Bariloche
San Carlos de Bariloche, commonly known simply as Bariloche, is the largest city in the Argentine province of Río Negro and the seat of the department of the same name. It is located in the foothills of the Patagonian Andes on the southern shore of Nahuel Huapi Lake, near the border with Chile. With a population of 135,755 according to the 2022 census, Bariloche is a mid-sized city by national standards but holds significant regional importance. It is not only the most populous city in its province but also the largest in the Patagonian Andes, and the third largest in the entire Argentine Patagonia, following Neuquén and Comodoro Rivadavia. Its urban zone is characterized by its low density and has an area of more than, extending longitudinally from east to west for about.
Bariloche's economy is strongly based on tourism; it is the country's third most visited destination after Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata. It is the most popular city in all of Patagonia. It attracts visitors year-round for its scenic natural setting including Nahuel Huapi National Park and other reserves, offering a range of activities such as skiing in winter and water sports and hiking in summer, alongside diverse accommodations and dining options. The nearby Cerro Catedral is the largest ski resort in South America.
The city is a traditional hub for student tourism in Argentina, and is a destination for the customary high school graduation trips. In addition it attracts families from Argentina and neighboring countries celebrating their daughter's Quinceañera.
In 2012, the Argentine Congress passed a resolution declaring Bariloche the "National Capital of Adventure Tourism". In addition to tourism, scientific activities are of growing importance for the city, as it hosts the National Atomic Energy Commission's Bariloche Atomic Centre, as well as the public universities of Comahue, Río Negro and the National Technological.
History
The name Bariloche comes from the Mapudungun word Vuriloche meaning "people from behind the mountain". The Poya people used the Vuriloche pass to cross the Andes, keeping it secret from the Spanish priests for a long time.There is evidence of the long existence of indigenous settlements on the banks of Lake Nahuel Huapi, in the area now occupied by the city of Bariloche. This was thousands of years before the European expeditionaries and settlers beginning in the colonial era of the 16th century.
Human beings had arrived in this area during the Neolithic era, as evidenced by artifacts. The archaeological and historical record speaks of the presence of tehuelches and puelches in the area.
With the process of araucanization and mainly since the 17th century, the culture of these groups was strongly affected by Mapuches. They increased their occupation in the area, affected by the settlement of Spaniards in Chile, and their continued push to the east.
By the 19th century's end, only a few scattered indigenous families remained near the lake. People of Inacayal had been stripped of their lands, and were relocated to Tecka when their cacique was taken prisoner. Curruhinca had made an act of submission to Argentine government with his own. Some Nguillatun was still being celebrated.
But the region was beginning a new stage in its history. Although incorporated into Argentine national sovereignty, the Nahuel Huapi area began to develop fundamentally linked to Chile. Before the 19th century's end, when the border was still in dispute, people from the south of the neighboring country were gradually arriving to settle in surroundings of the lake. Small farmers were most of them from the island of Chiloe, but German immigrants living in Chile also arrived.
Spanish explorations and missions
Nahuel Huapi lake was known to Spaniards since the times of the Conquest of Chile. Following the trails of the Mapuche people across the Andes, in the summer of 1552–1553, the Spanish Governor of the Captaincy of Chile Pedro de Valdivia sent Francisco de Villagra to explore the area east of the Andes at the latitudes of the city of Valdivia. Francisco de Villagra crossed the Andes through Mamuil Malal Pass and headed south until reaching Limay River in the vicinity of Nahuel Huapi Lake.Another early Spaniard to visit the zone of Nahuel Huapi Lake was the Jesuit priest Diego de Rosales. He had been ordered to the area by the Governor of Chile Antonio de Acuña Cabrera, who was concerned about the unrest of the native Puelche and Poya after the slave-hunting expeditions carried out by Luis Ponce de León in 1649, who captured Indians and sold them into slavery. Diego de Rosales started his journey at the ruins of Villarica in Chile, crossed the Andes through Mamuil Malal Pass, and traveled further south along the eastern Andean valleys, reaching Nahuel Huapi Lake in 1650.
