Indigenous mapping

At the heart of the Patagonian expanse: an exploration beyond landscapes

For more than a decade, our expeditions have carried us to the planet’s extremes, where nautical charts still bear the enigmatic label “uncharted.” From the turbulent waters of the Strait of Magellan to the frozen labyrinths of the Patagonian channels, from the wind-lashed Tierra del Fuego to the Le Maire Strait, each mission unveils wild landscapes sculpted by nature’s forces.

These vast territories—spanning thousands of square kilometers up to the Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve—remain among our planet’s last wild sanctuaries. Here, millennia-old glaciers plunge into deep blue fjords, Andean condors soar over primary Nothofagus forests, and black-browed albatrosses dance with the roaring forties in a mesmerizing ballet.

Indigenous mapping: the invisible legacy of native peoples

Yet beneath this apparent virginity lies a more complex and shattering truth. The lands we traverse today in search of adventure and discovery were once only home to millennia-old civilizations. The Selk’nam (Onas), steppe hunters-gatherers of eastern Tierra del Fuego; the Yaghan (Yámana), master navigators of the Fuegian channels; and the Haush, guardians of the Mitre Peninsula, developed an intimate understanding of these extreme environments, passed down through more than 10,000 years of oral tradition.

The silence now echoing across these deserted expanses speaks tragically of the methodical genocide carried out between the mid-19th and mid-20th centuries. In fewer than fifty years, thousands of lives were extinguished by colonial greed, taking with them irreplaceable ancestral wisdom, unique languages, and worldviews.

This poignant absence renders every expedition a memorial pilgrimage. Each camp beneath the southern stars, each anchorage in a forgotten cove, becomes an opportunity to honor the first inhabitants and keep their memory alive.

A scientific quest in service of memory

Since 2017, our association has undertaken a genuine archaeological and ethnographic detective mission. Armed with cameras, high-fidelity recorders and microphones, and driven by our passion for exploration, we travel on foot and by sailboat to the most remote corners of these lands to listen to what the places—now spaces—the winds, and the waters can still reveal.

This immense undertaking has already borne fruit: our exhaustive survey has identified and precisely geolocated thousands of sites—traditional huts, seasonal camps, ceremonial grounds, and passage points. Each GPS coordinate logged, every photograph captured, every sound recorded is a piece of the giant puzzle we are patiently reassembling.

Reviving a human geography erased from official maps

Parallel to our field work, we have built a unique toponymic database containing over 3,000 place names in Selk’nam, Yaghan, and Haush languages. Some of these toponyms, orally transmitted by the last fluent speakers before their disappearance, had never been cartographed. Others, noted in 19th- and 20th-century explorers’ journals, awaited precise relocation.

This sensitive mapping gradually reveals the unsuspected richness of Fuegian human geography: here, a promontory called “the cordillera of infinity leading to the ancestors”; there, a massive rock named for Kuanip, the Selk’nam deity who created humankind. Each name tells a story, evokes a legend, bears witness to an intimate bond between people and their environment.

A collaborative mission for and with indigenous peoples

This work of remembrance could not exist without the invaluable collaboration of our local informants: members of the Fuegian peoples, devoted researchers, and seasoned guides who generously share their knowledge and deep attachment to these ancestral lands.

Together, we conduct meticulous archival research, cross-referencing historical documents, oral testimonies, ethnographic data, and our own field observations. This multidisciplinary approach helps restore meaning to territories that official history drained of their original significance and spirit.

The call of responsible exploration

Today, these extraordinary spaces reveal themselves far from classic tourist circuits; these privatized or abandoned lands open up only to authentic explorers willing to face the extreme conditions at the world’s end for a transformative experience.

To join our expeditions is to engage in a quest for meaning, contribute to preserving a unique intangible heritage, and live the ultimate adventure at the edge of the world. It is also to honor the memory of the lands’ first inhabitants and pass their legacy to future generations.

Adventure calls. Patagonia awaits. The ancestors guide us.