A family operation on the edge of the icefield.

Ben grew up on the Última Esperanza Sound. His father was a sheep farmer at Cerro Castillo; his mother taught school in town. By age ten he was tying his own woolly buggers from sheep wool and fishing the Río Serrano with a fibreglass rod his uncle had brought back from a season in Argentina.

He left south at 19 to guide in Junín de los Andes, six seasons on the Chimehuín, the Malleo and the Collón Curá. The lodges there taught him the craft — 60 clients a week, 14 guides, professional kitchens, immaculate logistics. He learned to cast left-handed, row a drift boat in serious wind, and fix anything that broke with a Leatherman and a roll of electrical tape.

In 2013 he came home. The plan was simple: build a tighter, smaller operation than the ones he'd worked for in Argentina — one where the same guide saw you each morning, the food came from the same kitchen each night, and nobody on the boat had been there less than five years. Patagonia Line ran its first season in November 2013 with two clients, one truck, and a borrowed cabin.

The Line Lodge opened in 2018 — three rooms on a property his family had held since 1962, 1.5 km from the town centre, built room by room with local craftsmen using lenga and coigüe timber. It is still the only building on the operation that has his name on the deed.