Walking Home

reveries of an amateur long-distance hiker

In Tasmania Day 9 Louisa River to Deadman’s Cove 13 km

January 25th, 2020

In Tasmania Day 9 Louisa River to Deadman’s Cove 13 km

This was billed as the most difficult day of the track and lived up to it. A simple hike, up and over the Ironbound Range and down to the sea again—the mountain tops are windy, the beaches are as well, funneling in Antarctic air. Started nearly sea level, climbed to over 900 meters in a couple of hours on a very well-benched track. In anticipation of bad weather late in the day, everyone who ended up at the campsite got off early. Three groups— 5 Aussies, a mother daughter pair, and three uni student (2 French, 1 English). My solitary tramp has become much more social. The initial climb was very much like going up stairs. We were soon strung out over the slope and after a bit I pushed ahead, never looking back. A wonderful crew, but this was a day to see alone. Quick temperature swings as the sun would blast down on the thin vegetation and exposed quartzite, then clouds and high winds with the occasional sprinkle. Have to say, I’m pleased (as always) with my new ZPacks gear—in this case my rain pants and coat, super light, tough and high performance which was necessary on a rough day like today. The peak was a bit socked in, but still impressive. It was good to finally be at some real elevation on a trek that has more often than not involved floundering about in a low-lying jungle. The descent was difficult. The track was not well-formed, the rain came in, and it was a very long way to the water’s edge. Apart from the views at the top, some of the best parts of the day was actually the descent (before fatigue set in). It dropped through a nothafagus forest where a bird with a varying 2 and 3 note calls and I traded whistles for the better part of the afternoon. The end was through a eucalyptus rain forest with many old growth trees still standing. More impressive were the fallen ones. Seeing them provide habitat for so many plants, insects, and animals makes me wonder why humans insist on “improving” the forest.

The descent also brought contact with tiny toads and some salamanders (no tiger snakes today), and when I finally got to camp, I was greeted by a strange animal looking like a large cat with a more vicious snout and white polka dots on its side. I later learned it was an Eastern Quoll, just one of the unusual creatures Tasmania has to offer. Eventually the crew arrived, set camp made dinner and some built a fire in one of the pits. Given fire conditions everywhere that seemed presumptuous, but we were coated in rain, and the ground was saturated. No way that fire was going anywhere. It was good to have built it as very late three exhausted trekkers arrived having hiked all the way from Cox Bight. They were a fit crew—triathlon, rock climbing, tough mudder types (one a quite famous wild adventure person)—but the day had done them in. Some quiet time and stories by the fire was good medicine for all.

T. Hugh Crawford

In Tasmania Day 8 Cox Bight to Louisa River 17km

January 25th, 2020

In Tasmania Day 8 Cox Bight to Louisa River 17km

Off early on a misty walk down the beach for an easy day’s trek to Louisa River. The difference between this area and Port Davey is astounding. The trail is much drier due to climate and surface, but mostly it’s been duckboarded and bridged almost the entire distance. I only dodged a dozen mud holes and for the first time finished well under the posted time. Had a few stream wades including the last at Louisa— several had stairs taking you to the water’s edge. Feeling a little pampered here. Arrived at a wonderful campsite right by the river, my tent site someone had made comfortable with a wooden chair (such luxury). I took the sunny skies as an opportunity to lie out in the sun and warm my jungle rotted bones. Early to bed as tomorrow is the toughest day—a lot of steep climbing up and over the Ironbound Range (what a great name).

T. Hugh Crawford

In Tasmania Day 7 Melaleuca to Cox Bight 12km

January 25th, 2020

In Tasmania Day 7 Melaleuca to Cox Bight 12km

Felt much better after a day’s rest and a good wander around Melaleuca. The caretakers at Melaleuca were so kind and had been on many adventures in their time. Also Kendron, the psychologist, was good for a number of long conversations over coffee. The hike to Cox Bight was the first labeled easy, and since it was mostly duck boards, it was. The first day I didn’t get my feet wet (nice as I had on fresh socks—one of trekking’s little pleasures). It’s not surprising the walk to Cox Bight is smooth since the tin miners worked both sites and transported ore to Melaleuca to be either smelted there or shipped up a navigable creek to Bathurst harbor. This point is very much the edge of the world since, apart from a few rocky isles there is nothing between here and Antarctica. The wind off the water is cold. Got out warm clothes and pitched my tent near a dense grass wind break, but expect a cold night. The beaches are pristine—no human debris at all, just seaweed and shells. On a warm sunny day it must be lovely.

