Cake
Tortel is a commune in the southern zone of Chile located in the Capitán Prat province, in the south of the Aysén Region of General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo. It has an area of 20,390 km² and has 523 inhabitants in 2017. Its capital is the town of Caleta Tortel, known for its wooden walkways that serve as streets, for its natural environment and for being close to the mouth of the Baker, the largest river in Chile.
Toponymy
The name could come from the surname of Juan José Tortel Maschet, a French sailor at the service of the Government of Chile, or from the Kawésqar language corresponding to "deep waters".
History
Pre-Columbian and Colonial Chile
This area was traversed since prehistoric times by the Kawésqar canoe nomads. The first European to sight this territory would have been Hernando de Magallanes in 1520, naming it "Lands of December". In the XVI and XVII centuries twelve Spanish expeditions follow one another in search of the City of the Caesars and to avoid an English occupation.
Based on the descriptions of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa (1579), Bartolomé D. Gallardo, A. de la Vea (1675-76) and the Jesuit José García Alsué —who would be the first to reach the current Baker channel (which called "Mesier" and which occupies the "Calén Nation") -, the Spanish cartographer Juan de la Cruz Cano y Olmedilla drew up in 1775 the first map of the area in which the "Río de los Cau Caos Bravos" empties as the lake's outlet Chelenco (Baker River and General Carrera Lake-Buenos Aires).
In 1798, the domain of “Potrero de los Rabudos”, between 43º and 48º Sur, was handed over to Juan Levién as payment for his services to Captain José de Moraleda, which was not made effective. Between 1826 and 1830 the King and Stokes hydrographic expedition surveyed part of the area and baptized the Baker Islands in honor of their admiral, located at the entrance of a channel that can be seen.
19th century
The first Chilean reconnaissance of the area occurred in 1888 when Commander Adolfo Rodríguez of the Chilean Navy, aboard the cutter «Toro», explored the Calen or Baker fjord and discovered the Bravo and Pascua rivers. Based on this information, the Government of Chile granted the first concession of 300,000 hectares of public land in Baker to Julio Vicuña Subercaseaux, which would never be carried out.
In 1897 an Argentine expedition, aboard the «Azopardo» and «Golondrina», led by the expert Francisco P. Moreno, recognized the Baker channel and the mouth of the Baker river, which it baptized «Las Heras», a place name that still exists on the hill located to the north of its mouth.
The following year, commissioned by the Chilean boundary surveyor Barros Arana, the German geographer Hans Steffen carefully explored the area. Subsequently, in 1901-02, Commander Francisco Nef raised the Baker Sound and adjacent channels, while Ricardo Michell recognized the Baker, Bravo and Pascua Valley for the Boundary Commission, the area being visited by the referee Sir Thomas Holdrich, in 1902.
20th century
In 1901, a concession was granted to Juan Tornero and others to introduce a thousand families of European settlers between the 42nd and 52nd, which was reformulated when the National Stockbreeding and Colonization Society was established in 1903, later called the Baker Exploitation Company, with the participation of Mauricio Braun H. and other powerful businessmen from Punta Arenas. This company would be the first to occupy the area with facilities in Puerto Bajo Pisagua, located on the north side of the mouth of the Baker, and houses, stalls, and trails upriver. In 1907, he also installed a sawmill and dock in what is now Rincón de Caleta Tortel.
In 1906, 59 Chilote workers died, probably from hunger and scurvy, a vestige of which remains to this day in the Isla de Los Muertos cemetery. This fact and other causes led to the stoppage of work and investment, the bankruptcy of the company in 1908 and the expiration of the concession in 1911.
In 1914 the concession of the area to Julio Vicuña Subercaseaux was auctioned off, who transferred his rights to the Sociedad Colectiva de Estancias, inns of Hobbs y Cía., which was accepted by the government in 1916. He appears again as a partner of this Mauricio Braun company together with Francisco Campos and others. The administration falls to the British landowner Esteban Lucas Bridges, who was also a partner in the company, and once again Bajo Pisagua is used as a port, whose facilities are burned in 1932. In those decades the first illegal settlers began to occupy the area and, later Because of this, the first police officers paid by the company arrive. The concession was definitively adjusted in 1927, giving territory to the occupants.
Between 1940 and 1944, a large part of the territory was burned, an ecological disaster with serious consequences. According to the 1943 census, Lower Baker was virtually uninhabited.
In 1954, at the request of the settlers-settlers, and being Commander-in-Chief of the III Naval Zone, Rear Admiral Donald Mc Intyre Griffiths, the Navy began to assist them, creating in 1955 the post of Lookouts and Signals of Caleta Tortel. The radio operator and nurse Marcos Cancino and his wife are in charge of the base, while the settlers led by Mr. Reynaldo Sandoval C. build the "Galpón Rosado" and Alejandro Mansilla builds his house with wood from the first company dock, being the first resident of Caleta Tortel. The given name pays homage to Jean Tortel, a French sailor who provided his services during the Chilean War of Independence.
Caleta Tortel began to consolidate when the Agricultural Trade Company (ECA) was installed in 1966 with the power to purchase cypress stands and sell food. The commune itself was created on August 27, 1970, in 1978 the The Navy created a school, and the MOP an aerodrome in 1980. Meanwhile, the Municipality of Tortel began to function in 1981, with the Navy sergeant, Óscar Quiroga as the first mayor. Thus, the population of 227 inhabitants in 1970 increases to 292 in 1982, who are building houses in groups along the Caleta Tortel cove, joining these gradually by means of railings, bridges and stairs, the origin of the current walkways.
