El Calafate Regional Museum

While touring around the city, it is impossible to miss a visit to El Calafate Regional Museum: it shelters the history of the entire city and the most significant moments in the district, such as the lifestyle of the first settlers and the various difficulties they had to face ever since the mid nineteenth century.

This house museum stands at the main avenue in the city: Libertador General San Martín Avenue, between Río Gallegos and Coronel Rosales Streets, before crossing the bridge over Calafate Creek.

A long time ago, the building used to house the local Neighbors’ Committee and today the site has been recycled so that visitors may observe everything ranging from the archeological material (boleadoras, carved stones, arrow points) and the palaeontologic samples (fossils of various kinds found in the area) to the geological material, along with all the local flora and fauna.

Outside the Regional Museum, visitors may appreciate some pieces of the machinery and tools used for sheep shearing in the early twentieth century.

Opposite the building, two large carts catch the eye of all passer-byes and drivers. They used to transport the “white gold”, a name attributed to wool in those days.

A historical photographic show let us see the different moments of the city and their timing. Many of them were donated by the first denizens of this locality which, though small, bears a great history.