T. Hugh Crawford

In Tasmania Day 6 Melaleuca

January 25th, 2020

In Tasmania Day 6 Melaleuca

Always listen to your knees—they have much to tell you, and mine said “take some time, learn about this spot of the world and rest today. Joint wisdom. The hikers huts are like old Quonset huts, curved correlated metal with some semi-transparent fiberglass panels for windows. I woke to some rustling outside and watched out the window at what I first took to be a chicken in the brush. Then, miracle, the chicken moving up the side of a bush, revealed itself as a head, a good sized Wallaby (actually a pademelon) grazing on the flowers of a native bush a wallaby delicacy—confirming the wisdom of taking a zero day here. I met a young woman who had been living here in a tent for a stretch studying the Orange Bellied Parrot. Nearly extinct, they migrate here in the spring to mate and raise their young. There are nesting boxes (occupied) in the trees around my hut though I have yet to see one (will listen tonight for their ascending call). Ken, Sheryl’s partner pointed out a path designed to educate people about the Needwannee people who lived here for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans which brought their subsequent decimation and relocation. Little is known about them today, though a book by the French naturalist Francois Peron (early 1800s) is as close to an anthropological study as is available. Mentioned by Nicholas Shakespeare in his book In Tasmania, I had a chance to download it before starting this trek and so spent part of the day reading— such a joy after the brutality of the Port Davey Trail.

Today I also learned a bit more about that trail, which has quite a reputation in Tasmania. Generally unimproved (except in a few short sections), it is meant to give trekkers a true sense of the Tasmanian bush. This of course accounts for why I saw only two people in the depths of the trail—it is notorious and punishing— I have done my penance. I guess I, glad I didn’t know that prior to commencing. This history of the trail is fascinating. This area has many inlets and harbors and so was visited by ships—whaling, logging, etc.—though there were few settlements apart from some mining operations (which is why Melaleuca is here—the King family mined tin here and built the airstrip. Deny King became famous as an ornithologist, and documented the plight of the Orange Bellied Parrot). The Port Davey trail was laid out so that sailors who because of shipwreck or mishap found themselves marooned on the west coast could find their way to the interior (around Scott’s Peak) and then make their way downriver to Hobart. A walk like that must have been desperate.

Today Melaleuca is a jumping off point for trekkers (most going south, the direction I take tomorrow) or flying in for the day to take a boat tour of this area which is part of the World Heritage conservation site (the reason I saw almost no sign of human occupation apart from the trail I walked). That designation results first from the simple fact that the area which is dominated by peat soils does not support agriculture and has been sparsely occupied at least since the colonial period (except for miners and Huon pine loggers). More immediately, the large scale environment protests in the 80s over old growth logging, the construction of the Pedder Lake Dam (which turned Scott’s Peak into an island), and the vociferous protests around the proposed Franklin Dam apparently galvanized the Tasmanian conservation community so large tracts of land in the area became protected by World Heritage status. Now they are frequented primarily by people wealthy enough to afford the air flight here and the subsequent guided boat tour.

T. Hugh Crawford

In Tasmania Day 5 Spring River Crossing to Melaleuca 21km

January 25th, 2020

In Tasmania Day 5 Spring River Crossing to Melaleuca 21km

Spring River must have had a flood on the last few months— many down trees making the pass all but unpassable. In my “campsite”, a space just large enough to put up my single tent, I could see low growing ferns, dead about one foot up covered in a gray film, but at their tops, new green was sprouting. I made short work striking camp and was soon out crossing what was initially a fairly dry track. Today’s walk to the boat crossing at Joan point—the entrance into Bathurst Harbor. There was a lot more up and down hiking. I’d climb up a ridge and sometimes have a long dry stretch which, with the sun and clear air, gave a chance to see the terrain, particularly the winding of the Spring River down in the valley—a distant reminder of the winding Shenandoah River of my childhood. The 10km to Farrell Point was uneventful, still a lot of mud and jungle trekking it the Bush was more brambley as my arms were really scratched up (later in the trek I met another Port Davey tramper whose arms were a mass of scars). The logic of the path is unclear as it will strike up a slope and then for no apparent reason dive back into a jungle. I’m learning that the intermediate areas, just lightly covered with scrub can be the most difficult as the really deep mud can go on for kilometers, making it impossible to make decent time. Around noon I made it down the last slope and stared out on the Farrell peninsula which was bare clear hiking with good views of both Bathurst and ocean bays out by Port Davey.

