OVER THE COURSE of next ten years I traveled over another thousand kilometers of rugged Patagonian horse trail. Both from within Patagonia and from afar, I watched the history of a place I love unfold.
On May 9, 2011, the Chilean government, under Presidenté Sebastián Piñera, approved the damming of the Baker and Pascua rivers despite overwhelming public opposition. In the largest public protest since the Pinochet era, 90,000 people took to the streets in protest of that decision. Disturbing pictures of armored and helmeted police confronting rioting mobs in Coyhaique and Santiago flooded the world news.
On that particular day in May, an earthquake-damaged nuclear power plant was leaking in Japan, friction was growing worse between the U.S. and Pakistan, the validity of the Wishbone Hill coal mining permit near Palmer, Alaska, was still being determined, and a California-based Christian ministry was predicting the end of the world in ten days.
In August 2012, the plight of Patagoniatook a turn for the better. Colbun—Endesa’s Chilean counterpart in the hydroelectric project—withdrew, stating “non-support from the community” as one of its primary reasons. Endesa began looking for other partners.
On June 10th, 2014 re-elected Chilean President Michelle Bachelet cancelled HidroAysen’s permits to dam the Baker and Pascua Rivers! Thousands of people in Chile and around the world celebrated. “Patagonia Sin Represas,” (Patagonia Without Dams) was the largest environmental movement in Chile’s history.
In November 2017 Endesa agreed to return the water rights to the Baker and Pascua river to the Chilean government.
In December of 2017 Sebastián Piñera was again elected president of Chile.
On the Rio Blanco, news was also initially good for Anna Louis. In August, 2003 on a visit to Puerto Aysen, Chilean President Ricardo Lagos dealt the final blow to the proposed aluminum smelter by stating, “This is not the place for an aluminum plant.” The damning of the Rio Blanco was canceled.
Unfortunately, as long as we live in a world hungry for cheap electricity, the rivers of Patagonia remain at risk. A decade of turbulent times and several more proposals for dams in the Rio Blanco, Cuervo area has gone by. In 2016 another project was approved, but the power produced was slated to be transported by the HydroAysén transmission line, which was canceled in 2014. Today the permit is up for auction, and, once again, Anna Louis is wondering what will happen next.
In Palmer Alaska, friends and neighbors were able to bring attention to the fact that the Wishbone Hill mining permit had been illegally renewed for decades. In what is a familiar story worldwide, mining companies had been dodging regulations to develop or lose their rights for years. In 2016 a federal court ruled that the permit issued in 1991 should never have been renewed.
On December 8th, 2015, conservationist Douglas Tompkins died in a tragic kayaking accident on Lago General Carrera. His passing was felt worldwide. Kristine Tompkins continued working full time on their many preservation projects in Patagonia.
On January 29, 2018 Kristine Tompkins donated more than a million acres of conservation land to the Chilean government. On that day Chile’s president Michelle Bachelet signed into law another nine million acres, protecting an area the size of Switzerland!
One of the greatest joys in writing this book has been spending a few hours each day living in Patagonia in my head. Time may move at a different rate in Patagonia, but it still creeps by. Sergio and Veronica still live on the NOLS campo, however their children, Humberto and Javiera, are now young adults.
In 2012, I again rode deep into the Rio Bravo valley where I visited Don Rial who still lives alone at the halfway point on the old horse trail to Villa O’Higgins. However, roads are creeping ever closer to his home. This time I was traveling with my husband, Fredrik Norrsell.
In 2013, while on another horse trip through Patagonia, I visited Agulino and his family—including twin baby girls Maria Luz and Maria Paz—on their campo on the Baker River. Agulino’s father Don Cecilio Olivares passed away on December 30th, 2014 at ninety-six years old. The Baker River still flows freely outside their front door.
In December 2017 I again visited friends and rode horses in Patagonia. Arraquien is living happily in his new home, Estancia del Zorro, a 15,000-acre ranch where he works sheep and gives rides to guests. I also visited my old friend Elvira on her campo. Elvira’s exact age in unknown. When she was born a child’s birth was registered on his or her first trip to town.
The continued melting of the Campo de Hielo Norte has cause the Colonia Glacier to pull away from the rock walls of the valley edge allowing Lago Cachet Dos to drain continuously. Downstream campos are safe from flooding, at least until another lake forms upstream.
Cochrane, while still a sleepy little town, has a booming tourist trade. Young people from the region regularly kayak the rapids of Rio Cochrane proudly sporting Patagonia Sin Represas stickers on their helmets. The former HydroAysén office in Cochrane is now a kindergarten.
One of the biggest changes in the decade it took to write this book is that ten years ago we were fighting one dam, one power line, one coal mine at a time. One piece of wilderness was either being lost or, at least temporarily, held on to. An unfortunate shift has taken place, within a decade it has become well known that entire ecosystems, whole natural processes, and the earth’s atmosphere itself is at risk.
Rural Patagonia offers us a pristine wilderness, a working system of family farms, a whole culture of people who genuinely feel like they have enough, and a grass roots environmental protests that worked—lessons we cannot afford to lose.