Bute Inlet is one of the principal inlets of the

British Columbia Coast The British Columbia Coast, popularly referred to as the BC Coast or simply the Coast, is a geographic region of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia. As the entire western continental coastline of Canada ...

. It is 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 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 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 bear The grizzly bear (''Ursus arctos horribilis''), also known as the North American brown bear or simply grizzly, is a population or subspecies of the brown bear inhabiting North America. In addition to the mainland grizzly (''Ursus arctos horr ...

s in a natural setting and explore the wilderness of Bute Inlet.

Name origin

Bute Inlet took its name from

John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute (; 25 May 1713 – 10 March 1792), styled Lord Mount Stuart between 1713 and 1723, was a British Tory statesman who served as the Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1762 to 1763 under George III. He became the ...

who was Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1762 to 1763. His grandson Charles Stuart was a

master's mate Master's mate is an obsolete rating which was used by the British Royal Navy, Royal Navy, United States Navy and merchant services in both countries for a senior petty officer who assisted the sailing master, master. Master's mates evolved into th ...

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

's ''Discovery''.

History

Waddington's Road and the Chilcotin War of 1864

Bute Inlet had an interesting role in the early history of the

Colony of British Columbia The Colony of British Columbia refers to one of two colonies of British North America, located on the Pacific coast of modern-day Canada: * Colony of British Columbia (1858–1866) * Colony of British Columbia (1866–1871) See also * History of ...

. 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 The Fraser Canyon is a major landform of the Fraser River where it descends rapidly through narrow rock gorges in the Coast Mountains en route from the Interior Plateau of British Columbia to the Fraser Valley. Colloquially, the term "Fraser Ca ...

and the

Douglas Road The Douglas Road, a.k.a. the Lillooet Trail, Harrison Trail or Lakes Route, was a goldrush-era transportation route from the British Columbia Coast to the Interior Plateau, Interior (NB another route known as the Lillooet Trail was the Lillooet Cat ...

. In competition with the projected

Cariboo Road The Cariboo Road (also called the Cariboo Wagon Road, the Great North Road or the Queen's Highway) was a project initiated in 1860 by the Governor of the Colony of British Columbia, James Douglas. It was built in response to the Cariboo Gold Rus ...

, 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 A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road for which a fee (or ''Toll (fee), toll'') is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implemented to help recoup the costs of road construction and ...

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 Klattasine of the

Xeni Gwet'in The Xeni Gwet'in, also known as the Stone Chilcotin, are a First Nations people whose traditional territory is located in the southern Chilcotin District of the Canadian province of British Columbia, on the inland flank of the Coast Mountains west o ...

of Nemaia Valley near Chilko Lake, rose up and slaughtered Waddington's work party. Three men escaped despite severe injuries. As a result of their reports, expeditions were launched by troops from Victoria and a posse of volunteers from the

Cariboo The Cariboo is an intermontane region of British Columbia, Canada, centered on a plateau stretching from Fraser Canyon to the Cariboo Mountains. The name is a reference to the Caribou (North America), caribou that were once abundant in the reg ...

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 Klattasine, who was betrayed and hanged at Quesnellemouthe (near modern-day Quesnel).

Proposed Canadian Pacific Railway route

The Bute Inlet route was later considered for the mainline of the

Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway () , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Canadian Pacific Ka ...

(CPR), which would have seen extensive blasting down the west shore of the inlet and a series of bridges to reach

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest ...

near Campbell River via Seymour Narrows. This route was passed over in favour of the

route to a new port-city at

Burrard Inlet Burrard Inlet () is a shallow-sided fjord in the northwestern Lower Mainland, British Columbia, Canada. Formed during the last Ice Age, it separates the City of Vancouver and the rest of the lowland Burrard Peninsula to the south from the coa ...

, which was to become the city of

Port Moody Port Moody is a city in British Columbia, Canada, and a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver Regional District. It envelops the east end of Burrard Inlet and is the smallest of the Tri-Cities, bordered by Coquitlam on the east and south ...

