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.

Much of Bawlf provocative thesis was based on the geographical info that started to leak following Drake return in England and showing up in subsequent maps such as Ortelius.

Fuca's story would have originated from a pilot named Morera part of Drake expedition that miraculously returned on his own before getting arrested by the Spanish.

; Existence of the Strait of Juan de Fuca confirmed by Captain Charles Barkley, Washington Secretary of State; Hayes, Derek (1999).

[3] In the eastern entrance to the Strait, the Race Rocks Archipelago is in the high current zone halfway between Port Angeles, Washington, and Victoria, BC.

An international vehicle ferry, the MV Coho, crosses the Strait from Port Angeles, Washington, to Victoria, British Columbia, several times each day.

It began operating in 1959, replacing an earlier ferry, and remains privately owned;[6] the Coho carried 475,000 passengers and 130,000 vehicles in 2018.

[10] In addition, the government of British Columbia has rejected both equidistant proposals, instead arguing that the Juan de Fuca submarine canyon is the appropriate "geomorphic and physiogeographic boundary".

[12][13] In March 2008, the Chemainus First Nation proposed renaming the strait the "Salish Sea", an idea that reportedly met with approval by British Columbia's Aboriginal Relations Minister Mike de Jong, who pledged to put it before the BC cabinet for discussion.

Some Pacific Coast murres paddle north to the sheltered bays of the Strait of Juan de Fuca to feed on herring and other small fish.

Humpback whales can be observed near the western end of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, mostly from June to November, especially in areas near Neah Bay and La Push.

There is a resident (non-nomadic) population of killer whale in the Strait and surrounding waters, where they feed on spawning Chinook salmon.