Villa las Estrellas, an hamlet in Antarctica

King George Island, Antarctica
Population ~1200


Villa las Estrellas

At 62°12′ S, 58°53′ W, this is the only town in Antarctica's South Shetland Islands. It is integrated in Chilean Eduardo Frei Base, a scientific (meteorology) - military (air base) station on King George Island, Filde Peninsula.


It is one of only two civilian permanent settlements on Antarctica (the other being Argentina's Esperanza Base). It has a summer population of 150 and 50-80 in winter - the most populated town of Antarctica ! The average temperature is - 5ºC. Winter (June , July and August) is mostly dark antarctic night, with only 4-5 h of sun light, but in summer there is no real night - just twilight. The longest day is the 25th December, when the sun rises at 3:00 and sets at 22:51.

Villa Las Estrellas was founded in 1984.

The hamlet has 20 prefabricated modules, 14 are family residences. It´s an incredible place, where you can find everything in well equiped small warm spaces.


Bank, post, hospital, school, kindergarten, hostel, gym, store/market, local shop, church:

The catholic church of Las Estrellas: a large metallic container. The local gym, the red-and-white hangar at right, where locals practise cycling, games, athletics...

There is an aerodrome providing the settlement and other Antarctica bases with several connections, with some 200 flights each season.

A chilean Hercules approaching the base, passed over the Trinity Church of neighbour Bellinghausen station.

Vila Las Estrellas and Eduardo Frei Base, showing the hospital, school, church and hostel (clic for a better view).

The local 15 children youth study at F-50 School, a primary school staffed by two teachers.


There is a Hospital staffed with one doctor and a nurse:
The Post Office is also an attraction for tourists and philately enthusiasts that travel to the town to send postcards and letters with an Antarctic postmark.

Not always easy to reach, though...


For visitors, the small hostel "Polestar", a dormitory for up to 90 people:
The settlement is just some 200 m away from the russian Bellinghausen station I recently posted about.

Here you can see the territory, with the orthodox Trinity Church dominating in the far, over a hill: (clic for a better view)


Villa las Estrellas is one of the main ports of call of Antarctica cruises.

Southern Thule:a church in Bellinghausen, Antarctica

Bellinghausen Station is a Russian base in Antarctica, on a mostly ice-free peninsula of King George Island, where several other research stations are located. It normally houses around 25 people to a maximum of 50.

King George Island is probably the most populated region in Antarctica: Chilean, Polish, Argentinean, Brasilian, Peruvian, Chinese, Korean ... and Russian stations were built there for its natural conditions of easy access, natural harbours and relatively mild climate.

In recent years Bellinghausen station gained reputation as a trading post, with station members willing to swap or sell pins, flags clothing...

The average temperature around the station varies from -6.8°С to +1.1°С .

Coordinates : 62º 12' S, 58º 56' W

The Orthodox church of the Holy Trinity

Maybe the most remarkable feature of the station is now its Trinity Church - a small Russian Orthodox church which is the southernmost church in the world (though there is an ice-made igloo-like church, mostly unattended, some degrees more southerly) and the only permanently staffed church in Antarctica.

The church was opened in 2004 - shipped from Siberia in pieces and reassembled at the site. The interior is really well conceived and decorated, creating maybe the best place to feel cosy in all Antarctica!

This church was built in 2003 in the Altaï Mountains, in noble Altaï cedar and larch wood, the logs sealed with a special glue and reinforced with a structure of steel chains to resist strong horizontal guts and storms.

First taken to the port of Kaliningrad on five big trucks, in separated numbered parts, then on board the research vessel "Akademik Sergey Vavilov" to the southern continent in a long trip of more than two months.

Akademik Sergey Vavilov arriving in Bellinghausen

For half a century of scientific exploration of the ice continent, 64 russian polar explorers have found peace in the rocky ridges of Antarctica. Now there is a place to mourn them.

In 2007, the first and only until now wedding in Antarctica took place - the daughter of Russian polar explorer was married to a Chilean polar explorer from the next station.

Slowly, the temporary population of Antarctica stations is settling in a permanent way of living; also schools, hospitals, gyms and restaurants may help this change in a continent with an open future.

The arctic ermine - the dearest arctic creature!

Some time ago, I declared my admiration for the Arctic Tern as the most wonderful bird on the planet; now, I declare my sympathy for the Ermine, the most cute (though fearsome and deadly!) small mammal.

Ermines (Mustela erminea) live in the Arctic tundra of North America (Canadian high arctic), Greenland and Europe (Siberia). Their usual habitat: flat marshes, open spaces or rocky areas.

