A LITTLE HISTORY...

The Calafate was created in 1927 and takes its name, of the thorny shrub and with fruits of fort dye that extends by all South patagonia Andean. This colorful located villa to borders of the Argentine Lake, conforms the tourist center of greater hierarchy of Santa Cruz.

Recostada on the slope of the plateaus that surround it, counts on a very benign microclimate that makes of her an oasis that wonder to the tourist who arrives after journeying the barren landscape of the patagónicas plateaus. The Calafate stream, that divides the villa in two, is a backwater of tranquillity with its rocky bed surrounded by willows recostados in its shores.

It is the near city but to visit the National Park the Glaciers and their famous Brown Skillful Glacier, declared Natural Patrimony of the Humanity by UNESCO.

The buildings of the Calafate are roofs, to two waters, to avoid effects of the weight of the snow. The flora of the zone is characteristic of the patagónico Andean forest, with a predominance of forests of lengas and sour cherries. It exists good hotel and gastronomical infrastructure, agencies and guides of tourism that organize numerous terrestrial and lacustrine excursions, restaurants, discotecas and very good means of transport.

THE REGION:
The first settlers:

Before the arrival of the European, the present territory santacruceño was occupied by indigenous populations - pertaining to the cultural complex tehuelche -, hunting nomads of guanacos and choiques. Their campings, easily transportable, were located in sheltered sites, like deep valleys or cañadones, or places next to forests where to provide itself with firewood. In their displacements, the first settlers of Santa Cruz wove a plot of footpath and tracks drawn up in two-way traffic: a longitudinal one, corresponding coverall to the intertrivial communications, and another parallel one to the rivers, that communicated cordilleranos valleys with the coast. Significantly, in the location of many of their old campings today to towns and cities rise, as well as in numerous cases the present provincial and national routes follow the layout of the old map course of the Indians tehuelches. During the summer they inhabited the free mountain range of snow, and in the winter in the coast where a more moderate climate reigned. Here it was indeed where it found Magallanes.

The explorers:

During centuries the interior of the territory practically was not known for the European, however for the navigators of the old world the coasts with their gulfs, bay and embosomed constituted a refuge place where to be able to hibernate in its route to the Pacific and of step to provide with water and foods. When the interest of other colonial powers by the austral end of America began to insinuate itself, Spain considered to give more permanent character to its presence in the South Atlantic. The long list of explorations was initiated the 1520 by Magallanes, that later spent the winter in San Julian and in Santa Cruz. In 1535 Martín de Alcazada it arrived at River Galician, it took possession from the territory and it assigned it to the ephemeral kingdom of the New Leon. In 1578, when the English pirate Francis Drake crossed the zone and crossed the Strait of Magellan to assault several Spanish ports of the Pacific, Pedro Sarmiento de Tamboa he was commissioner to fortify several margins of the Straits and, this way, to close it to English navigation. Within the framework of this project, the 11 of February of 1584, near Cabo Virgin, founded the colony of Name of Jesus on the Valley of the Sources, and shortly after, not far from the present End Sands, it raised Real Felipe. Later, pirate English Cavendish, that crossed the Straits in 1587, after to have saturated in Port Wished - name which it comes from his Desire ship -, red-baptize to Real Felipe like Port Hunger. In the middle of century XVIII, the commerce derived from the hunting of whales, marine seals and wolves woke up the appetite of England, France and Holland by the austral coasts of America. Spain decided to activate its presence in the zone. In 1745, Olive and Hundredth one, accompanied by the jesuitas Strövel, Cardiel and Quiroga, they crossed the territory but they reached the conclusion that it was difficult to reinforce the Hispanic presence. The colonization In 1776, when being created the Virreinato of the River of the Silver, the Patagonia, that until then had integrated the government of the River of the Silver, happened to comprise of him and to depend on Intendance of Buenos Aires. Spain sent to Juan of Piedra and Francisco de Biedma to found military colonies on the Atlantic coast. The 19 of April of 1780, Antonio de Biedma founded the New Colony of Floridablanca, in San Julian, but it only lasted 4 years. The crown created the Real Marine Company, to operate faunísticos products and founded on Wished a factory, that it stayed until 1807, year in which their settlers were transferred to Carmen de Patagones. This way, the region was left at the mercy of the fishing boats and whaling foreigners. National independence did not introduce changes in this situation. By this it was the English occupation of the Falklands in 1833. The territory santacruceño also was surrounded in bordering problems with Chile. In 1874 Carlos Moyano and the expert Francisco P. Moreno, overcame the course of the river Santa Cruz and arrived at the lakes Argentino and Viedma. Finally, in 1878, president Nicholas Avellaneda ordered to commodore Luis Py the military occupation of those earth. In 1878, the creation of the Interior of the Patagonia, with capital in Viedma, laid the the definitive foundations of the national sovereignty.