Bathurst is a fascinating body of water. Well inland and connected to the ocean by the narrowest of channels, it is a huge tidal body and would be an ideal harbor, but there are no towns. Since the World Heritage declaration, there never will be. Apparently the poor soils made agriculture nearly impossible, so the only industries were logging and fishing (and some tin mining a little further south). The geology is dominated here by quartzite blanketed by heath, so the soil is mostly moist peat, which explains why the water is reddish brown, though perfect.y safe to drink. I’m not even treating it. It reminds me of Scottish burns and I wonder that some enterprising Tasmanian didn’t start a distillery.

The crossing from Farrell Point to Joan is by rowboat. The park service has three fine metal boats and an old plastic tub. The rules are that at least one of the metal boats should be docked on either side, but as luck would have it, the north dock only had the old tub which I awkwardly rowed across. There I launched one of the metal boats, tied to tub to the back and rowed back north to return it. As luck would have it, the first humans I encountered in the last two days came motoring up in a boat designed to transport hikers to various points on the southwest coast. Mick and his crew kindly helped me land and secure both boats, then motored me back across to Joan Point—this entire trip I’ve been met with nothing but kindness and good cheer. My initial plan had been to stay on the point, but since it was before 2:00 and there was no water within a km, I decided to press on to Melaleuca, another 12km which I calculated would put me in camp before 8:00—a long day but the weather was good and I felt fine. The trail from Joan Point to Melaleuca is more travelled, better marked, and still muddy as hell. At one point I slipped and fell (again), this time my trekking pole handle snapped back giving me a fat lip—something new to occupy my mind while trudging on. I crossed paths with some too-proud walkers heading north who assured me the time to Melaleuca was three hours (they were off an hour). Wearing shorts and what looked like Kevlar industrial gaiters, the leader of the crew (I only assume that as he was the only one to speak and the others barely made eye contact—strange encounter) sat resting covered with flies without making the slightest effort to wave them away. It seemed somehow a test of his manhood, as I’m guessing the trip up Port Davey is as well.

I staggered into Melaleuca around seven—an old airstrip (originally built by hand by Denys King, tin miner and ornithologist) with a few shipping containers along the edge, and a hut housing among other things, the food box I had sent via Par Avion for resupply (I have entirely too much food and am not sure how to carry it on). There I met Kendron, a fascinating Aussie who is studying Jungian psychology, and was later met by Sheryl, one of the volunteer caretakers who checked in to see if I was all right. She took one look at me and strongly suggested I enjoy the hut (which is very nice) and stay on for another day. My mind was reluctant to give up a hard-hiked gained day, but my calfs over-ruled and I settled in with a zero day tomorrow.

T. Hugh Crawford

In Tasmania Day 4 Watershed Camp to Spring River Crossing 14 km

January 25th, 2020

In Tasmania Day 4 Watershed Camp to Spring River Crossing 14 km

I’m starting to think the Mercator Projection (which preserves latitude and longitude by drastically increasing the size of far northern and southern land masses—think Greenland) actually applies to distance measurement here. Almost as far south as you can get without traveling to Antarctica, Tasmanian kilometers must be twice as along as Atlanta kilometers. Today was supposed to be an easy 14 and it still took me 7 hours—something is amiss. At least today there was sunshine and even though there was plenty of jungle slogging and miles of mud holes, much of today was up slope on a benched track so when clear it was possible to see distance. It’s hard to get a feel for the mountains— they don’t seem exactly to be ranges in the way they are in North America— instead a jumble of different short ranges at different angles, so getting oriented is difficult. In addition, there are a number of major rivers, all fed from this area, so the trail crosses from one watershed to another—further confounding my sense of direction as the water flow shifts. The stories of fleeing convicts or marooned sailors struggling through this terrain make sense. It always feels a little disorienting. Today up on a range in the sun, it all made more sense for at least a moment. In the bog flats slogging through overgrown ferns and thick understory, all you can do is follow what seems to be a path, experiencing that flash of relief when a human footprint appears—somewhere out there, Friday must be walking ahead.

