Beagle Channel (; Yahgan: Onašaga) is a strait in the Tierra del Fuego Archipelago, on the extreme southern tip of South America between Chile and Argentina. The channel separates the larger main island of Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego from various smaller islands including the islands of Picton, Lennox and Nueva; Navarino; Hoste; Londonderry; and Stewart. The channel's eastern area forms part of the border between Chile and Argentina and the western area is entirely within Chile.

The Beagle Channel, the Straits of Magellan to the north, and the open-ocean Drake Passage to the south are the three navigable passages around South America between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Most commercial shipping uses the open-ocean Drake Passage.

The Beagle Channel is about  long and  wide at its narrowest point. It extends from Nueva Island in the east to Darwin Sound and Cook Bay in the Pacific Ocean in the west.  Some  from its western end, it divides into two branches, north and south of Gordon Island.  The southwest branch between Hoste Island and Gordon Island enters Cook Bay. The northwest branch between Gordon Island and Isla Grande enters Darwin Sound, which connects to the Pacific Ocean by the O'Brien and Ballenero channels. The biggest settlement on the channel is Ushuaia in Argentina followed by Puerto Williams in Chile. These are amongst the southernmost settlements in the world.

According to a Selk'nam myth the  channel was created alongside the Strait of Magellan and Fagnano Lake in places where slingshots fell on earth during Taiyín's fight with a witch who was said to have "retained the waters and the foods".

Navigation
Although it is navigable by large ships, there are safer waters to the south (Drake Passage) and to the north (Strait of Magellan). Under the Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1984 between Chile and Argentina, ships of other nations navigate with a Chilean pilot between the Strait of Magellan and Ushuaia through the Magdalena Channel and the Cockburn Channel to the Pacific Ocean, then by the Ballenero Channel, the O'Brien Channel and the northwest branch of the Beagle Channel.

Islands
The Beagle Channel is between islands covering a much larger area; to the north lies Argentine-Chilean Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, to the south Hoste, Navarino, and Picton and Nueva, which were claimed by Argentina until 1984. The latter two lie at the bi-national eastern entrance to the channel while the western entrance is wholly inside Chile. The western entrance of Beagle Channel is divided by Gordon Island into two channels. Some minor islands exist inside the channel among them Snipe Islet and Gable Island. Except for eastern Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego and Gable Island all islands mentioned here belong to Chile.

History

The Yaghan peoples settled the islands along the Murray Channel approximately 10,000 years before present. There are notable archaeological sites indicating such early Yaghan settlement at locations such as Bahia Wulaia on Isla Navarino, site of the Bahia Wulaia Dome Middens.

Naming and Darwin visit
The channel was named after the ship HMS Beagle during its first hydrographic survey of the coasts of the southern part of South America which lasted from 1826 to 1830. During that expedition, under the overall command of Commander Phillip Parker King, the Beagle captain Pringle Stokes committed suicide and was replaced by captain Robert FitzRoy. The ship continued the survey in the second voyage of Beagle under the command of captain FitzRoy, who took Charles Darwin along as a self-funding supernumerary, giving him opportunities as an amateur naturalist. Darwin had his first sight of glaciers when they reached the channel on 29 January 1833, and wrote in his field notebook  "It is scarcely possible to imagine anything more beautiful than the beryl-like blue of these glaciers, and especially as contrasted with the dead white of the upper expanse of snow."

Beagle conflict
Several small islands (Picton, Lennox and Nueva) up to the Cape Horn were the subject of the long-running Beagle conflict between Chile and Argentina; by the terms of a Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1984 between Chile and Argentina they are now part of Chile. From the 1950s to 1970s several incidents involving the Chilean and Argentine navies occurred in the waters of the Beagle Channel, for example the 1958 Snipe incident, the 1967 Cruz del Sur incident and the shelling of Quidora the same year. See List of incidents during the Beagle conflict.

Beagle Channel in the Fine Arts 
 As a ship's painter, Conrad Martens drew and created watercolour paintings in 1833 and 1834 during the second voyage of HMS Beagle in Tierra del Fuego.

Fauna
Beagle Channel is a prominent area to watch rare, endemic dolphins.  Wildlife seen in the channel include:

Mammals:

 South American sea lion
 South American fur seal
 Peale's dolphin
 dusky dolphin
 Commerson's dolphin
 Risso's dolphin
 Burmeister's porpoise
 spectacled porpoise

Birds:

 Magellanic penguin
 southern rockhopper penguin
 upland goose
 kelp goose
 crested duck
 great grebe
 flying steamerduck
 flightless steamerduck
 black-faced ibis
 black-crowned night-heron
 imperial shag
 rock shag
 Neotropic cormorant
 black-chested buzzard-eagle
 turkey vulture
 Andean condor
 crested caracara
 chimango caracara
 white-throated caracara
 striated caracara
 Magellanic oystercatcher
 blackish oystercatcher
 southern lapwing
 rufous-chested plover
 Baird's sandpiper
 white-rumped sandpiper
 brown-hooded gull
 dolphin gull
 South American tern
 kelp gull
 Chilean skua
 Magellanic diving-petrel
 common diving-petrel

Gallery

See also
 Beagle conflict
 Beagle Channel cartography since 1881

References

Further reading

 C. Michael Hogan (2008) Bahia Wulaia Dome Middens, Megalithic Portal, ed. Andy Burnham
 
 Sergio Zagier (2006) Patagonian & Fuegian Channels Map: Chilean Fjords Cruise Chart – Cape Horn, Ushuaia, Magellan Strait,  Zagier & Urruty Publishers  
 (2006) Omora Ethnobotanical Park and Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve

Straits of the Atlantic Ocean
Straits of the Pacific Ocean
Straits of Argentina
Straits of Chile
Landforms of Tierra del Fuego
Bodies of water of Magallanes Region
Landforms of Tierra del Fuego Province, Argentina
Argentina–Chile border
International straits
HMS Beagle