Bute Inlet

Bute Inlet is one of the principal inlets of the British Columbia Coast. It is 80 km long from the estuaries of the Homathko and Southgate Rivers at the head of the inlet, to the mouth, where it is nearly blocked by Stuart Island, and it averages about 4 km in width. Bute Inlet is in a spectacular wilderness setting and is one of the most scenic waterways in the world. In the upper reaches of the inlet mountains rise 9000 feet above sea level. Bute Inlet is a spectacular wilderness that is visited by very few people. In more recent years tourists are travelling from around the world to view grizzly bears in a natural setting and explore the wilderness of Bute Inlet.

Bute Inlet took its name from John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute who was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1762 to 1763. His grandson Charles Stuart was a master's mate on Vancouver's Discovery.

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.

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