The “Chilean Norway”: landscape, fronterization and scientific controversy in the Ofqui isthmus (1900-1920)

Abstract

This article seeks to examine the relationship between frontier landscape and science by analysing the narratives of landscape that emerged in the light of the Ofqui Isthmus canal project in Patagonia-Aysén. We propose that the encounters between experts such as sailors, engineers and political authorities, and the nature of Ofqui produced different imaginaries that characterised the dispute between supporters and opponents of the construction of the canal. We understand frontierisation from the perspective that sees it as a dynamic process of territorial appropriation, which produces certain types of frontier landscape, functional to the interests of the elites who drove the expansion of the Chilean state in the early 20th century. A series of articles and news items that appeared in the press at the time are analysed to describe the different images of nature that emerged from the controversy, and the ways in which they contributed to producing different conceptions of the Ofqui territory.