The John Batchelor Show

Saturday 8 August 2015

Air Date: 
August 08, 2015

Photo, left: The Beagle Channel along which, 60 km east of Ushuaia, lies the Estancia Harberton, called "the ranch at the end of the Earth.".  It was established in 1886, when the missionary pioneer Thomas Bridges resigned from the Anglican mission at Ushuaia. The estancia was named for Harberton, Devon, the home of his wife, Mary Ann Varder.
"In the spot where it stood, with the land sloping upwards behind it to the north-east, our new home received the benefit of the summer sun till well on in the afternoon. Then the sheltering hill at the back cast its heavy shadows over the place, and the hills and woods across the harbour would stand out with marvelous clearness as daylight faded. This was the hour when Father and Mother, arm in arm, would take their evening stroll, until the dusk crept over the land and the air grew chilly. Then it was that the reflection of the hills on the calm, darkening water made a picture of peace beyond my power to describe."
History of Harberton   Harberton is the oldest estancia (farm) in the Argentine sector of Tierra del Fuego (TF).  Its founder, Thomas Bridges, was an orphan found on a bridge somewhere in England and later adopted by an Anglican missionary, the Rev. G.P. Despard.  In 1856, at the age of 13, he was taken with his adoptive family to Keppel (Vigía) Island in the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands, where an agricultural mission station was being established.  There he learned Yahgan, the language of the Yámana canoe people from TF, who were taken there for training.  By his first trip to Tierra del Fuego, in 1863, he was able to speak with the Fuegians and explain what the Mission wanted to do.  He founded the Anglican Mission at Ushuaia in 1870, establishing there permanently with his wife, Mary Ann Varder, and their small daughter Mary, in 1871.
     In 1884, he received the first Argentine expedition to Tierra del Fuego, which set up the subprefecture at Ushuaia. Two years later, after thirty years with the Keppel and Ushuaia missions, Bridges received Argentine citizenship and a donation of land from the Argentine National Congress under Julio A. Roca in acknowledgement for his work with the natives and with shipwrecked sailors of the Cape Horn area.  The estancia he founded, at first called Downeast, is located 40 nautical miles (60 km) east of Ushuaia.  It was named Harberton after his wife’s birthplace in Devon, England and was the first productive enterprise in Tierra del Fuego (earlier enterprises, such as sealing, whaling and gold digging, were all exploitive).
     Harberton now belongs to the grandchildren of Thomas Bridges' sons Will and Lucas.  Its manager, Thomas D. Goodall, is a fourth-generation great-grandson of the founder, and lives at the estancia in the original 1887 house with his family [his wife, Natalie, is from Ohio], members of the fifth and sixth generations.
Declared an Argentine National Historical Monument in 1999, the estancia maintains its original simple buildings of wood covered with corrugated iron, its gardens, stone piers, and terraces.  Originally operating with sheep (for wool), cattle (for meat), Harberton also had the first almacén (store) and imported supplies for all of southern TF, as well as selling vegetables, meat and supplies to the gold miners of the era.
     There are many books and articles about the Bridges family and TF, but the undeniable classic remains Uttermost Part of the Earth, by E. Lucas Bridges, son of the founder.  One of the world's great adventure stories, it was chosen by the New York Explorer's Club as one of the 100 best first-person exploration narratives of the 20th century.
    As an estancia, the sheep were gradually discontinued after 1995 as uneconomical.  The estancia now has only cattle and is open to the public from October 15th to March 31st, except on Christmas and New Year. turismo@estanciaharberton.com or  Skype: estanciaharberton.turismo
When Natalie and Thomas were first married, Natalie found herself in a truly remote place with a good deal of free time.  She took long walks on the shores of the Beagle Channel and found unusual fish skeletons.  Careful research did not identify them; it turned out that she had discovered the remains of several previously-unknown species of fish. A lifetime of study has resulted in the Museo Acatushun de Aves y Mamíferos Marinos (Birds and Marine Mammal Museum) and the Natalie Goodall Foundation. 
JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW
Hour One
Saturday 8 August  2015  / Hour 1, Block A: The Roof at the Bottom of the World: Discovering the Transantarctic Mountains. by Edmund Stump (1 of 2)
Saturday 8 August  2015  / Hour 1, Block B: The Roof at the Bottom of the World: Discovering the Transantarctic Mountains. by Edmund Stump (2 of 2)
Saturday 8 August  2015  / Hour 1, Block C: Never Look a Polar Bear in the Eye: A Family Field Trip to the Arctic's Edge in Search of Adventure, Truth, and..., by Zac Unger (1 of 2)
Saturday 8 August  2015  / Hour 1, Block D: Never Look a Polar Bear in the Eye: A Family Field Trip to the Arctic's Edge in Search of Adventure, Truth, and..., by Zac Unger (2 of 2)
Hour Two
Saturday 8 August  2015  / Hour 2, Block A: An Empire of Ice: Scott, Shackleton, and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Science, by Edward J. Larson (1 of 4)
Saturday 8 August  2015  / Hour 2, Block B: An Empire of Ice: Scott, Shackleton, and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Science, by Edward J. Larson (2 of 4)
Saturday 8 August  2015  / Hour 2, Block C: An Empire of Ice: Scott, Shackleton, and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Science, by Edward J. Larson (3 of 4)
Saturday 8 August  2015  / Hour 2, Block D: An Empire of Ice: Scott, Shackleton, and the Heroic Age of Antarctic Science, by Edward J. Larson (4 of 4)
Hour Three
Saturday 8 August  2015  / Hour 3, Block A: The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen (A Merloyd Lawrence Book), by Stephen R. Bown (1 of 4)
Saturday 8 August  2015  / Hour 3, Block B: The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen (A Merloyd Lawrence Book), by Stephen R. Bown (2 of 4)
Saturday 8 August  2015  / Hour 3, Block C: The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen (A Merloyd Lawrence Book), by Stephen R. Bown (3 of 4)
Saturday 8 August  2015  / Hour 3, Block D: The Last Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen (A Merloyd Lawrence Book), by Stephen R. Bown (4 of 4)
Hour Four
Saturday 8 August  2015  / Hour 4, Block A: 81 Days Below Zero: The Incredible Survival Story of a World War II Pilot in Alaska's Frozen Wilderness, by Brian Murphy (1 of 4)
Saturday 8 August  2015  / Hour 4, Block B: 81 Days Below Zero: The Incredible Survival Story of a World War II Pilot in Alaska's Frozen Wilderness, by Brian Murphy (2 of 4)
Saturday 8 August  2015  / Hour 4, Block C: 81 Days Below Zero: The Incredible Survival Story of a World War II Pilot in Alaska's Frozen Wilderness, by Brian Murphy (3 of 4)
Saturday 8 August  2015  / Hour 4, Block D: 81 Days Below Zero: The Incredible Survival Story of a World War II Pilot in Alaska's Frozen Wilderness, by Brian Murphy (4 of 4)