2. The Beagle Channel


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June 11th 2008
Published: June 13th 2008
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2.1 The Beagle Channel2.1 The Beagle Channel2.1 The Beagle Channel

Taken from above Ushuaia looking east.
Since we commenced our voyage to the Antarctic Peninsular in 2002 from the Beagle Channel, I re-read an edited version of Charles Darwin's 'The Voyage of the Beagle' when I returned home. As I now understand it, Captain Fitzroy and Darwin approached the Beagle Channel through the Murray Channel in whale boats after they had landed the three Fuegians that they had on board at Wulaia just to the south of the Murray Channel. They returned to the Fuegian camp about a week later and again a year later in the Beagle in 1834. They then appear to have sailed eastward along the Beagle Channel at the same time of year as we did, but I can't imagine that they had a more perfect evening. However, I do like to think that Darwin was on deck reflecting on the Fuegians and on the fossils that he had discovered at Punta Alta and elsewhere. The latter included a dozen or so large mammals one of which, the Toxodon, had features of rodents, hoofed mammals and the dugong, but was the size of an elephant.
The three Fuegians that were on board, as well as a fourth who had died of
2.2 The Northern Shore2.2 The Northern Shore2.2 The Northern Shore

Taken from the Polar Pioneer on the Beagle Channel.
smallpox in England, had been picked up by Fitzroy in 1826-30 when he had discovered the Beagle Channel. In their native state, they had no clothes and kept warm by smearing their bodies with seal oil and by carrying fire sticks (hence the name 'Tierra del Fuego' of Magellan). So, did Darwin contemplate the possibility that natural selection had adapted these people physiologically to cope with such an atrocious climate? It seems that the answer is 'yes' although he also seems to have wondered how Europeans became so 'advanced' and, in effect, compared the latter to domestic and the former to wild animals.
Perhaps, then, the contemplation of the Fuegians and of the mammalian fossils was the dawning of the theory of natural selection that was to be confirmed by the finches of the Galapagos Islands and further study at home? What ever the truth of all this it made for an idyllic evening as we cruised eastward on a millpond sea in the summer twilight.






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2.3 The Beagle Channel2.3 The Beagle Channel
2.3 The Beagle Channel

Taken from the Polar Pioneer looking east.
2.4 The Beagle Channel2.4 The Beagle Channel
2.4 The Beagle Channel

Taken from near Ushuaia looking west with Mt Darwin in the distance.
2.5 Our route to the Antarctic Peninsular2.5 Our route to the Antarctic Peninsular
2.5 Our route to the Antarctic Peninsular

Ushuaia is in the north west corner of the map: we cruised eastward along the Argentinean-Chilean border and then turned south.


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