at any [Music] time hot ashes from the volcano sometimes cause damage to South Chile's Forest though much of the Timberland is beyond reach of volcanic [Music] [Music] action inhabitants of the forest clearings have been Timber Cutters ever since colonial days the forests among the densest in the world still cover about 1/ half of the land for a small country Chile has a splendid though undeveloped resource in her [Music] Timber lack of adequate Transportation hampers exploitation of these forests South Chile lacks railroads and few of the rivers are of the slow Timber carrying kind but the region abounds in small turbulent Rivers filled with the melted Snows of the Andes these streams if harnessed would add greatly to Chile's use of electric power in the Rich Central Valley further north Chile uses more electric power per capita than any other country south of the United States to the uninitiated a great surprise of South Chile is its beautiful Lake District there are 10 large lakes and many smaller [Music] [Applause] ones at pukan the lake is lovely the mountains impressive and the climate generally pleasant as tourists will learn in increasing numbers in nearby streams is the finest trout fishing in the world while in the same season there is unsurpassed skiing in the high valleys mountain climbers are happy here too there are still a number of unconquered peaks in the Chilean Andes this region is much like the Bavarian Alps not only in its scenery but in many of its buildings such as this little [Music] church in the towns too we can trace the German influence naturally enough because Generations ago many Germans settled in this section like the Pennsylvania Dutch they have tended to live more less by themselves there has been little intermarriage with the Chileans they brought from Germany their commercial ability as well as architectural ideas the Germans here are only one example of a striking fact about Chile namely the influx of many different races there are for instance many British in basks Irish and yugoslavs the port of costro is on the island of Chile way where the real south Chile begins Charles Darwin who was here in 1834 on the famous voyage of the beagle made this statement Chila is an island of little sunshine and much rain where the people live mostly on potatoes pigs and fish sunny days are rare in a land that is drenched with 100 in of rain each year as for the Chila potato it is still going strong after a history reaching four centuries into the past potatoes first came to Europe from this very Island though we now believe that the Inc has brought them here from Peru and Bolivia shipment of potatoes from costro to the rest of Chile is a thriving business the men of this island have become the sturdiest of all South American Sailors they have furnished a large number of those who man not only Chile's Merchant ships but also her Naval vessels they are descendants of the unconquerable arcanian Indians and The Adventurous and Hardy Spaniards who came to Chile centuries [Music] ago typical of this blending of Spanish and arcanian strains are these young women School teachers from [Music] costro bound South by ship touching the island of Chila at its Port of Castro and then over the rest of an amazing Thousand Mile voyage by Open Sea when weather permits by the Inland passage when the weather is bad the Des destination is PTA arenus Southernmost city in the world on this Voyage the ship has made its way through a truly forbidding part of this world of ours the channel only a mild or so wide is hemmed in by Massive Headlands Laden with wild forests beyond the shores lie vast areas still unexplored there is constant mist and Rain Rain to the amount of 200 in per year as we approach the straight of mellan the coast becomes a Labyrinth of narrow channels and countless Islands the resemblance to the fiords of Norway is very striking great glaciers formed in deep andian troughs come down to a coast continuously lashed by rain and high winds and back of these glaciers lies an extraordinary ice field 200 M long largely unexplored if we we could look at southernmost Chile and cross-section we would see that high winds from the Pacific Cloud Laden Skies low temperatures and torrential rains join in assaulting the coastal area with a nearly continuous bombardment of the worst weather in the world and then the Andes intervene to the east of the great range the sun is triumphant rainfall is moderate temperatures are endurable and so human life is possible on the Great Plains that stretch Eastward to the Atlantic yes at Journey's End at the town of PTA arenus the world again takes on its accustomed look after the long journey from the north much of it through uninhabited regions here is a busy and attractive little Port of 25,000 inhabitants most of the men among the passengers are coming down for the annual shearing in the nearby sheep [Music] country a statue of mellan recalls to us the greatness of his achievement he discovered a way