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In Queen Charlotte Strait

In Queen Charlotte Strait

Last updated on: July 14, 2026 at 7:10 pm by Dan Peterson

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In Queen Charlotte Strait 2026-07-14T19:10:02-06:00 Dan Peterson

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Two sister missionaries (LDS Media Library)

I’m very pleased to pass this report on to you: “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Reaches New Missionary Record”

I’m not pleased at this story: “Stabbing suspect allegedly admits to targeting man in West Valley mall due to his religion.” I’m going to go out on a limb here and venture that Mr. Peter Larsen, the man who stabbed the Muslim victim, did not act as he did out of faithful Christian discipleship. Kudos to those who caught and restrained the assailant.

George Bernard Shaw, Hilaire Belloc, and G.K. Chesterton (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

In the concluding portion of yesterday’s blog entry (“The Kindness Of Strangers”), which was, itself, something of an extension of another recent day’s entry (“Sehnsucht and “Pure Northernness””), I wrote briefly about my failure to share the concern that some religious skeptics commonly raise about immortality or eternal life, that it would eventually grow repetitious and boring.

In response to what I wrote, a reader of this blog who goes by the moniker of Occam’s Razr shared a wonderful quotation from the great G. K. Chesterton that I had seen somewhere before but had forgotten. It makes a rather different point than mine, but I think it’s a good one:

Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

A bull killer whale or orca off the coast of Vancouver Island, in a 2004 Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph

As I write, we’re sailing southward between mainland British Columbia on the port side and Vancouver Island to our starboard. I believe that we’re in the Queen Charlotte Strait. It’s often very narrow and it’s not at all “straight.” (The pilot for the port of Vancouver came aboard the Coral Princess several hours ago, roughly twenty-four hours before our arrival there, so it’s plainly complicated sailing in these parts.) The forested hills and mountains and small coves on both sides of the Strait have been unfailingly beautiful. I had thought that today, a sea day, would be fairly dull because less spectacular. But the water has been smooth like a lake, and we’re traveling through a very pretty landscape that is perhaps a little more to a human scale than what we’ve been seeing before. Perfect weather, and exceedingly pleasant scenery. It’s been (another!) favorite day.

My wife and I decided to spurge for this Alaska cruise, meaning that we have a balcony. And we’ve really used it (and really enjoyed it). Today, we’ve been watching orcas and dolphins, as well as seeing at least one humpback. Actually, we’ve seen several humpbacks from our cruise ship since I last mentioned whale sightings. Probably closer to twenty than to a dozen. My wife even sighted one very close to our boat, maybe thirty-five feet away, but, alas, I was in the shower.

Looking northward across the Strait of San Juan de Fuca toward Vancouver Island
(Wikimedia Common public domain photograph)

I think about names like Queen Charlotte Strait and Prince William Sound that we’ve encountered over the past few days. They confer a kind of fame, obviously. But they also demonstrate that earthly fame is a very poor kind of immortality.

Without looking her up, can you identify the Queen Charlotte for whom this body of water was named? Can you tell us anything about her? And who was the Prince William for whom the Sound was named? (Hint: It’s not the current Prince William, son of King Charles III, husband of Kate, the Prince of Wales and heir to the British throne.)

Queen Charlotte Strait was named in 1786 by James Strange, the leader of a fur-trading expedition, in honor of the consort of King George III. She was originally born Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and she would go on to become Britain’s longest-serving queen consort, serving for 57 years and 70 days

The Sound was named by the ubiquitous Captain James Cook in 1778 to honor George III‘s third son Prince William Henry, who was thirteen years old at the time. Prince William Henry later ascended the throne as William IV, reigning as King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 1830 until his death in 1837.

Do you ever really think about either of these two people, who were once so prominent and so wealthy? Could you have explained any of the above without having Googled it? I certainly couldn’t have.

Human fame and glory are fleeting, at best. Charlotte and William Henry were at the very top of British and world celebrity in their day. In our time, though, they are historical footnotes — for those who pay their names any attention at all. Such thoughts ought to humble us just a bit.

The “Colossi of Memnon” (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

I remember here the poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley that I always share with the tour groups that I take to Egypt when we’re standing before the two so-called Colossi of Memnon on the West Bank of the River Nile, near Luxor. The name Memnon is a misidentification by later Greek visitors to Egypt; over forty feet tall, they’re actually images of Pharaoh Amenhotep III that date to the mid-thirteenth century before Christ. Heavily damaged, they’re essentially all that remains of his mortuary temple, which was once the largest and most grand of all. Here he was, the absolute ruler of the most powerful state in the world. And, now, they’re almost all that’s left.

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Meh. There are too many people anyway. Right? (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

It’s easy to understand how stories like the two below found their way into the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™: Religiosity props up oppressive and obsolete institutions such as marriage, and marriage contributes to world overpopulation and, thus, to the depletion of natural resources, global warming, and the elimination of habitats for endangered species.

Posted from the strait between Vancouver Island and mainland British Columbia

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