Puerto Williams is reminiscent of Cicely, the fictional town where the endearing Doctor in Alaska took place. The 110 chapters of this American series talked about the life and anecdotes of Joel Fleischman, a Jewish and rather posh New York doctor, forced to work in a remote, magical and sometimes surreal town. The series, actually shot in the state of Washington and not in Alaska, had a third title for the Latin American market: The Last Frontier.
That is the feeling that those who arrive in Puerto Williams by plane or boat have. They are the only means to do so, since it is located on Navarino Island, a territory belonging to the Magallanes and Chilean Antarctic region.
“This is a very special place. In addition to having a unique beauty, on the same day you can experience the four seasons of the year here,” another doctor told La Vanguardia, this one for real: Jorge Flies, a family doctor who was mayor of the region in 2014 at the request of by Michelle Bachelet. It is special, yes, and more for a while.
A legal change (or trick) put her on the map with all the honors for a while. According to the last official census, Puerto Williams has 1,868 people: 1,039 men and 829 women, who live in 662 homes. In administrative terms, it is a town, but the National Institute of Statistics changed its category in 2019 to make this town the southernmost city. The victim was none other than Ushuaia, in Argentina.
Despite not reaching 2,000 inhabitants, the state agency changed the category of Puerto Williams from town to city, applying an exception: urban centers with fewer than five thousand inhabitants that meet the political-administrative characteristic of being regional or provincial capital, They would also have that consideration. The decision leaves neighboring Ushuaia, with 82,000 inhabitants, as the second southernmost city in the world, a title now held by the Chilean.
The geographical fact is indisputable: the capital of the Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego, Antártida and Islas del Atlántico Sur is ten kilometers further north than the capital of the Chilean Antarctic province, which from one day to the next and without any increase in its census lay down as a people and the next day rose as a city.
“Being isolated in such a remote and beautiful place sounds idyllic, but there are also many disadvantages for those who live here. With the development of communications and improvements in the quality of life, everything changes for the better,” says Flies, who works and lives in the capital, Punta Arenas, although he continually visits the different communes of the region, such as Puerto Williams.
Flies became regional governor by universal suffrage in 2021. He widely won the elections and since then he has continued to pilot a development program that started ten years ago: 37 projects to develop the region and ensure that this end of the world is not so much thanks to objectives such as the decentralization of the state, the arrival of fiber optics , the opening of research centers and the development of expedition tourism with very high purchasing power, aware of the area to which it travels.
The trips of the governor and the inhabitants of the entire region are easier thanks to the regular flights of Aerovías DAP, an airline company founded in 1980 by the Pivcevics, a family of businessmen from Magellan of Croatian origin committed to developing the region in fields such as agriculture, livestock, construction and transportation. Currently, and despite having a large fleet of aircraft, DAP still maintains its symbolic first aircraft in flight, a 19-seat, 44-year-old De Havilland Twin Otter that was once the first private aircraft to arrive in Antarctica. “It is a magnificent twin-engine and the one that most frequently covers the line between the regional capital and Puerto Williams. Due to its capacity and characteristics, it is the ideal model to fly in the area”, indicates Rodrigo Pozo, in charge of flight operations for this airline.
Together with the Yaghan ferry, which takes 32 hours to reach the capital, and the BAe 146 jets, the Twin Otter is the union of this place with the rest of the world.
