Ancud Gulf

The Gulf of Ancud lies between the island of Chiloé and the mountainous Chilean mainland. Channels, islands and deep inlets form a sheltered inland sea, though strong tides move through the narrow passages connecting it to the Pacific. Indigenous navigators traveled these waters in canoes long before Spanish settlement began in Chiloé in 1567. Sea routes remained essential to the communities scattered across the archipelago and its deeply indented shores.