The province:

The statutory law of the national territories of 1884 subdivided the patagónica Interior in the gobernaciones of Neuquén, Negro River, Chubut, Santa Cruz and Tierra of the Fire. On the base of natural accidents Santa Cruz was divided as well in 4 departments: Wished port, San Julian, Santa Galician Cruz and Ri'o, historical nucleus of the poblamiento. The city of Santa Cruz was designated capital. In 1904 and 1915, the territory was object of new departmental subdivisions. The creation of the Military Zone of Commodore Rivadavia, the 31 of May of 1944, represented a substantial modification of the limits between Santa Cruz and Chubut. Law 14,408, of the 15 of June of 1955, created the provinces of River Negro, Neuquén, Chubut and Patagonia. This last one included/understood the territory Santa Cruz, to whom the military government of Commodore Rivadavia was restituted to him and the Marine Land Interior was added to him of the Fire, the islands of the South Atlantic and the Argentine Antarctic Sector. This last territory was broken off in 1957 to integrate Land the national Territory of the Fire, Antártida and Islands of the South Atlantic. Santa Cruz recovered her original name and its surface, now with the definitive hierarchy of province, that is like independent federal state.

The patagónicos travellers:

In 1826, when England already was the first colonial power, two British ships to the service of the Admiralty carried out one prolonged campaign of recognition of the coasts of the patagónico south and the fueguinos channels. During 4 years the Adventure and the Beagle sailed by waters of the region and discovered the strategic channel that communicates to the Atlantic with the Pacific and that today takes the name of second. In 1831, in the following excursion by the Beagle, to the control of captain Fitz Roy, the young biologist added itself Charles Darwin, in whose book "Trip of a naturalist to the rededor of the globe", slogan a valuable information on the present geography of the province of Santa Cruz and the Patagonia in general. The famous author of the evolucionista theory was astonished by the landscapes that discovered. "In many places - I aim ' -, the bottom of valleys is covered of the most extraordinary way by myriads of great angular quartzous rock fragments, forming true stone currents. All the travellers, from Perteny to the present time speak of those stone rivers with the greater surprise ". He was by those years, that the English corvette Clio occupied by the force the archipelago of the Falklands. 1837, he entered France scene. The expedition commanded by Dumont captain d` Urville, after crosses the coast advised the installation of military bases and commercial in the zone. Three English expeditions enriched the geographic knowledge of the region: the Nassau corvette, to the control of Maine captain, in 1866; the expedition of George Nares, between 1878 and 1882, and commanded by L. Wharton, in 1881. In 1866 also santacruceñas crossed the coasts the Magenta Italian ship, on board of which it traveled the naturista And Gigliolo. Other Italian ships made the same route: the Vittor Pisani, in 1882; the Caracciolo and the Cristoforo Colombo, in 1883. The Academy of Sciences of Paris, sent to the patagónica region the Romanche ship, in 1882, and the German government, the cruise Albatross, that recognized the south of the Atlantic coast between years 1883 and 1885. In spite of these recognitions, the interior of the territory patagónic.