Esperanza Inlet is an

inlet An inlet is a (usually long and narrow) indentation of a shoreline, such as a small arm, bay, sound, fjord, lagoon or marsh, that leads to an enclosed larger body of water such as a lake, estuary, gulf or marginal sea. Overview In marine geogra ...

on the

West Coast of Vancouver Island West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth. Etymology The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

, Canada. Its entrance is located off the northwest side of

Nootka Island Nootka Island (french: île Nootka) is an island adjacent to Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. It is in area. It is separated from Vancouver Island by Nootka Sound and its side-inlets, and is located within Electoral Area A of the ...

and is defined by a line drawn from Tachu Point to Blind Reef. Until that definition was applied by the

Canadian Hydrographic Service ''Retired Canadian Hydrographic Service logo or crest'' The Canadian Hydrographic Service (CHS) is part of the federal department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada and is Canada's authoritative hydrographic office. The CHS represents Canada in t ...

in 1959, the inlet's entrance was considered to be the area southeast of Catala Island.BC Names/GeoBC entry "Esperanza Inlet (inlet)"
/ref> Among its adjoining branches is

Zeballos Inlet Zeballos Inlet is an extension of Esperanza Inlet in the North Island region of Vancouver Island, Canada. Though inland relative to the outer coast, it is part of the Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's ...

Name origin

Originally charted as "Hope Bay" by Captain

James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean an ...

, defining its opening as being between "Breakers Point" (

Estevan Point Estevan Point is a lighthouse located on the headland of the same name on the Hesquiat Peninsula on the west coast of Vancouver Island, Canada. During World War II, in 1942, the Estevan Point lighthouse was fired upon by the Japanese submarine ...

) and Woody Point ( Cape Cook). This name was adapted into Spanish by

Alessandro Malaspina Alejandro Malaspina (November 5, 1754 – April 9, 1810) was a Tuscan explorer who spent most of his life as a Spanish naval officer. Under a Spanish royal commission, he undertook a voyage around the world from 1786 to 1788, then, from 1789 t ...

whose officers, and

Ciriaco Ceballos Ciriaco Ceballos Neto or Ciriaco Cevallos y Bustillo ( Quijano, Cantabria, 1763 - México, 1816) was a Spanish sailor, explorer and cartographer. The Zeballos River and Zeballos, British Columbia Zeballos (pop. 107) is a village located on the no ...

(the namesake of

), explored this inlet in 1791.

References

{{coord, 49, 51, 30, N, 126, 54, 00, W, display=title Inlets of British Columbia Nootka Sound region Spanish history in the Pacific Northwest