The Catalyst Volume 5, Issue 2 | Page 10

LOS ESQUALOS

Roberto Haro Contreras

by

By Angelica Calabrese

NAME:

Roberto Haro Contreras

OCCUPATION:

Founder and Director of Los Esqualos Kayaking Club

HOMETOWN:

Chochran, Chile

10

Roberto’s home in Cochrane is humble, painted a ul kayaks. In the window, a collection of quirky gourds and bombillas hint at Roberto’s love for yerba maté, Chile’s traditional caffeinated drink. Inside, Roberto sits on his couch, wearing a thick sweater in spite of the sunlight. His eyes light up as he discusses Los Escualos, the beloved kayaking club that he has directed for almost 20 years.

Roberto Haro Contreras and his wife Claudia founded Los Escualos in 2000 in their hometown of Cochrane, Chile. Cochrane is a small town in rural Patagonia surrounded by Chilean grasslands, dramatic snow-capped mountains, and swift rivers. These rivers provide ample opportunities for Los Escualos students to develop nuanced paddling skills, gain a deep appreciation for their environment, and become, as Roberto puts it, buenas personas -- good people. “For me, kayaking is a way for the kids to improve their study habits, their relationships to their family and their understanding of the environment,” he says. “I want to improve their prospects in life; I want to make sure that when they have an opportunity, they take advantage of it.” He’s committed to helping his students develop a sense of self-discipline that will serve them throughout their lives: “It’s a way for them to understand that everything requires hard work,” he explains.

Over the course of the past seventeen years, over a thousand students have participated in events and activities run by the Los Escualos club in Cochrane and neighboring communities in the Aysén region. Roberto is committed to offering programming that is open to all community members, not only school-age students, and he is passionate about facilitating mentorship. “I want them to help each other,” he tells me. “The oldest students teach the youngest.”

His philosophy seems to be successful. Jaime Lancaster, a former Los Escualos student, is currently one of Chile’s top kayakers, and has won numerous competitions both in Chile and abroad. Other students work as trekking and mountaineering guides in nearby parks, others still are successful teachers, parents, and community members. And of course, when they come back to Cochrane, they always stop by and visit Roberto. “When they are free, they paddle with us. Or, they stop by, borrow a kayak, and head down to the river solo,” Roberto says proudly.

What’s most astonishing is that Roberto didn’t start paddling until 1999, just a few short months before he started the Los Escualos kayaking club. “I had seen people paddling, but I thought they were just gringos muy locos,” he tells me. “Now I’m one of them!”

His passion for kayaking began when an Argentinian kayaker, a friend of his brother-in-law, passed through Cochrane. He led a short paddling class on a nearby lake, and Roberto, his wife, and her brother were inspired to learn more. They approached the mayor of Cochrane to acquire funding to purchase their first kayaks, and soon enough, they arrived. “At first, the three of us didn’t know anything,” Roberto says, laughing at the distant memory. “We flipped over in the river, lost our kayaks. It was a disaster. But little by little, we continued to practice.”

One day, as he and Claudia paddled down the river, they noticed a boy running along the road that bordered the river, following them, watching them play in the waves. They looked at each other, and it clicked: maybe they could teach young people how to paddle, too. Soon after, they organized their first paddling class.

Early on, Los Escualos received support and training from NOLS instructors, whose Patagonian programs are based out of the neighboring town of Coyhaique. Their Argentinian friend and paddling instructor also helped Roberto and Claudia organize an exchange program with youth from Argentina, inspiring Roberto to think even more broadly of the potential and possibility of the Los Escualos club. Today, the Alzar School has inherited this legacy of cross-cultural exchange.

After Los Escualos students participated in an exchange program organized by the Colorado Rocky Mountain School in 2013, Roberto was delighted when founder Sean Bierle approached him about working with the Alzar School. Today, Los Escualos students regularly join Alzar students on Patagonian expeditions, paddling down the Rio Baker and backpacking in Patagonia National Park. Traveling together allows students to not only develop friendships and learn from one another, but also to share lessons about the importance of preserving the region’s unique cultural and environmental heritage.

This is a major part of Roberto and Claudia’s mission: to educate youth who value and defend Patagonia’s environment. This particular aspect of Los Escualos’ mission has become more and more important in recent years. A few years ago, proposals to build five major hydro-dams on the Rio Baker and Rio Pascua were introduced in the region. Roberto wanted his students to decide whether Los Escualos, as an organization, would be for or against the construction of the dams. He is passionate about empowering students as community members and decision makers, and this was a perfect opportunity for Los Escualos to act on its mission. “We asked all of the students, one by one. Everyone voted, from the youngest to oldest.” When all the votes were tallied, the decision was announced: Los Escualos was against the dams.

Today, Los Escualos is a member of Patagonia Sin Represas, an anti-dam advocacy organization that ultimately succeeded in securing a rejection of the dam proposals. But Roberto insists that whatever the students’ had decided, for or against the dams, he and Claudia would have followed. “What’s important is that they have an opinion,” he says, reflecting on the experience. He and Claudia are driven by the idea that when young people have the opportunity to intimately get to know their environment, hiking its mountains and paddling its rivers, they will value it more.

This July, with the help of kayaker and filmmaker Weston Boyles, Los Escualos will send a group of eight students to California, where they will explore the effects that hydro-dams have had on the Klamath River. “It’s not like building a house,” Roberto explains. “It’s important to understand that it’s a mega-structure with huge effects.” Roberto hopes that seeing these dams and how they’ve transformed the surrounding environment will help young people gain perspective on the dams proposed in Patagonia – and more importantly, be prepared to defend their beloved rivers against such proposals in the future. They hope that this experience will challenge their students to develop deeper self-awareness, stronger community networks, and a profound sense of environmental stewardship -- similar to what takes place among students at the Alzar School.

As we talk in Roberto’s living room, two Los Escualos students wander in, catch up with Claudia in the kitchen, grab a few kayaks from the front yard, and head towards the river. The atmosphere is comfortable, supportive, and encouraging. To Roberto and Claudia, the Los Escualos students are like their own children. Beaming with paternal pride, Roberto boasts that when “they grow up, they want to protect their environment, and they know local history. But most importantly, they are good people. And if they are also good paddlers, even better.”

Roberto still marvels at the kayaking community that he’s created. Recently, he was standing with a group of students on the shore of the Rio Cochrane, next to the vibrantly painted Los Escualos boathouse. Inside, brightly colored kayaks are piled on top of one another, along with sprayskirts, helmets, PFDs, and various other kayaking gear. Over the course of the years, much of this gear has been donated from across the world by friends and fellow paddlers inspired by Roberto’s vision. “And to think,” Roberto told his students as they stood beside the boathouse, “how happy we were when we had just five kayaks.” Today, Roberto and Claudia have collected not only many more kayaks, but also a global network of students and friends whose lives have been transformed by their work -- including many Alzar School students and staff. And they are committed to continuing their mission. “As long as there is water, we’ll keep paddling,” says Claudia, laughing warmly back in her kitchen as Roberto and I finish chatting in the living room. I know they’ll do much more than paddle.