Wildlife

A variety of whales and dolphins have been spotted in the archipelago waters including: Peale's dolphins, black dolphins, bottlenose dolphins, humpback whales, minke whales and killer whales.^[10][11] The Gulf of Corcovado to the north of the archipelago is "arguably the largest feeding and nursing ground for blue whales [...] in the entire Southern Hemisphere".^[10] All of this makes Guaitecas Archipelago a privileged place for whale watching.^[10]

Prehistory

Radiocarbon dating of a shell midden in Gran Guaiteca has yielded an age of about 5,100 years B.P. making this a minimum age for human presence in the archipelago.^[16] Lithic artifacts found in the archipelago are usually made of basalt or andesite rock.^[17] In Pre-Hispanic and colonial times the archipelago was inhabited by Chonos, who lived as hunter-gatherers traveling by canoe.^{[14][upper-alpha 1]} The Chono used the many caves found in the archipelago as cemeteries,^[19] where remains were preserved as mummies.^[20]

The islands made up the southern limit of Pre-Hispanic agriculture^[21] as noted by the mention of the cultivation of potatoes by a Spanish expedition in 1557.^{[5][upper-alpha 2][upper-alpha 3]}

Colonial Era

The Spanish, who had settled in Chiloé Archipelago since 1567 launched from there numerous southward expeditions over the next two and half centuries.^{[upper-alpha 4]} These explorations were driven by religious motives in the case of Jesuits and by rumours about settlements made by rival colonial powers as well the search for the mythical City of the Caesars.^[22] In 1662 Jesuit missionary Nicolás Mascardi visited Guaitecas Archipelago constructing a rudimentary church on the islands.^[22] In the 1670s the islands were briefly visited by the expeditions of Bartolomé Gallardo and Antonio de Vea. However, efter this last expedition interest in the area by Spanish religious and military authorities waned until the 1740s.^[24]

Jesuit Mateo Esteban who visited the islands in the 17th century estimated its population at 170 individuals, 120 of which he managed to gather in a meeting.^[25] Following the crushing of the Huilliche rebellion of 1712 in Chiloé a small group of Huilliches went into hiding in Guaitecas Archipelago to avoid harsh Spanish reprimands.^[26]

As result of a corsair and pirate menace, Spanish authorities ordered the depopulation of the archipelago to deprive enemies of eventual support from native populations.^{[27][upper-alpha 5]} This led to the transfer of Chono population to Chiloé Archipelago in the north while other Chonos moved south of Taitao Peninsula effectively depopulating the territory.^[27][23] After this relations between remaining Chonos south of Guaitecas Archipelago and Spaniards and the inhabitants of Chiloé remained hostile up to the 19th century as attested by Enrique Simpson.^[23]

18th and early 19th centuries: "Emptyness"

Following the decline of the Chono populations in the archipelago in the 18th century, the area gained a reputation of "emptyness" among Chileans akin to the description of eastern Patagonia as a "desert."^[29] However, the islands were often visited and traversed in the 19th century by fishermen, lumberjacks, and hunters from Chiloé.^[29] In 1834 during the second voyage of HMS Beagle Robert FitzRoy mapped the archipelago. FitzRoy noted that Puerto Low in the archieplago was permanently inhabited by people from Chiloé, which he did not identify as indigenous.^[29] Explorations sanctioned by the Chilean state begun with navy officer Francisco Hudson in 1857,^[30] Hudson and German settler Franz Fonck made explorations in Guaitecas Archipelago those years.^[31] With Hudson's death in 1859 Francisco Vidal Gormaz continued the explorations, a duty that Enrique Simpson assumed in the 1870s.^[30][32]

Simpson mapped Guaitecas Archipelago onboard of the corvette Chacabuco in the 1870s.^[31] He found FitzRoy's mapping of the northern part of the archipelago fine writing in 1870 that "Fitzroy's chart, that is quite exact until that point [Melinka 43°53' S], is worthless further ahead...". Thus, south of Melinka Simpson relied more in the late 18th century sketches of José de Moraleda y Montero.^[33]

Navy hydrographer Francisco Vidal Gormaz explored and charted the islands in the second half of the 19th century becoming critical of the work of Robert FitzRoy and Charles Darwin whom according to him had failed acknowledge the importance of the Patagonian islands.^[29] It is however clear that many of the explored areas were already known to the inhabitants of southern Chiloé who visited these areas for wood, fish or hunting.^[31][29]

Pilgerodendron Era

Felipe Westhoff, a German-Lithuanian immigrant who operated a Pilgerodendron uviferum logging business from Ancud, founded Melinka in 1860.^[34][35] This was the first permanent settlement in the archipelago.^[34] Chilean authorities granted Westhoff exclusive rights on Pilgerodendron extraction in the archipelago and bestowed him the title of subdelegado marítimo which gave him some duties and authority over the archipelago, in reality it meant little since he did not have the means to enforce the law or his rights.^[34] When Westhoff's time spent in the archipelago diminished in the early 1870s the title of subdelegado marítimo passed to his associate Enrique Lagrèze.^[34][36] After Westhoff's retirement in the 1870s Ciriaco Álvarez rose to prominence as the foremost Pilgerodendron businessman.^[35] The chief export products of Álvarez were poles and vine training stacks that went to northern Chile and Peru.^[4][29][37] Álvarez business owned him the nickname of "The King of Pilgerodendron" (Spanish: El Rey del Ciprés)^[35] and had great effects on the incipient economic development that came to link the archipelagoes of Chiloé, Guaitecas and Chonos.^[29]

Ever since the Pilgerodendron Era the archipelago and the other islands of Patagonia have had a reputation of lawlessness.^[38] Felipe Westhoff wrote:^[38][20]

...Such amount of people have led to violence, abuses, murder and other crimes, which local authorities have not been able to avert due to lack of armed forces at their disposal (...) That amount of peons, not bound, it can be said, godless and lawless, and without anything that hinder them to carry out their caprices or misdeeds

One of the most famous of the early outlaws was Pedro Ñancúpel a pirate who was captured in Melinka in 1886 and bought into justice in Ancud the same year.^[38][39]

19th century inhabitants of Melinka were engaged in fur trade.^[40] Fur was obtained from southern river otter^{[citation needed]} and marine otter. Hunting was made with the aid of dogs. These hunters travelled often south beyond Taitao Peninsula to obtain furs.^[40]

Tourism

On February 3 and 4, a "feria costumbrista" is held at Repollal Alto in Ascención Island.^[44]

Fishermen in Melinka offer combined tours of bird watching and whale watching through the archipelago.^[10]