On the other hand, in 1967 the Guayaneco and Laguna San Rafael natural parks were created, and in 1974 the Río Pascua forest reserve was created, protected wild areas that cover over 80% of the communal surface. In 1982, these were reclassified by Conaf, maintaining the Laguna San Rafael National Park —nominated a biodiversity reserve by Unesco, which fully includes the Northern Ice Field— and the Bernardo O'Higgins National Park, the largest in the country and the largest in the country, was created. which includes the Southern Ice Field, and the Katalalixar National Reserve.
The relevant events of the last 20 years are the construction of new municipal facilities, the covered plaza, the library, the community house, the police checkpoint and housing, Radio MADIPRO and Serviu social housing. And then, the construction of the new school and post located outside the historic center, in the expansion area and with an investment of more than 800 million pesos. On the other hand, the definitive drinking water network is installed, a small hydroelectric power station and a free home distribution network, while connecting the town and the airfield with around 6 kilometers of cypress walkways. The arrival of three open television channels plus that of satellite stands out. Several docks are also built and air transport and the connection to the Carretera Austral are subsidized, thereby greatly overcoming isolation.
In those years, with state support, the first productive company in Tortel emerged, a sawmill and cypress processor, which was installed in the aerodrome sector.
In 1997, the urban limit of Caleta Tortel was established, which includes about 25 hectares and allows a density of 12 inhabitants/ha to be measured. A municipal census shows a population of 370 inhabitants.
In 1999, three prototypes of dry sanitary units were built, hoping that the MOP would massify the system to solve the pressing problem of sewage effluents. The construction of a 25 km road from its connection with the Carretera Austral to Caleta Tortel also begins, at a cost of 60 million pesos per kilometer. A solution with less cost and impact was evidently to improve the means of navigation on the Baker River, a free natural infrastructure. At the end of this year, the subdivision of Tortel was made official, which would allow the Ministry of National Assets to give domain titles to the inhabitants.
In the spring of 2000, Prince William of Cambridge, as part of his gap year from high school, spent ten weeks on the commune, hanging out with the locals and volunteering.
21st century
During 2003, Caleta Tortel was completely linked to the rest of the country, thanks to the inauguration of a new section of the Carretera Austral. As of the end of 2004, a new social and productive process began in the commune, marked by an increase in local citizen participation and a high attraction of public and private investment, which since then have consolidated and projected this territory into the future..
On March 13, 2020, the government decreed the preventive isolation of Tortel, without being able to enter or leave the town for 14 days, as a result of an English tourist who arrived on a cruise ship infected with COVID-19, within the framework of the coronavirus pandemic in Chile.
Geography
The commune has an area of 20,390 km². It has a strategic location between the North and South Ice Fields (about 4,000 km² of communal glaciers). The Baker River —the largest in Chile— and also the Pascua, Bravo (Mitchell) and Huemules (Simpson) rivers flow into it, forming an estuarine basin and interior channels with an important contribution of fresh water of both glacial and pluvial origin.. In the commune is also the Gulf of Penas. Its rugged geography is divided into an archipelagic zone —with numerous islands, channels and estuaries— and another of steep mountain ranges crowned by glaciers, cut by narrow valleys.
Municipality
According to the territorial organization of Chile, the government of the local space falls to communes that are administered by municipalities, which, according to Law No. 18,695, Constitutional Organic of Municipalities, have the purpose of satisfying the needs of the local community and ensure their participation in economic, social and cultural progress.
The commune of Tortel was created by decree law No. 2,868, of 1979, which "divides the indicated provinces of the country into the indicated communes", a regulatory body that established its territory.
The commune is administered by a mayor, head of the local government, and a six-member municipal council, all of whom are elected every four years by universal suffrage. In the Chilean municipal elections of the year 2021, for the period that began on June 28 of that year and ends on December 6, 2024, Abel Albino Becerra Vidal, independent, was elected mayor with 41.70% of the votes.
For its part, the Municipal Council of Tortel for the period 2021-2024 is made up of Carolina Ivon Maripillán Vidal (independent), Iris Aleny Vargas Ganga (RN), Margarita Teresa Vargas Becerra (independent), Nadia Isabel Barría Becerra (independent), Marcela Jeanette Cruces Zurita (PPD) and Guillermo Darío Cárdenas Parra (UDI).
The municipality of Tortel is organized into directorates, which concentrate the vast majority of the responsibilities and attributions that the law attributes to these entities. Among the main directorates are those of Administration and Finance, Municipal Education, Municipal Secretary and Control, as well as a Communal Secretary of Planning.
The commune of Tortel has a budget for 2021 of CL$1,466,490,000 -close to US$2 million-, which it distributes among its responsibilities, among which are education and the maintenance and execution of the works related to local transportation. Unlike municipalities in other regions of Chile, local health is entrusted to the Aysén Health Service.
Together with the communes of Aysén, Cisnes, Coyhaique, Guaitecas, Río Ibáñez Chile Chico, O'Higgins, Cochrane, and Tortel, Electoral District No. 27 belongs to the 14th Senatorial Circumscription (Aysén). She is represented in the Senate by David Sandoval (UDI) and Ximena Órdenes (IND-PPD). In turn, it is represented in the Chamber of Deputies by Aracely Leuquén (RN), Miguel Ángel Calisto (DC) and René Alinco (IND-PPD).
Parliamentary representation
Together with the communes of the region, it is part of electoral district No. 27 and belongs to the 14th Senatorial Circumscription (Aysén). She is represented in the Senate by David Sandoval Plaza and Ximena Órdenes Neira. In turn, she is represented in the Chamber of Deputies by Miguel Ángel Calisto Águila, Aracely Leuquén Uribe and René Alinco Bustos.
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