Kwik2Jujj and The Governor

Thursday 21 October is the wedding of His Excellency, The Governor Howard Pearce to his fiancé, Miss Caroline Thomée. Governor Pearce, in case you haven't delved far into the links from this web page, is the top representative of Her Majesty's Government in the Falkland Islands, and exercises executive authority there.

I am almost certain that the wedding is to take place in Christ Church Cathedral in Stanley. It's hard to really know because I can only read the cover pages of the weekly Penguin News online, and those haven't even mentioned the Governor by name in the wedding stories, much less divulged the site of the ceremony. But a webcam portal has been set up, over which I was able to glimpse the wedding rehearsal earlier today. The interior of the Cathedral and the window configuration visible over the webcams match photographs on this site and my own pictures of the Cathedral's exterior from earlier this year. Anyway, the actual ceremony is scheduled to start at 1215 Falklands Summer Time on Thursday (1015 CDT, 1115 for folks in Ohio) in case anyone's interested in stealing a peek.

So, I believe I was about to embark on a rambling story with no real point to it. And I shall. My stay on the Falkland Islands was only one week long, and yet I encountered the Governor on two separate occasions. Permanent Falklands residents might not immediately relate to how charming an occurrence this is. As a Wisconsin resident, I literally go 'round for years and years without seeing our governor. I think I saw Governor Thompson once in all the years of his tenure, and I have yet to encounter Governor Doyle. Of course this has something to do with having millions of fellow citizens instead of just a few thousand, but the twice-in-a-week happenstance was striking nonetheless.

The first and more-noteworthy crossing of paths was near Port Howard, on Monday 01 March 2004. My wife and I were arriving on West Falkland via the Falkland Islands Government Air Service (FIGAS) following our two-night stay at Darwin House. We actually landed at an alternate grass airstrip that day because the regular airstrip nearer the settlement was in use for Camp Sports, the annual all-island late-summer games. As we were disembarking from the Islander nine-seater aircraft and trundling over to a waiting Land Rover from Port Howard Lodge, the Governor was waiting to board the plane for a return to Stanley.

Though the Governor was with another gentleman at the time, it was really quite tempting to briefly intrude - maybe get a photograph. Ken Greenland (of Darwin House) had said of Pearce that "he's really quite personable." But it also seemed at the time that Pearce wasn't having the best day. I had heard that the Governor was on West Falkland to present the Governor's Cup for the horse racing, but it seems he hadn't been able to do so on account of overnight rains muddying the course and delaying the morning's events. So His Excellency was missing the barbeque, not able to present the trophy, and was probably not looking forward to spending the rest of that beautiful Monday in his office at Government House. I declined to barge in on his disappointing day.

I saw the Governor again on Saturday, this time at Mount Pleasant. He was seeing somebody off on the Lan Chile flight that my wife and I were also departing on. If I remember correctly, we were already on board the plane when he appeared on the tarmac. It was another short appearance.

Such were our encounters with Mister Pearce. Nevertheless Mr. Governor, "2 Minute Sidebar" transmits most pleasant wishes from some crazy American who you almost, but didn't quite meet! All the best to you, your new bride, and our Falkland friends.