MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Heroic Age remembered in Punta Arenas

Antarctic explorers in Magallanes (Photo:Inach)

Three plaques remembering prominent explorers of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Discovery, who used the Chilean port of Punta Arenas as their home base when carrying out Antarctic explorations, have been unveiled at the entrance to the Arturo Prat port terminal in downtown Punta Arenas.

The two metre by 60 cm plaques are in English and Spanish and were presented by EPA - Empresa Portuaria Austral, the company responsible for managing the Arturo Part Port Terminal and the Chilean Antarctic Institute (INACH).

The first of the plaques recalls the Belgian Antarctic Expedition (1897-99), headed by Belgian Adrien de Gerlache and his crew that included Roald Amundsen (who 14 years later would be the first man to reach the South Pole), US explorer and physician Dr Frederick Cook as well as the scientists Henryk Arctowski and Emil Racovita, among others.

De Gerlache headed the first expedition to overwinter within the Antarctic Circle, after his ship Belgica was icebound in the Bellingshausen Sea. It collected the first annual cycle of Antarctic observations. It also reached 71°30' S and discovered the Gerlache Strait.

The second plaque remembers those explorers of Antarctica who came through Punta Arenas between 1897 y 1947 (half a century of Antarctic history), including Robert Falcon Scott, Jean-Baptiste Charcot, Ernest Shackleton, Luis Pardo, Lincoln Ellsworth, Hubert Wilkins, Richard E. Byrd and Finn Ronne

The third plaque recalls the 1837 visit of the area by the French Antarctic explorer Jules Sebastien Cesar Dumont D’Urville, the French naval officer who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica.

By Nick Tozer – Buenos Aires