Isla de los Estados (English: Staten Island, from the Dutch Stateneiland) is an Argentine island that lies off the eastern extremity of Tierra del Fuego, from which it is separated by the Le Maire Strait. It was named after the Netherlands States-General, the Dutch parliament.
The island is part of the Argentine province of Tierra del Fuego, and of the department and city of Ushuaia. It has been declared an "Ecological, Historic, and Tourist Provincial Reserve" ("Reserva provincial ecológica, histórica y turística"), with access limited to tours from Ushuaia.
The only settlement is the Puerto Parry Naval Station, located in a deep and narrow fjord on the northern coast of the island. The naval station, established in 1978, is staffed by a team of four marines on a 45-day rotation. They monitor environmental conservation and ship movements, and provide emergency assistance.
History
Prior to European arrival, the island was visited by the Yamana people, who inhabited the islands south of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego.
The first European to encounter the island was the Spanish naval captain Francisco de Hoces, when in 1526 the ship San Lesmes, from the Spanish expedition of Loaísa, separated from the rest in a storm, being displaced to the south parallel 55, becoming the discoverer of the great island east of Tierra del Fuego, which would later be called the Island of the States or Staten Island.
Almost a century after the Spaniards, the Dutch explorers Jacob le Maire and Willem Schouten passed the island on 25 December 1615, naming it Staten Landt. Le Maire and Schouten sailed their ship, Eendracht, through a route south of the Straits of Magellan, a route now called the Le Maire Strait. To his left Le Maire noted the land mass which he called Staten Landt; he theorized it was perhaps a portion of the great 'Southern Continent.' (The first European name for New Zealand was Staten Landt, the name given to it by the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who in 1642 became the first European to see the islands. Tasman also assumed it was part of the 'Southern Continent' later known as Antarctica.)
The Dutch expedition to Valdivia of 1643 intended to sail through Le Maire Strait but strong winds made it instead drift south and east. The small fleet led by Hendrik Brouwer managed to enter the Pacific Ocean sailing south of the island disproving earlier beliefs that it was part of Terra Australis.
No Europeans are known to have settled on the island for more than 200 years. In 1862 Argentine pilot Luis Piedrabuena established a shelter near Port Cook, and built a small seal oil extraction facility on the island.
On New Year's Day, 1775, Captain James Cook named what is now "Puerto Año Nuevo", "New Years Port". Seal hunters established a short-lived factory there (1786-1787), but abandoned it after Duke of York wrecked there on 11 September 1787 while bringing supplies.
The island is also referenced in Richard Henry Dana Jr.'s book Two Years Before the Mast as the first land they see after leaving San Diego. He describes the land as ". . . bare, broken, and girt with rocks and ice, with here and there, between rocks and broken hillocks, a little stunted vegetation of shrubs. . ."
More than twenty years later, the San Juan del Salvamento Lighthouse was inaugurated on May 25, 1884, by Comodoro Augusto Lasserre. It operated until September 1900. The lighthouse, better known as Faro del fin del mundo ("Lighthouse at the end of the world"), is said to have inspired Jules Verne's novel The Lighthouse at the End of the World (1905). A military prison was based on the island from 1896 to 1902. It had to be moved to Tierra del Fuego after being compromised by the strong winds.
Geography
The island is approximately long east-west, and wide, with an area of . The island is deeply indented by bays. Its highest point is , and is considered to be the last prominence of the Andes mountain range. It receives around of rain per year.
The island is surrounded by minor islands and rocks, the largest being Observatorio island north, with an area of . At the eastern end of the island is Cape St John, a landmark for ships sailing around the island in order to avoid the currents and tides of the Le Maire Strait to the west.