Charles William Barkley

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Charles William Barkley (1759 – 16 May 1832) was a ship captain and fur trader.

Barkley went to sea with his father at an early age as a sailor with the East India Company. He made many voyages and, after he was married in 1786, he left the company and took command of his own ship. He and his wife left for the Pacific via Cape Horn that year and reached Nootka Sound, on the west coast of British Columbia the following June.

Barkley traded and explored that western coast extensively. He rediscovered the strait first described by Juan de Fuca and named the strait as such on his chart. The discovery was important in that Captain James Cook had insisted that this passage did not exist.