Stuart Island is located at the mouth of Bute Inlet, east of Sonora Island. Captain George Vancouver named both Stuart Island and Bute Inlet in honour of John Stuart, 3rd Earl of Bute, who was the British Prime Minister from
1762-1763.1
Bute Inlet is notorious for its strong outflow winds and for “Bute wax”, an oily material that
appears on the inlet's surface.2This 1858 despatch notes that Stuart Island's landlocked harbours are a good shelter for a fleet.
1. Andrew Scott, The Encyclopedia of Raincoast Place Names (Madeira Park, BC: Harbour Publishing, 2009), 571.