A frontier is a place that’s both physical and metaphorical. Our ongoing series, Dispatches from the Frontier, shares encounters and insights from life on the ranch, where the inner and outer wilderness converge.   

Dispatch from John Hauf, Founder and Director

I’m in the forest bucking up firewood.  As I turn off the chainsaw, I hear dogs barking out by the lake.  This infrequent event usually signals the neighbor has come by on horseback for a visit, so I gather my equipment and head back to the house.  At the water’s edge five dogs tear past me at full tilt, barking and howling without so much as a glance in my direction.  They race south, crashing across several creeks until they arrive at the large Solér River, where they turn about and run back past me again in reverse.

The dogs are intently focused on the lake, even launching into the water at times before returning to their frenzied shoreline patrol.  Perhaps the neighbor has departed and left them behind, I think, though I don’t see or hear any boat.  But no, suddenly the object of their interest becomes clear, a black dot far out into the cold, gray water, moving back and forth in parallel opposition to the pack’s direction.  It’s a doe, a huemul or South Andean deer, native to the mountains of Patagonia.

Two of the dogs finally hurl themselves into the lake and start swimming for their prey.  Well, darn.  I run to the barn for a lifejacket and the fuel hose to one of our boats.  Motor out and pick up the dogs?  Motor out and pick up the deer?  It seems as though I ought to do something.  Besides, the huemul is an endangered species.

I’m focused for several minutes on the boat.  When I look up again the two dogs in the water are barely visible, over a hundred meters out, but turning back for land.  Thinking I’m too late, that the dogs have killed the doe but can’t drag it ashore, I slowly boat out anyway, zig-zagging back and forth with no sign of the deer.  Finally, as I turn in towards the dock, I spot the huemul, far along from where I’d last spied it and standing in the water less than five meters from dry ground.  All of the dogs have resumed combing the shoreline, noses to the ground, and are headed straight for it.

I beeline it to shore and dash towards the deer, but I’m too late.  The pack is by me and, and…  Well, darn.  Again.  They sprint right past the doe without a glance her way.  They’re literally just a canine leap apart.  She stands there, immobile, ears flattened to her head, water to the top of her legs, yet with her body out of the cold water.  Not a single twitch anywhere upon her.

I find a log and sit for an hour watching, losing count of how many times the dogs rush by, blind to their quarry, oblivious to her presence.  The pack eventually relents and heads for home.  The huemul remains in the lake, a curved brown silhouette, unwilling to leave a scent trail to mark her escape path.  By dusk she’s gone, her story concluding in a calm line of tracks headed for the steep mountainsides.

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John Hauf founded Patagonia Frontiers in 1999 to connect people with wilderness through education, conservation, and adventure. From our wilderness ranch home, Patagonia Frontiers offers multi-day trekking, horseback trips, mountaineering, and education programs in the heart of Chilean Patagonia.