How much does mankind owe you, Chiloe Archipelago, and how fair is history to you? It forgets, for example, the occasions when you supplied the city of Lima with larch timber in colonial times: a time when viceroys governed the country and sailors risked their lives rounding Cape Horn.
 Nor does it clearly remember when the newcomers from the Iberian peninsula exploited the Indians, forcing them to mine Cucao gold, and to weave woolen clothes for the king, giving the name of "parcela" (a euphemism for slavery) to this arrangement. So this must be the reason why history forgets these pages. It is suffering from amnesia.
 Now, however, contrasting with the above situation, you have a grateful population on 35 of your 40 little islands. Twenty thousand inhabitants are proud of their varied geography, featuring waterfalls, volcanoes, lakes, thermal springs and rivers. All this is a source of admiration and, perhaps, even a little envy to cosmopolitan citizens and walking enthusiasts.
Chiloe's islanders praise God with devotion, sure of their good luck. They pray in all the 150 churches built with great dedication by the Franciscan order, many of which belong to the National Cultural Heritage of Humanity, a distinction they received from the UNESCO.

There townspeople pray and, no doubt, as they touch or view the wooden walls surrounding them, feel as if they were at home in their own houses, built with the same material but anchored on palafittes, tree trunks embedded in the ocean platforms of the islands, to protect them from the strong tides.
The Chilotas surely recall their ancestors: Mapuches, Cuncos, Chones, and the Spanish and other immigrants, who, to a greater or lesser extent, contributed to the development of the present archipelago, first sighted in 1540 by sailor Alfonso de Camargo, and officially discovered in 1553 by Francisco de Ulloa.
The first Spanish tourists were struck by the great Island of Chiloe, the second largest in all of South America, which today is a province measuring 9,181.6 square kilometers in area and having 130,000 inhabitants, located 1,057 kilometers from Santiago and 59 kilometers from Puerto Montt.

At the northern tip of this great island lies Ancud, a city founded on August 20, 1768 by the Spanish brigadier Carlos Berenguer, and that is now the area with greatest contact with the Chilean mainland. Its population is around 24,000.
 Its magnificent public square has seven colonial-style towers, surrounding a replica of the schooner Ancud. This vessel, built by the "Chilotas" took possession of the Straits of Magellan in 1843. Another visiting "must" is the seafront avenue where one can view the Quetalmahue mini-gulf, with its beautiful arms of water, and the Lacuy peninsula.
Castro, capital of the province of Chiloe, was founded in 1567 by Maño Ruiz de Gamboa. the Plaza de Armas, the Regional Museum, the Modern Art Museum of Chiloe and the church of St. Francis form part of its charm, a charm that is enhanced by its unique palafitos, houses built on wooden piles to protect them against high tide.
These attractions are prolonged at Quellon with its incomparably splendid view of Corcovado Volcano and the chance it offers of visiting the native communities of Compu, Chadmo Central and Hauipulli, the only ones on the islands; also in Chonchi, the "city of three floors", due to its cypress wood construction, and in Chiloe National Park, a wilderness bastion on Isla Grande.