The best comparison I can make for this track is part of the South Island of New Zealand’s Te Araroa. There too you cross long open bog land following angle iron fence posts. New Zealand’s are topped with bright red cylinders, these are just dull rust and often when the way is unsure, there are nowhere to be seen. What is striking here though, unlike most places I’ve walked is the complete lack of evidence of human occupation. That there is no trace of aboriginal habitation is not surprising, but I would have suspected more remnants of settler colonial occupation. Apart from the long benches track I walked today, the occasional wooden erosion control frames on that path, the fence post markers, and a fancy new bridge across the Spring river, there was really no obvious trace of human activity—no old #8 wire like in NZ, or the foundation of an old hut, nothing to be seen. I’m sure an experienced eye could mark areas of ecological transformation because of logging and I can see the devastation of the last big fires which, like this year’s fires in New South Wales, charred the entire landscape. It must have killed much of the fauna as well because I’ve only seen a few birds and some salamanders—the rest is silence broken only by the buzzing of flies.

T. Hugh Crawford

In Tasmania Day 3 Junction Creek to Watershed Camp 20 km

January 25th, 2020

In Tasmania Day 3

Junction Creek to Watershed Camp 20 km

Solitude! A full 24 hours and a long walk without seeing a single human (or mammal for that matter). My misanthropy rejoiced; my knees and feet did not. Today was a quintessential bog hike, slogging through shoe sucking ankle deep muck mile after mile. The landscape was magnificent when visible, but it also rained most of the day, so it was no surprise when late in the day I finally encountered people, coming out of the densest of jungles. An Italian couple, the woman leading the way. She asked if I were hiking the trail, then immediately said “It’s not pretty.” She and her partner were clearly exasperated by the conditions and disappointed in their choice. I nodded, wished them well and struggled on. I was to later learn they had left from Huon campground, hiked a few days and turned back. She staying at Huon while her partner did part of the Western Arthurs’s loop. Once I got used to walking a nearly non-existent trail —the path only the faintest of tracings—I just ground it out, setting up tent in the rain and slept like death.

T. Hugh Crawford

In Patagonia Day 33

March 22nd, 2018

In Patagonia Day 33
Puerto Varas (rain)

Today, as promised by the folks who predict such matters, the skies dumped rain a constant heavy rate. In the hostel where I am staying, there are people of many nationalities, and each has a different relationship to time. One, a Canadian who works as a police officer, is taking the only extended vacation (two weeks) he will be allowed in the next few years. Another, an American (one of the few I’ve bumped into) was recently laid off and is spending her six months severance pay by spending six months traveling South America. A young couple from Johannesburg both quit their jobs and are embarking on a multi-month fly-fishing tour of this continent. My Dutch friend Jakob is retired from UNESCO and travels outside most time, focusing instead on space— visiting UNESCO sites. I fall somewhere in the middle, wandering a bit to delay returning to Trump’s America, but, more important, to find the space and time to actually think, which generally is discouraged for people working in today’s neoliberal university system. Rainy days of the Patagonian variety highlight everyone’s differing relationships to industrial time. Anxiety by those looking for a complete experience, recalibration for those needing a planning day, and of course action for those who dive in regardless of the circumstances (something required of long-distance trekkers for example). I also think of Victor, the farmer back on Chiloé, sipping maté in an overheated kitchen watching the skies for a break in the rain before starting his daily and interminable chores. It’s days like this that the very idea of time shows its complexity, revealing its materiality, abstraction, and multiplicity.

One way to begin to think about this (only to begin) is how time is given in (lived) experience. In The Adventure of Ideas, Alfred North Whitehead insists that experience must be understood through affect: “The basis of experience is emotional. Stated more generally, the basic fact is the rise of an affective tone originally from things whose relevance is given.” Immediately following this assertion, he invokes what he calls a “Quaker” sense of “concern.” The occasion of experience is never merely a passive (or even semi-active) perception, but instead a full bodied sense of what and how something counts, how something matters. Concern brings with it both a sense that there is something vital, truly at stake in any experience, and at the same time introduces temporality. His “Quaker” sense of concern brings with it not just a passive sense of care (as in feeling sympathy for) but also an obligation to action. In other words, concern is fundamental to any occasion of experience, it is affective, and, perhaps most important, it opens out toward the future that must be made.

In a neoliberal world, that future is necessarily experienced through a sense of belatedness. Time is never well-spent as the future will always bring opportunity loss. In measured performance, participants always miss the mark. This is where Whitehead’s focus on experience, affect, and what he calls “the peculiar status of the human body” helps salvage time and begin to make a future that could be an adventure instead of a loss. Concern is not about belatedness, but instead actually produces time—that is the occasion of experience. To walk up Osorno requires concern—the ash and gravel path is only relatively stable, the wind makes walking difficult and at times even dangerous, but the peculiar status of walking is always an opening out onto the future, a marking/making of time step by step, each with concern for the next. Such an assertion seems trivial (according to people who worry over “the big picture”) but time is trivial—it is a granular experience made not by accomplishment or performance, but through a knowing and understanding body.