In 1670, Jesuit priest Nicolás Mascardi, based in Chiloé Archipelago, entered the area through the Reloncaví Estuary and Todos los Santos Lake to found a mission at the Nahuel Huapi Lake, which lasted until 1673. A new mission at the shores of Nahuel Huapi Lake was established in 1703, backed financially from Potosí, thanks to orders from the viceroy of Peru. Historians disagree if the mission belonged to the jurisdiction of Valdivia or Chiloé. According to historic documents, the Poya of Nahuelhuapi requested the mission to be reestablished, apparently to forge an alliance with the Spaniards against the Puelche. Following the 1712 Huilliche rebellion in Chiloé Archipelago some insurgents sought refuge with Father Manuel del Hoyo in the mission.
The mission was destroyed in 1717 by Poyas following a disagreement with the missionaries; the superior of the mission had refused to give them a cow. Soon thereafter authorities learned that four or five people travelling to Concepción had been killed by the Poya. The colonists assembled a punitive expedition in Calbuco and Chiloé. Composed of both Spaniards and indios reyunos, the expedition did not find any Poya.
In 1766 the head of the Mission of Ralún tried to reestablish the mission at Nahuel Huapi, but the following year, the Crown suppressed the Society of Jesus, ordering them out of the colonies in the Americas.
19th century to 1895
The area had stronger connections to Chile than to the distant city of Buenos Aires during most of the 19th century, but the explorations of Francisco Moreno and the Argentine campaigns of the Conquest of the Desert established the legitimacy of the Argentine government. It thought the area was a natural expansion of the Viedma colony and the Andes were the natural frontier to Chile. In the 1881 border treaty between Chile and Argentina, the Nahuel Huapi area was recognized as part of Argentina.German settlers begun to arrive in neighboring southern Chile from the 1840s. Some of these settlers and their descendants begun a lucrative leather industry obtaining leather from indigenous communities across the Andes. In the 1880s, the Argentine Army displaced indigenous communities, disrupting this trade and forcing leather merchants in Chile to cross the Andes to obtain supplies. This way numerous entrepreneurs from Chile, many with a German background, established cattle and trade business in the area of Nahuel Huapi and Lácar lakes.
Modern settlement
In the summer of 1894-1895 Carlos Wiederhold, a German-Chilean from Osorno, Chile, crossed the poorly known mountain passes of the Andes from Chile into Nahual Huapi Lake. He was aided by the guide Antonio Millaqueo and Daniel Márquez from Chiloé helped them in navigating the lake. Back in Chile Wiederhold bought provisions in Puerto Montt and brought them across the Andes to sell these in the Nahuel Huapi area. Wiederhold established then a little shop called La Alemana in 1895, and it is from this shop the modern settlement of Bariloche developed from. As Wiederhold was named consul of the German Empire in Chile he left Bariloche for Puerto Montt in the 1900s. In Puerto Montt Wiederhold continued to run the business while in Bariloche Wiederhold's business partner Federico Hube, also a German-Chilean from Osorno, was left in charge of local affairs. By 1900 Chilean merchants dominated trade in the area of Nahuel Huapi Lake by their control of nearby mountain passes. Hube & Achelis controlled Paso Pérez Rosales and Camino y Lacoste did so in Paso Puyehue. A war scare between Chile and Argentina in the 1900s meant some difficulties for these earlier entrepreneurs who later came to benefit from the 1902 boundary arbitration between Chile and Argentina which increased trust along the international boundary. The trade route established by Wiederhold connecting the Pacific port of Puerto Montt with Nahuel Huapi Lake in the inland was well into the 1910s among the most important ones in northern Patagonia.The Chilean entrepreneurs expanded beyond trade and established husbandry operations around Nahuel Huapi Lake. These enterprises exported meat to Central Chile and imported labour from southern Chile, mainly Chiloé Archipelago, to run the business. Argentine authorities encouraged at first the immigration of Chileans offering land properties if they renounced the Chilean citizenship becoming Argentines. Chilean authorities responded by offering land to those that returned from Argentina. As spontaneous migration from Chiloé Archipelago begun to replace those brought in by enterprises the Argentine authorities came to distrust these migrants. Many independent settlers from Chiloé Archipelago established themselves in Valle Manso south of Bariloche. In the words of historian Jorge Muñoz Sougarett, Argentine authorities viewed these Chileans settlers as "illiterate nomads, vicious and unruly".
In the 1930s, the centre of the city was redesigned to have the appearance of a traditional European central alpine town Many buildings were made of wood and stone. In 1909 there were 1,250 inhabitants; a telegraph, post office, and a road connected the city with Neuquén. Commerce continued to depend on Chile until the arrival of the railroad in 1934, which connected the city with Argentine markets.