. 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 Homathko River in order to reach the elevation of the

Chilcotin Plateau The Chilcotin Plateau is part of the Fraser Plateau, a major subdivision of the Interior Plateau of British Columbia. The Chilcotin Plateau is physically near-identical with the region of the same name, i.e. "the Chilcotin", which lies between ...

on the inland side of the Coast Range, as well as the cost of blasting along the inlet and the deep water bridges needed below it.

2020 Elliot Creek megatsunami

On 28 November 2020, unseasonably heavy rainfall triggered an

landslide Landslides, also known as landslips, rockslips or rockslides, are several forms of mass wasting that may include a wide range of ground movements, such as rockfalls, mudflows, shallow or deep-seated slope failures and debris flows. Landslides ...

into a

glacial lake A glacial lake is a body of water with origins from glacier activity. They are formed when a glacier erodes the land and then melts, filling the depression created by the glacier. Formation Near the end of the last glacial period, roughly 10,0 ...

at the head of Elliot Creek, generating a

magnitude Magnitude may refer to: Mathematics *Euclidean vector, a quantity defined by both its magnitude and its direction *Magnitude (mathematics), the relative size of an object *Norm (mathematics), a term for the size or length of a vector *Order of ...

5.0 earthquake and a high

megatsunami A megatsunami is an incredibly large wave created by a substantial and sudden displacement of material into a body of water. Megatsunamis have different features from ordinary tsunamis. Ordinary tsunamis are caused by underwater tectonic activi ...

that rushed down Elliot Creek and the Southgate River to the head of Bute Inlet, covering a total distance of over and destroying over of

salmon Salmon (; : salmon) are any of several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the genera ''Salmo'' and ''Oncorhynchus'' of the family (biology), family Salmonidae, native ...

habitat along Elliot Creek.

Political geography

Bute Inlet is located in the Coast Land District, Range 1 and is part of the Sunshine Coast Forest District of the Coast Forest Region, which is headquartered in Powell River, and the Lower Mainland Ministry of Environment Region, headquartered in

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

. It is also within the mainland portion of the Strathcona Regional District, which has only municipal powers such as sewage and building permits on non-

Indian reserve In Canada, an Indian reserve () or First Nations reserve () is defined by the '' Indian Act'' as a "tract of land, the legal title to which is vested in Her Majesty, that has been set apart by Her Majesty for the use and benefit of a band." ...

lands in rural areas. The inlet lies in the overlapping traditional territories and land claims of the Homalco, Klahoose, Kwiakah and We Wai Kai First Nations.

Geology

Bute Inlet in British Columbia is a classic

fjord In physical geography, a fjord (also spelled fiord in New Zealand English; ) is a long, narrow sea inlet with steep sides or cliffs, created by a glacier. Fjords exist on the coasts of Antarctica, the Arctic, and surrounding landmasses of the n ...

formation formed during the

Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

by glacial erosion. Bute Inlet is one of the deepest fjords in British Columbia with its depth of , with a sill of . The majority of freshwater entering the inlet, ~95%, is supplied by the Homathko River and the Southgate River at the head of the fjord. An underwater channel system is incised in the fjord basin sediments which carries sediment to the fjord.David B. Prior, Brian D. Bornhold, and Mark W. Johns; Active sand transport along a fjord-bottom channel, Bute Inlet, British Columbia' Geology, July, 1986, v. 14, p. 581-584, doi:10.1130/00917613(1986)14<581:ASTAAF>2.0.CO;2

References

External links

Bute Inlet
Long Term Trends in Deep Water Properties of BC Inlets, Fisheries and Oceans Canada - Pacific Region
Map
(PDF, 3,5 MB)
hydropower project in Bute Inlet
{{British Columbia hydrography Fjords of British Columbia History of British Columbia South Coast of British Columbia Central Coast of British Columbia Inlets of British Columbia