On March 21, 2020, the first coronavirus infection was recorded in Puerto Williams, a small Chilean city known for being the southernmost urban center in the world and where the Yagan indigenous people have lived for 7,000 years. Two days later, authorities closed sea and air borders, reduced economic activity to the essentials and ordered strict lockdowns. The restrictions helped revitalize some ancient cultural practices that had long been in danger, such as crafts and the native language. The quarantine also helped strengthen intergenerational ties so that children and young people felt identified as indigenous again. This has been revealed by research recently published in Maritime Studies, one of the most important scientific journals in the world in the field of social sciences and humanities.
