Snipe Islet
The Snipe Islet is a small rocky islet with sparse vegetation located at the northern entrance to Picton Pass in the Beagle Channel, between Navarino Island, Picton Island, and the Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego. It belongs administratively to the commune of Cabo de Hornos, Antártica Chilena Province, Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica Region. Possession of the islet was part of the Beagle conflict between Chile and Argentina and was the scene of a major incident between the two countries.
History
The Yaganes, a canoe-faring indigenous people of the region, were the first humans to sight and set foot on the islet.In the 1820s and 1830s, the brig HMS Beagle, under Robert FitzRoy, sailed through the Beagle Channel, passing near the islet.
In 1881, Chile and Argentina signed a treaty delimiting their border, but disagreements later arose, particularly in the area where the small rocky formation is located.
Both countries began disputing sovereignty rights in the region, with the islet claimed by both. At its eastern mouth, the Beagle Channel splits into two arms with separate outlets; Chile argued that the international boundary should follow the northern arm, known as the Moat Channel; Argentina, however, maintained that the southern arm or Picton Pass—being deeper and running between Navarino and Picton Islands, and then between Picton and Lennox—was the correct course for defining the border. Consequently, Picton and Nueva would lie not south of the Beagle Channel but to its northeast, and under the Treaty of 1881 between Chile and Argentina would belong to Argentina.
Argentina also claimed the Picton, Lennox, and Nueva group on the grounds that they lay in Atlantic Ocean waters, while Chile maintained that all disputed islands and waters belonged to the Pacific Ocean, in line with its theory of natural ocean division or the Scotia Arc.