In 1520, Ferdinand Magellan discovered the strait that bears his name and completed the first journey between the Atlantic and the Pacific (at that time, the South Sea). While they were sailing the strait, Magellan and his men saw to the south a series of fires along the coastline. And although it was not until a century later that it was discovered to be an island, the land south of the Strait of Magellan has been known as Tierra del Fuego or “Land of Fire”.
In 1570, Tierra del Fuego was rescued from oblivion by Francis Drake, the English privateer, and Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, his pursuer, who led the first attempts to colonize the Strait of Magellan. During the early seventeenth century, the Dutch sailors came to Tierra del Fuego (including Willem Schouten and Isaac Le Maire, who discovered Cape Horn). And after them, sailors and vessels worldwide engaged in various activities such as exploration, land occupation, the search for trade routes, the hunting of seals and whales or piracy.
However, the true history of Tierra del Fuego had begun much earlier. The first humans arrived in Tierra del Fuego ten or twelve thousand years ago. These people entered the Americas fifteen or twenty thousand years ago via a wide expanse of land connecting northeastern Asia with northwestern North America during periods of glacial expansion and concomitant lower sea levels. As time passed, the descendants of these first settlers adjusted to the natural conditions of Tierra del Fuego . When Europeans arrived, the aboriginal groups living in Tierra del Fuego were four: Kaaweskar (canoe people living on the islands north of the Strait of Magellan); Selk'nam (land hunters distributed in northern and central Isla Grande) Yamana (canoe people living in the coastal area of the Beagle Channel) and the enigmatic Haush, who lived on the Mitre Peninsula.
The arrival of white men marked the beginning of the end for these groups. Their members were decimated not only by smallpox and other diseases brought by Europeans, but by the impact that the transformation of their cultural and value systems had on them. At present, a few descendants of those first Fuegians (particularly those who live on Navarino Island) are trying to rescue some vestiges of the language and culture of their ancestors.
If you pay attention, even today we can see the marks left by these early inhabitants. On the outskirts of Ushuaia and, in particular, along the paths of Tierra del Fuego National Park, you can see the remains of the "middens" (feeding sites) and "quarries" (places where they made their rock’s tools) of the Yamana. Furthermore, at the End of the World Museum you can see a collection of artefacts and photographs that allow us to reconstruct the lifestyle of the aborigines.