Adopted 3 April 1934 on C.340, as submitted by Hydrographic Service; not "Deception Pass" as labelled on earlier charts.

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

Re-named by H.D. Parizeau, Hydrographic Service, to avoid confusion with another nearby "Deception Passage", after Walter T. Dawley, from Victoria, who was a trader in the Clayoquot area, with his main establishment on Stubbs Island. He was also the area's first Mining Recorder, 1898, until 1924.

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

"With a man named Stockham, [Dawley] salvaged lumber from shipwrecks at Long Beach to build the store and hotel on a small island adjacent to Opitisaht Indian village. They bought out the store at Clayoquot across the bay from Tofino. With the arrival of white settlers at Tofino, these two partners eventually opened trading posts at Ahousat, Nootka, and Neuchatlitz. Stockham disposed of his interests shortly afterwards, and Dawley continued, [becoming] justice of the peace, post master, and the first mining recorder on the West Coast."

Source: Middleton, Lynn; Place Names of the Pacific Northwest Coast; Elldee Publishing Company, Victoria, 1969