Chiloe

16 March 2017

I remember when I was yet a school girl hearing Chiloé described as a «strange remote island» off the Chilean coast. Little did I then think I would one day be assigned to it as a missionary!

By Fleur-Ange l’Heureux, m.i.c.

 

Remote, this fairly large-island certainly is, being situated only a few hundred miles from Antartica : strange, it also is to a certain degree, being of volcanic formation and, therefore, subject to frequent seismic disturbances. But, it is a beautiful land where unfold unrivalled panoramas of the changing sea girdling its shores.

Its fertile soil produces in abundance all kind of flowers, fruits, cereals, and vegetables. Potatoes are an agricultural specialty of Chiloé. Sir Francis Drake appreciated the tubers as such an important item of food that he introduced seed plants into europe during the latter port of the 16th century.

Seasons here occur at different times than they do in the homeland. Although we arrived on the island during summer, we found that the temperature at noon was 65°F in the sun. Such warm summer weather was exceptional, we were told by the inhabitants! What would winter be like, we reflected, in the ramshackle building, minus heating, that was to be our convent […]

(MIC Mission News, Vol. XXVI, May-June 1964, p. 115)