Bute Inlet

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Bute Inlet is one of the principal inlets of the British Columbia Coast. It is 80 km long from its head at the mouths of the Homathko and Southgate Rivers to the continental headlands at its mouth, where it is nearly blocked by Stuart Island, and it averages about 4 km in width. If measured to the end of the channel (Calm Channel and Sutil Channel) from there to the Georgia Strait its length is c. 110 km. At that point, the former path of the Bute Glacier is flanked by Quadra Island (W) and Cortes Island (E).

Bute Inlet took its name from John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute who was Prime Minister of Britain from 1713 to 1792. His grandson Charles Stuart was a master's mate on Vancouver's Discovery. ^[1]

Bute Inlet had an interesting role in the early history of the Colony of British Columbia. Entrepreneur Alfred Waddington sought to build a route to the Cariboo goldfields that was shorter and easier than the existing routes via the Fraser Canyon and the Douglas Road. In competition with the projected Cariboo Wagon Road, still under construction at that time, Waddington got a license from the colonial government to undertake the construction of a wagon road from the head of Bute Inlet via the Homathko River to the Chilcotin Plateau, thence east across the Fraser to the Cariboo Goldfields. The plan was that steamers from Victoria would voyage to the head of the inlet, and travellers would take what was to be a toll road overland from there. He was granted a townsite at the head of the inlet (still on maps as Port Waddington but as nothing more than a land survey) and commenced construction up the Grand Canyon of the Homathko from there.

Conflict with warriors of the Tsilhqot'in Nation quickly ensued when Waddington's foreman threatened smallpox on the warriors, who had been working as labourers due to famine in their country, which is over the mountains on the inland side of the range. Discussing his threats that night, the warriors, led by Klatsassin of the Xeni Gwet'in of Nemaia Valley near Chilko Lake, rose up and slaughtered Waddington's work party. Three men escaped and made it to civilization despite severe injuries. As a result of their reports, expeditions were launched by troops from Victoria and a posse of volunteers from the Cariboo and a long bait-and-wait game ensued known to history as the Chilcotin War of 1864. It ended with the surrender on terms of amnesty by Klatsassin, who was betrayed and hung at Quesnellemouthe (near modern-day Quesnel).

The Bute Inlet route was later considered for the mainline of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which would have seen extensive blasting down the west shore of the inlet and a series of bridges to reach Vancouver Island near Campbell River via Seymour Narrows. This route was passed over in favour of the Fraser Canyon route to a new port-city at Burrard Inlet, which was to become the city of Vancouver. The residual political impact of the Chilcotin War was one factor dissuading the CPR from using Bute Inlet; the other was the severe grades required in the Canyon of the River in order to reach the elevation of the Chilcotin Plateau on the inland side of the Coast Range, as well as the cost of blasting along the inlet and the deepwater bridges needed below it.