5 Best Sights in Chiloé, Chile

This small but interesting museum documents early life in Chonchi through furnishings and photos in a 19th-century house.

A fogón—a traditional indigenous cooking pit—sits in the center of the small palafito (a shingled house built on stilts and hanging over the water) housing this museum that displays historical exhibits about the indigenous peoples of Chiloé—the Chonos and Huilliche.

This museum, one block from the Plaza de Armas, gives a good (Spanish-only) introduction to the region's history and culture. Packed into a fairly small space are artifacts from the Huilliche era (primarily farming and fishing implements) through the 19th century (looms, spinning wheels, and plows). One exhibit displays the history of the archipelago's wooden churches; another shows black-and-white photographs of the damage caused by the 1960 earthquake that rocked southern Chile. The museum has a collection of quotations about Chiloé culture by outsiders. "The Chilote talks little, but thinks a lot. He is rarely spontaneous with outsiders, and even with his own countrymen he isn't too communicative," wrote one ethnographer.

Statues of mythical Chilote figures, such as the Pincoya and Trauco, greet you on the terrace of this fortresslike museum, just uphill from the Plaza de Armas. The replica of the schooner La Goleta Ancud is the museum's centerpiece; the ship carried Chilean settlers to the Strait of Magellan in 1843. Inside is a collection of island handicrafts.

The town's cultural center contains a small museum with artifacts and old black-and-white photographs. Nothing is very colorful here—the muted tones of the pottery, fabrics, and farm implements reflect the stark life of colonial Chiloé.