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 the South American sea lion, South American fur seal, Peale's