Ushuaia, Argentina: Beagle Channel, Mountains and the End of the World

Ushuaia, the capital of Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego province, sits on a bay of the Beagle Channel with the snow-streaked Martial Mountains rising straight behind its streets. Argentina has long promoted it as the southernmost city in the world, the “Fin del Mundo”, and it is the main port for ships sailing to the Antarctic Peninsula, about 1,100 km to the south.

Ushuaia’s history: Yámana land, mission station and prison town

The Yámana people fished and canoed these channels for thousands of years before Europeans arrived. British Anglican missionaries settled on the bay in 1870, and on 12 October 1884 Commodore Augusto Lasserre founded the Argentine township, raising the flag to secure the country’s claim to the far south.

For half a century Ushuaia was best known as a prison town. A penal colony modelled on Tasmania’s received its first inmates in 1896. From 1910 a narrow-gauge “Train of the Prisoners” hauled timber, rock and sand from the forests to the jail for heating, cooking and building. Juan Domingo Perón closed the prison in 1947, the site became part of the naval base, and the old cell blocks now house a maritime museum.

Is Ushuaia the southernmost city in the world?

By the usual definition of a city, yes, and Argentina’s tourism authorities use the slogan proudly. Across the Beagle Channel, though, the small Chilean town of Puerto Williams lies farther south, and in 1998 the newspaper Clarín reported that the title had passed to it. Argentina rejected the claim. Ushuaia, with more than 80,000 people, an international airport and a busy port, is by far the largest settlement this close to Antarctica.

The Beagle Channel, lighthouses and wildlife

The Beagle Channel takes its name from HMS Beagle, which surveyed these coasts between 1826 and 1830; on the ship’s second voyage Charles Darwin saw the channel’s glaciers in 1833. Its waters hold sea lions, South American fur seals, dolphins and porpoises, along with Magellanic and rockhopper penguins, shags and cormorants. Tour boats from Ushuaia visit the Les Eclaireurs lighthouse on the channel.

Les Eclaireurs is often called the “Lighthouse at the End of the World”, but Jules Verne’s lighthouse of that name stood on Isla de los Estados, about 320 km to the east.

Tierra del Fuego National Park, trains and skiing

• Tierra del Fuego National Park: just west of town, with lakes, peat bogs, beech forest and coastal trails. The southern end of Argentina’s National Route 3, and of the Pan-American Highway, lies inside the park.
• End of the World Train: the revived prison railway, reopened in 1994 on 500 mm gauge. Trains leave the End of the World station, about 8 km from town, and run 7 km up the Pico Valley and Toro gorge into the national park.
• Cerro Castor: opened in 1999 about 27 km from the city and billed as the southernmost full-scale ski resort in the world, with 28 trails and a season that usually runs from June to October.
• Mountain walks: trails climb from the edge of town into the Martial range, where glacial valleys and small lakes sit above the channel.

Weather, daylight and when to go

Ushuaia has a cool oceanic climate. Average temperatures stay between about 0 °C and 10 °C all year, snow is common in winter and can fall even in summer. Daylight swings from more than 17 hours around December to about 7 hours in June.

November to March is the season for hiking, channel cruises and Antarctic voyages; June to October brings skiing at Cerro Castor and snow right down to the harbour. Pack layers and a windproof jacket in any month, because the weather off the channel changes fast. Ushuaia’s airport has regular flights from Buenos Aires and El Calafate, and the official Ushuaia’s tourism website lists current tours and opening hours.

Gateway to Antarctica

Ushuaia is one of five internationally recognised Antarctic gateway cities, and most expedition ships for the Antarctic Peninsula leave from its commercial pier. For a view of what waits at the other end, watch Kalle Ljung’s Antarctica film. For an overland approach through Argentina and Chile, follow Jakub Polomski’s Patagonia photo journey.

Related reading

• Jakub Polomski’s Patagonia Journey: 8,000 Kilometres Through Chile and Argentina
• An Iceberg Rolls near Argentina’s Upsala Glacier
• Walking on Perito Moreno Glacier with Richard Watson

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