MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Punta Arenas and Chilean Navy honour Shackleton

Alexandra Shackleton and descendents from the Chilean captain who helped rescue Sir Ernest Shackleton's “Endurance” Antarctic expedition in 1916 gave a special “Antarctic” flavour to Chile's celebration last Sunday of the Magellan Strait discovery 485th anniversary.

The ceremony was held in the Chilean naval base of Puerto Williams, --Chilean Tierra del Fuego--, next to the well kept relic bow of the steamer "Yelcho", which under the command of Captain Luis Pardo managed on August 30, 1916 to recover from Elephant Island all crewmembers of Shackleton 1914 Antarctic expedition.

It was an epic survival feat for Shackleton who promised to return for his men, stranded following the crushing by Antarctic ice of the "Endurance", but it was also the Chilean Navy's Antarctic baptism.

Present at the celebration representing the Pardo family were Jaime and Fernando, former Chilean diplomats and grandsons of Captain Luis Pardo.

Fernando Pardo, one of the speakers at the ceremony, highlighted his grandfather's unexpected and heroic opening of Antarctica for Chile in 1916 as well as his life commitment to the country's extreme south territories and seas.

Alexandra Shackleton an official guest of Magallanes Region and the Chilean Navy, said she was very pleased to have visited Magallanes and Tierra del Fuego, so closely and for ever linked to her family and to the survival of the members of her grandfather's expedition, "because if it hadn't been for the "Yelcho" and captain Pardo, all lives would have been lost".

Another Punta Arenas distinguished visitor together with Alexandra was Robert Headland curator of the Cambridge University Polar Museum.

Besides lectures and donations of documents, paintings and photos from Shackleton's polar expeditions to the local Antarctic museum, Alexandra also participated in the launching of the Punta Arenas ambitious "Antarctic Tourist Circuit".

The eight plaques circuit begins at the current Banco de Chile building which early last century was the seat of the English Bank and the British Club where Shackleton actually planned the rescue of his men from Elephant Island. This first plaque carries the name of "Ernest Shackleton".

Two other plaques were posted in the Chilean Antarctic Institute, formerly the "Blanchard Residence" and the original location of Punta Arenas Post Office where on July 8, 1904, explorer Robert Scott mailed 400 letters announcing the safe arrival of his Antarctic expedition in the "Discovery". A "Captain Robert F. Scott" commemorates his presence.

The other plaques will honour "Adrien de Gerlache" an officer in the Belgian Navy, responsible for the first Antarctic winter expedition together with Fredrick Cook, Roald Amundsen, Georges Lecointe, Henryk Arctowski and Emile Racovitza; "Hotel Anexo Kosmos" that hosted Admiral Richard Byrd in 1940; "Dr. Jean Baptiste Charcot" in the Magallanes Government Palace where the French doctor and explorer was received in 1910 on his return from his December 1908 expedition; "Roald Amundsen", in the old building of the Hotel France where the Norwegian explorer who first reached the South Pole stayed before his Antarctic expeditions; "Hotel Royal", now the disco El Rancho, where Shackleton and the crew of the "Endurance" stayed.

Magallanes Region, the Chilean Antarctic Institute and the Chilean Navy have plans for a grand 90 years celebration in 2006 to commemorate the first Antarctic incursion of the Chilean Navy when the "Yelcho" under captain Luis Pardo and with Ernest Shackleton on board managed to rescue the crew of the "Endurance".