 It was named in 1787 by the maritime fur trader Charles William Barkley, captain of "Imperial Eagle", for Juan de Fuca, the Greek navigator who sailed in a Spanish expedition in 1592 to seek the fabled Strait of Anián.Barkley was the first non-indigenous person to find the strait, unless Juan de Fuca's story was true.The strait was explored in detail between 1789 and 1791 by Manuel Quimper, José María Narváez, Juan Carrasco, Gonzalo López de Haro, and Francisco de Eliza.