Patagonia: Counting Sheep

I hugged a sheep and as she gently leaned into me I kissed her on the snout. The softness of her wool helped me block out the barnyard smells and while this wasn’t how I expected the day to unfold, it seemed perfectly natural after my wife held her first.

This encounter wasn’t completely by chance. Estancia Chali-Aike, a working sheep ranch that supplements revenue by catering to tourists, was our lunch stop on the way to the outskirts of Torres Del Paine National Park. The ranch has been family owned since 1907 when John Angus Martin sailed from the United Kingdom and, according to family legend, got on the wrong boat, landing in Punta Arenas, Chile instead of the Caribbean. In reality, Mr. Martin was probably responding to a recruitment letter sent to Scotland’s Isle of Lewis, where residents knew a little about herding sheep. Hired men would be signed to a five-year contract at £55 for the first year and, at the end, be given property in Patagonia. A notable condition was that each sheepherder must “take out” two dogs with them, supplied by themselves. It was noted that “the dogs most suitable would be from one to two years old and short haired as the climate is somewhat warm.”

Early 1900s Patagonia, despite its remoteness, offered the chance to make a better living. Skilled sheepherders were in high demand and in some cases, rose to positions of responsibility, such as ranch managers, something unimaginable in the crowded subsistence economy back home in Scotland. So, John Angus Martin landed in Argentina and, with his two dogs and the help of other herders, drove sheep 1,800 kilometers (over 1,100 miles) from the north to Patagonia, where the government granted him land on the condition that it be worked. Today, John Martin’s grandson Gonzalo oversees 23,000 hectares (nearly 57,000 acres) with 5,000 sheep raised for their merino wool. He also trains border collies for sheepherding and supplements the household income by feeding tourists and hosting demonstrations. Thus, the opportunity to hug a sheep.

Gonzalo explained, with our guide Carlos translating, that his business has experienced multiple fashion trends, from the unfortunate popularity of synthetics in the 1970s (including petroleum-based polyester) to the Millennial generation’s more recent discovery of natural, eco-friendly wool’s benefits. Nearly all of the wool Gonzalo produces is shipped to China, where it’s used to manufacture the Merino wool shirts, socks, sweaters, and blankets we buy in America. 

Over the past 113 years the family ranch has survived world wars and economic depressions but its most serious threat is climate change. Gonzalo shared that extreme shifts in the weather patterns have accelerated in the past five years, with prolonged drier and windier conditions resulting in lower quality grazing land. Poor feed can cause excessive incisor-tooth wear (sheep only have teeth in their lower jaws), a dental abnormality that results in culling otherwise healthy breeding ewes before the end of their natural reproductive life. On top of that, climate change induced heat stress can diminish a sheep’s reproductive capacity due to an increase in body temperature as it is exposed to elevated ambient temperature.

Hearing Gonzalo describe the very tangible and devastating impact of climate change on his livelihood in this very small corner of the world personalized the consequences of America’s selfishness and science-denying “leadership”. No part of the planet is immune from us. And this was all pre-pandemic.

The topic took a more upbeat turn when Luna, a retired border collie, showed us how she herds sheep by following only Gonzalo’s whistle commands. Poor Luna’s probably done it thousands of times but I’m guessing that pleasing her owner and bossing a bunch of sheep around never gets old. Because it’s Patagonia, the wind was strong but in the video below, you can still hear Gonzalo’s whistle as Luna brings the sheep “back home” at the end of her demonstration. The working dogs would do this with hundreds of sheep. Amazing!

After Luna showed off her herding skills, we headed to the shearing barn where we found a small bunch of corralled sheep looking like they knew that one of them was about to get a serious buzzcut. Sure enough, Gonzalo stepped in the pen, grabbed ahold of a stubborn sheep and led her onto the barn floor, where electric shears awaited. Once he had the sheep out of the pen, Gonzalo demonstrated how to hold and calm her, then asked if anyone would like to try holding her. Anyone want to guess whose hand went up first? (Hint: she petted every dog she saw on a bike ride from Chicago to New York City). There was NO chance that Bev would be denied the opportunity to hold a sheep in Patagonia! So, with a little guidance from Gonzalo, my animal loving wife got to do this:

When Gonzalo asked if anyone else wanted to “take a turn”, I didn’t hesitate. And when he told me to give her a kiss, it seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do.

Sheep-savvy readers may have noticed that this one was pregnant. While that didn’t get her a pass on being sheared, it did mean that her wool wouldn’t be as high in quality because her body required more resources and energy to support the developing lamb. Shearing a sheep is not easy. It requires technique, flexibility, and strength to maneuver a strong animal that may not want its coat shaved off. Most importantly, a skilled shearer will end up with one solid piece. Thankfully, we were kept away from the shears and Gonzalo showed us how it’s done.

During this process, Gonzalo had picked some wool fibers from this sheep’s coat and twirled them back and forth in his fingers as he answered a myriad of questions from our group. What looked like fidgeting or a nervous habit did, in fact, have a purpose. At the end of his presentation, Gonzalo asked if anyone wanted a “golden bracelet”. As others were trying to figure out what he meant, Bev’s hand went up and she became the lucky recipient of a “bracelet” of golden wool.