T. Hugh Crawford

In Patagonia Day 30

March 20th, 2018

In Patagonia Day 30
Cucao—Castro

Ramshackle—without design, out of square, loosely connected, out of kilter. Buildings in Chiloé, particularly out in the country, ramble with a certain insouciance. Additions jut at angles making impossible rooflines. The Hospedaje Paloma in Cucao is one such establishment. I ended up with a newly added small (unheated) room all to myself—real luxury after weeks of bunk rooms or the divine privacy of a tent. Even though his rooms meander over the lot behind the old church and community soccer field, they are well built. I’m fairly certain Victor, the proprietor, is also the carpenter and a careful craftsman, even though he must of necessity (transportation costs for materials must be high on this side of the island) make do with what comes to hand. In other words, the hospedaje is bricolage.

Rain poured on the corrugated steel roof all night, but the morning was briefly clear. I packed, ready for my trek up to Colé Colé, a beach and some highlands about 16 km up the coast. I would be following more or less the same path as Darwin— down the road for a while, then on the beach before plunging into the bush for the last, most difficult part. Victor invited me into the kitchen for coffee , bread and butter. Most houses (and restaurants for that matter) heat with wood, and even though we are technically still in summer, the weather is cold and damp, so people spend a great deal of time sitting near wood stoves. Victor and Elena’s kitchen is a place to savor. The walls and ceiling were carefully joined and varnished pine. Along one wall are wide benches that could double as bunks near a large black and chrome wood cookstove. A fire burned brightly, heating a kettle for the coffee, but also a little one for Victor’s maté which he sipped constantly through the standard metal straw. A large cylindrical water tank encircled the stovepipe, both heating water and providing thermal mass to stabilize the room temperature.

In hostels and small places in the country, the coffee is usually instant Nescafé, and is always served with very hot water—it takes a long time to finish a cup— which this morning was good as the skies opened up while I sat, a serious downpour. No one else in the room spoke any English and their rural accents made it impossible for me to even begin to follow their talk. Victor asked if I was going to Castro and I replied that I was heading to Colé Colé. At that, his friend (a bus driver) said no—no one would go to Colé Colé today. I decided I’d see how the day would unfold, and unfold it did. Starting north I could see the clouds moving off to the east, and a huge blue sky open before me. With a good spring in my step, assisted by masses of ripe blackberries growing on the roadside, I soon covered the road/bridge section of the hike to Colé Colé. The first bridge, which I had seen yesterday on my churchyard wandering, is most peculiar. A single lane, woodtimbered bridge is common, but this one has a curving bulge in the middle, looking every bit like it was made from an old wooden ship. The curved decking and bulkhead in the middle even has portholes. I couldn’t decide if it was all functional—to enable fishing from the bridge—or pure whimsy. Crossing the next low bridge, I found myself on a wide, hardpacked beach, with the waves crashing several hundred meters from the dune line. The sun still shone bright where I was, but over the water clouds gathered. I set off at a brisk pace, hoping to cover the 6 km before the weather turned. With the first drop, I dropped pack and geared up. No sooner did I zip in my rain pants than the skies opened like a small explosion. Were I on a long-distance trek, there would have been no question but to continue right into the teeth of it, but this was just a pleasure outing, almost a day hike, so, measuring the distance between the far exit point and my nearby entry, I did a rapid about-face and headed back.

Normally such a move would have brought disappointment, even a sense of failure, but the trekking/adventure gods were properly propitiated because soon, appearing out of the storm and honking a horn, was a four-wheel drive pickup—small Toyota club cab—full of local farmers. This area is populated by the descendants of those same native dwellers Darwin derided on his boat ride. They motioned for me to hop in the back, so I wasn’t out of the rain, but I also wasn’t walking in it. Clearly experienced driving on the beach, the driver maneuvered through several small streams, then abruptly turned left, heading straight to the river flowing at the base of the hills. Right before splashdown, he spun hard right, crossed some outflow watercourses and drove with the left wheels in the river straight at the dune protecting the low bridge just past. We bounced, pitched, yawed, but didn’t roll and soon were on the road, retracing in minutes what had taken me a good part of the morning to cross on foot. They deposited me at the gate to National Park in front of the bus stop, which I took as both a sign and a judgment—time it head back to Castro. They shook hands, waved, and spun off to their chores, and I warmed up with a cup of coffee and soon found myself on the return route to Castro, disappointment tempered by a twenty minute thrill ride in the wild dunes of Chiloé.