In the spring and summer they have brown to yellow-brown fur with paler or white fur on the belly and a black tip on the tail.

Ermine usually reach over 30 cm in length.

The head is triangular shaped with small round ears, small, bright eyes and long whiskers.

They grow white fur in the winter, but the tip of the tail remains black:

Ermine's black tail tip may draw any predator bird's attention and fool it into attacking the tail.

A small, white face pushes up through the snow, its black eyes gleaming brightly.

The ermine's flexible spine allows it to do the "marten run" in which the back is first arched, then extended.

Ermines are very territorial, and largely solitary animals.

Their life span is 4 to 7 years.

Elusive predators, ermines are cruel little killers for there preys mainly mice, lemmings, squirrels, small birds, but also rats and sometimes rabbits!

Ermine are largely nocturnal or crepuscular. Most of their preys are small rodents that live beneath the snow in winter. And in turn they are ferquent prey to wolves, foxes, cats and large birds.

A long time ago, during the Middle Ages, the fur of the white phase of the ermine was popular in clothing, and had a strong symbolic meaning of purity.

"Ermine" portrait of Elizabeth I by Nicholas Hilliard, 1585

Nowadays ermines are almost never used in clothing.

Ermines were also choosed to figure in some coats-of-arms, because of that purity symbolism.

Ermine in Chateau-Blois window

Ermines are neither threatened or endangered. The world population is some trillions !

Sites with history in the canadian Arctic:Sachs Harbour, the Aulavik Park, and the wreck of the Investigator

Banks Island belongs to the Arctic Archipelago, on the Canadian Northwest Territories

The island has one settlement, Sachs Harbour, and a National Park, Aulavik

Sachs Harbor, pop. ~140

Latitude: 71° 58' N; Longitude: 125° 12' W

Sachs Harbour or Ikaahuk ("place where one crosses") is the most northerly community in the NWT of Canada. Sachs Harbour is the only permanent settlement on Banks Island, situated on its southwestern shore, and is the nearest community to Aulavik National Park. The settlement is also known as the "Muskox Capital of Canada".

It has a small airfield and terminal, a school, a nurse health center.

Sachs Harbour

Facing the Beaufort Sea

Dreadly cold winters

The Aulavik Park

Aulavik National Park is on Banks Island, the most westerly island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The Beaufort Sea lies to the west. To the northeast, M'Clure Strait separates the island from Prince Patrick Island and Melville Island.

Banks Island is tundra territory, with extremely cold winters. The island is home to barren-ground caribou, polar bears, muskoxen - 68000 muskoxen live on the island, the majority of the world's population.

Paddling on Thomsen River observed by musk-oxen.

The heart of Aulavik National Park is the Thomsen River. It runs through the park, and is the northernmost navigable river (by canoe or kayak) in North America.

The park encompasses a variety of landscapes from fertile river valleys to polar deserts, buttes and badlands, rolling hills, and bold seacoasts.

Spring in Aulavik

Arctic cotton

Gyrfalcon bluff

Arctic fox

Tundra ermine in summer

The wreck of the HMS Investigator

In September 1851, Captain Robert McClure's ship, HMS Investigator, became ice trapped in Mercy Bay, Banks Island, during his search for the lost Sir John Franklin Expedition, ordered to complete a crossing of the Northwest Passage, which had already been charted from both the east and west but had never been entirely navigated.

The HMS Investigator, built at Scotts of Greenock and bought by the Admiralty in February 1848, has now been found by a team of Parks Canada scientists after 156 years since it was last seen.

HMS Investigator was strengthened with iron reinforcement for Arctic services; in 1848 she set sail, in search for the missing Sir John Franklin expedition in quest of the Northwest Passage: with two other lost ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, it had made up the ill-fated 1845 British Arctic Expedition that failed the attempt to cross the passage through the Arctic.

HMS Erebus and HMS Terror trapped in the ice

Having only found some graves and human remains, and failed again the attempt to sail through the deep frozen Arctcic ocean, then on the return voyage, which was commanded by Robert McClure, HMS Investigator itself became trapped in the ice.

Three years later, on June 3rd 1853, her sixty-nine man crew were forced to abandon ship. She was finally abandoned in Mercy Bay, Banks Island. Most of the crew went on to survive for three winters, though in the most unimaginably desperate conditions. They were finally rescued in Melville Island.

The Investigator's remains were found on the shores of the island with the deck of the ship roughly eight metres below the surface of the water. The Canadian archaeologists found the ship "largely intact" sitting upright in approximately 25 feet of pristine arctic water.

(The HMS Erebus and HMS Terror wrecks are yet to be found)