to the Far East by sailing Westward a way to hurdle that great obstacle the new found continent of America it was he who made the roundness of our globe a useful fact in the life of mankind tiarra Del fuo on calm days one looks across the straight to the shores of a land bearing a name every school boy knows Tiara del Fuego the land of fire to PTO arenus clings the great tradition of the clipper ships for these Gallant vessels of the old sailing days had this as a Port of Call seeing the straight lash by a 60m gale one salutes the skill and Hardy hood of their Crews yes and of melan's men too who took their ships through from Ocean to Ocean there are few days when the prevailing westerlies are not [Music] blowing the grasslands withstand the stiff breezes well enough but the trees have a hard time of it we are in Chile and Patagonia now and unlike the Flatlands of Tierra del Fuego and of Argentina just to the north this area is in some parts wooded and hilly even mountainous but trees exposed to the winds become weirdly deformed and [Music] denuded and erosion has work fantastic designs among the mountains the Sheep raising area appearing now in white includes the Flatlands of Chile reaching to the Atlantic on both sides of the straight of Mela and a large part of the Patagonian plane of Argentina strangely enough the great value of this region for sheep raising was not realized until about 1877 when enterprising newcomers from England and Scotland started at all by 1885 there were about 40,000 head of sheep in another half dozen years there were half a million and today there are more than 3 [Music] million the pasturage is excellent because rainfall is ample but not excessive and because after the rain strong winds dry the grazing lands prevailing temperatures favor the growth of the wool ownership of the ranges and herds is largely chillian but the management is commonly in the hands of experts from Great Britain or Ireland altogether this is a sheep razer's Paradise much like North Scotland or the Hees it's pretty nice for the Sheep too of course they don't know that each year about a million of them go to market to be turned into Choice [Music] mutton it is not unusual for one of the bigest stanas or ranches to be 50 m long and 30 m wide to cover about a million acres and to maintain sheep numbering hundreds of thousands the ranges are so vast that some herders do not come in more than twice a year this indeed is sheep raising on an heroic [Music] scale the predominating breed of the sheep is a cross between the Marino and the Romney [Music] Marsh [Music] [Applause] [Music] the great event here in the Chilean sheep country is the clip or shearing The Men Who do this work are experts who turn up once each year many of them came in on the boat from chill away the shearing is a heavy job which takes from 6 weeks to 2 months it is peace work with an average man shearing about 100 sheep per day and the most expert doing nearly twice that number the men are unionized and well [Music] paid part of the skill in this work is in taking off the fleece all in one piece for shearing on this scale electric Machinery is needed [Applause] [Music] the W goes to expert graders who decide on its quality and classification these Specialists are often men who have come all the way from England just to do this [Music] work then the wool is bailed again it seems extraordinary after Trav through a thousand miles of spectacular unpopulated Wilderness to find this thriving [Music] industry one of the results of the unionization of these men is that the employer is required to provide three or four pounds of fresh meat every day for each man so the Sheep Shearer is not only paid well he eats well on the other hand he is not employed by the year and it must be said that if any of these men happens to detest mutton stew he has made an unfortunate choice of a [Music] profession as for the sheep what they get after the shearing is a complete surprise a nice thorough dipping in a bath of croso whether they really like it or not as open to question but it's good for them it prevents disease and even a sheep likes to feel [Music] well soon the Sheep will go out again for another year on the Range while their recent coats of fleecy wool now carefully bailed start the journey to the docks at pund arenus and from there to countless spindles and Looms in distant lands South Chile remains one of the world's few Frontiers in all of this region from Chile way to caporn live only 1% of Chile's population and yet how richly rewarding to The Observer who seeks The Uncommon in what the world has to offer and who knows someday all of this may become a great vacation Center the Switzerland of the western hemisphere in the meantime South Chile has not quite its counterpart anywhere on the globe it is fascinating in its strangeness in the aloofness of much of it to man in its Mysteries and in its unsolved problems fascinating too in its sheer Stark [Music] Beauty [Music] [Applause] the