T. Hugh Crawford

In Patagonia Day 28

March 18th, 2018

In Patagonia Day 28
Castro—Nercón—Castro

Castro has real charm but only after some wandering. Yesterday, while hurrying down a sidewalk in the rain while the street venders pulled their wares under the buildings’ overhangs, I passed a round, pudgy boy no more than two, perched on a ledge eating sushi with clear gusto. Later, when I bought a container of mussels and pulpo at the fish market, the woman laughed heartily after I accepted all the offered toppings which included cilantro, onions, and a good dose of fresh lemon juice. Near that market are decrepit stuccoed Deco buildings which makes me wonder if there was a time when the waterfront sparkled rather than moldered. What has struck me most is how grim people seem to be on the street, but how they come alive when I speak to them. Quick to smile and ready to laugh, they are interesting folks.

The morning was sunny so I walked up the harbor into the upper reaches of the Castro bay to perform my tourist duties by photographing the Costanera, a tidal basin where the houses are up on pilings. Much of the walk out was by houses similarly situated though you can’t really tell from the street unless you catch a glimpse between. The area is littered with boats in various stages of repair or decomposition, usually beached but floated by the tide. The deco influence here is interesting, with curved building edges but instead of masonry or stucco they are tabbed wood shingles, also in various stages of repair or decomposition. I stopped for coffee and was given a slice of pound cake and a folder of historical photographs to pass the time—the narrow gauge train when it was still running, buildings in the 30s, and the effects of a 1960s flood. Stuck in the sheaf was a picture of a fox. How is it that I could be over 60 years old and only now realize that a the name for fox is Zorro? Later I stopped to watch two men fishing in the bay, one young, the other very old and wearing a straw fedora. Each had a line with weight and a few baited hooks coiled in an old coffee can. They would cast by spinning the weight and line in a circle over their heads (as I imagine one would throw a bolo). The younger man cast and pulled in rapidly; the old man would cast and hold the line in a gnarled hand, fingering it lightly and with patience. Soon he had a small fat fish, which he let flop on the shingle beach while baiting and casting his line again.

My father, who grew up on the Chesapeake Bay, would have liked today as my walk took me past boats of all types—wooden rowboats, fishing boats of various sizes, and several double-ended wooden sailboats. In the afternoon I decided to walk to Nercón, a village about 5 km down the coast which has one of the UNESCO Jesuit churches. The path took me past more stilted tidal houses, but also by the fairly new Enjoy Casino and a small airport. The best parts besides the church were two wooden boat yards. The first had a very large hull mostly finished, but at the second all I could see from the road was a few ribs laid out on a template. What was exciting there was to see their sawtimbers—several logs from trees grown at a particular angle which they were sawing out as ribs. Using naturally bent timbers preserves grain continuity throughout the rib (no cuts across the grain) which multiplies overall strength to weight. Dad would have been fascinated to see old-style wood working in current practice.

The Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Gracia de Nercón was built in 1887-1888 by those shipbuilders’ ancestors. A stunning structure not just because of its proportions but also its joinery. The columns outside use the same barrel construction as the Castro Cathedral, while the flying buttresses are simple exterior diagonal bracing with heavy wooden beams. The most important feature though is the wooden barrel vaulted ceiling, running the length of the chapel. The light, sound, and the air itself are reflected, focused, concentrated onto the pews below creating an aura throughout the space. You feel your heart rate change as you enter the nave. Restored in 2012, there are ladders up to the bell tower which lets you see the joinery—adze shaped knee braces, heavy mortise and tenon joints, and, above the barrel vaulting, ribbed bracing looking very much like an inverted ship. Suspended on strings from the ceiling into the chapel are three small model fishing boats.

On my way back, I had a late lunch in a shed near a boatyard which had two large old-fashioned wood-fired ovens where they baked the small round flat bread most commonly served. I had coffee and two buns stuffed with local cheese, playing peek-a-boo with a small Chilean child unused to foreigners. In the evening after a wander about the harbor where I talked with two different couples with whom I had crossed paths earlier on the trip, I found myself back at my current favorite place—Barra Cerveceria—an unassuming craft beer pub with a long list of Chiloe brews, a laughing staff, and a balcony out back looking out over the fish market and the bay. Good ending to a fascinating day.

T. Hugh Crawford