Forestry and sawmills The western, Chilean, side of Tierra del Fuego and nearby parts of the mainland contained vasts tracts of forest when Europeans first arrived. It was these forests which were the first natural resource to be exploited, from the 1840s onwards. The first area to be cut was the Brunswick Peninsula around Punta Arenas. As the industry developed larger sawmills were built, first driven by water wheels, but from 1875 onwards increasingly using steam power (1). From the 1890s onwards the sawmills spread further afield, and onto some of the outer islands. However, the most important timber-producing zone through the 1920s to '40s was the west coast of Isla Grande. Here the big sawmills of La Paciencia, Puerto Arturo and Puerto Yartou were set up by the Sociedad Anónima Ganadero, the Menéndez Behety combine and by Alberto Baeriswyl. In the 1930s Mateo Martinic's paper suggests there were twenty-two large sawmills in Magallanes province employing around 2000 men. However, this was the peak, and economic problems partly caused by periodic restrictions on timber imports into Argentina led to decline from then on. The example of the prison forest railway at Ushuaia on the Argentinian side of the border makes it likely that forest railways were used elsewhere. Sergio Zagier recalls seeing railway tracks in the derelict Puerto Arturo sawmill. The photo below shows a train of wagons in Puerto Yartou mill, and linked together in such a way that loco power was probably needed to shift the train. The mill on the east side of Dawson Island, run by the Sociedad ganadera Gente Grande from 1911 to 1926, also definitely had a 600m. railway down to the nearby muelle (2). British Admiralty Chart no. 3610 of 1906 shows the muelle and associated railway track, confirmed by a 1903 photo in the collections of the RGS in London. This may have extended up the hill into the forests but this is not certain. Sawmills at Tolhuin on the Argentine side of the border certainly have old rails performing the usual varied duties. A photo taken at Puerto Yartou sawmill, showing four wagons apparently coupled together.
Many of the estancias built their own sawmills, often powered by a portable steam engine. Mrs. Natalie Goodall of Estancia Harberton confirms in her guidebook to Tierra del Fuego (3) that the nearby Estancia Remolino on the Beagle Channel built a railway line from its sawmill northwards for two or three miles into the Cañadon Remolino. Whether this had metal or wooden rails is unknown. The photo below, provided by Marcelo Benoit, is from a book, and apparently shows some sort of timber line 'in Chubut province'. It appears to be about 75cm. gauge (certainly less than 1m. but wider than 60cm.) but is not identifiable as being on the Esquel line.
References: 28-5-08 | |||||
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