Cape Beale
Feature Type:Cape - Prominent elevated projection of land extending into a body of water.
Status: Official
Name Authority: BC Geographical Names Office
Relative Location: SE entrance point to Barkley Sound, Barclay Land District
Latitude-Longitude: 48°47'14"N, 125°13'01"W at the approximate centre of this feature.
Datum: WGS84
NTS Map: 92C/14
Origin Notes and History:

Adopted 3 April 1934 on C.327, as labelled on British Admiralty Chart 592, 1862 et seq.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

Named in 1787 by Captain Barkley, after John Beale, purser of the trading ship Imperial Eagle.

Source: BC place name cards, or correspondence to/from BC's Chief Geographer or BC Geographical Names Office

Named in 1787 by Captain Barkley, after John Beale, purser of the trading ship Imperial Eagle. Beale, 2nd mate Miller and the whole of a boat's crew were killed by the Indians in a small river near Destruction Island the same year. Destruction Island was so-named by Captain Barkley from this fact. With reference to the naming of Cape Beale, Captain Meares, trading on this coast in 1788, states in the account of his voyage "...this headland obtained from us the name of Cape Beale" (p.171). Farther on in the volume (Appendix 11) a Mr. John Beale is mentioned, described as a merchant of Canton and the ostensible agent of the expedition, the inference being that Meares named the headland after this gentleman. The coincidence is striking, but the.... authority that the cape was named the previous year is from the diary of Mrs. Barkley, who was with Captain Barkley in the Imperial Eagle. According to (her) diary there was no love lost... between the Barkleys and Captain John Meares.

Source: Walbran, John T; British Columbia Coast Names, 1592-1906: their origin and history; Ottawa, 1909 (republished for the Vancouver Public Library by J.J. Douglas Ltd, Vancouver, 1971)

Note that one Daniel Beale, a merchant of Canton, was a member of the Associated Merchants Trading to the Northwest Coast of America, which group owned the snow Iphigenia Nubiana, trading on this coast in 1788 & 1789; other partners were John Meares, John H. Cox, Richard C. Etches, John W. Etches, William Fitzhugh and Henry Land. (information from Kathleen Dalzell's book "Queen Charlotte Islands - Book 2: of places and names;" Prince Rupert: Cove Press, 1973.) Relationship between the Canton merchants Daniel Beale and John Beale not cited.

Source: included with note

"The small channel [immediately behind Cape Beale] is where the Salmon People people could emerge from the sea, transforming themselves from salmon to human form." (Huu-ay-aht Place Names in the Chief Louie Nookemus historial accounts, c1964, shared September 2009 in the context of the Maa-nulth Treaty.)

Source: included with note