Canadian Herald mixes old and new to create coats of arms for modern day

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This article was published 24/06/2007 (6678 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA (CP) – In Canada, heraldry has gone far beyond the helmets, unicorns and dragons of old, with stylized circuit diagrams, footballs and even kitchen whisks appearing on coats of arms.

For Robert Watt, the Chief Herald of Canada, heraldry is a modern art blending old and new in uniquely Canadian coats of arms.

He’s produced coats of arms where mythical beasts have been supplanted by Canadian musk oxen, loons, seals and moose. Aboriginal eagles, a lightning bolt symbolic of a TV career and wheat sheaves have also appeared on Canadian crests.

The coat of arms of Normie Kwong, the former Edmonton Eskimos running back and now lieutenant-governor of Alberta, features three footballs on a green-and-gold design that reflects the colours of his old team. Kwong’s arms also feature two unique “supporters” – the figures on each side of the shield – which are half Chinese dragon and half Albertosaurus. The dragons are known as Lim dragons, reflecting Kwong’s birth name, Lim Kwong Yew.

Linda Thom, the Olympic shooting medallist, has a shield featuring four pistols and four kitchen whisks – she’s also a cordon bleu cook – and the motto: Shoot Straight.

Peter Irniq, the second commissioner of Nunavut, has a coat of arms that displays an inukshuk and is topped with a furry parka hood instead of the traditional helmet.

Canadian mottoes, the words under or over the shield, also tend to be terse and multilingual.

Pierre Trudeau: “Provide counterweights.”

Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean: “Briser les solitudes” (Breaking down solitudes).

Commons Speaker Peter Milliken: “Je regard bien” (I look carefully).

Iona Campagnolo, former B.C. lieutenant-governor: “With change is peace.”

Kwong: “Strive to excel.”

Other coats of arms include mottoes in Gaelic, Hebrew and aboriginal languages.

What began eight centuries ago simply as a way of letting armoured, helmeted knights tell friend from foe on the battlefield or in tournaments has evolved into a commemoration of lives lived, couched in highly stylized art work.

Watt has been the chief herald – the first person to hold the job – for almost two decades. He and the other heralds of the Canadian Heraldic Authority work through the Governor General’s office to create coats of arms, flags and badges for hundreds of individuals, schools, churches, synagogues, military units and corporations.

He’s retiring at the end of this week at the age of 61.

Now, not everybody can get a coat of arms.

“For individuals in Canada, since this is part of the Canadian honours system, eligibility is determined based on service to the community,” Watt said.

Some – prime ministers, governors general and lieutenant governors, senior members of the Order of Canada or other national orders – are entitled to a coat of arms. Others must apply, with a biography, a record of service and at least two references.

Once the OK is given, Watt or one of his fellow heralds step in to help with the design.

As in so many things, the challenge is keeping it simple.

“We quite often run into a situation where people are too eager to put in too much and the thing falls apart,” he said. “We have to move people away from clutter to a simple approach.

“In any life there’s so much that can be said, that you might represent in symbols, but you can’t put it all in there.”

Watt has been chief herald since’88, when Canada decided to set up its own heraldic system. Before then, Canadians seeking a coat of arms had to go to one of two heraldic offices in Britain: the College of Arms in London or the Court of the Lord Lyon in Edinburgh.

Watt saw that heraldry had to change to work in Canada. After all, there were never any shield-toting knights on horseback here.

“If we bring it here, we have to reshape it. We have to make sure it responds to where we are artistically,” he said.

“Whatever we do with heraldry has to work for us as a people, it has to be consistent with our laws, our society, where we’re going as a nation. I think we’ve been able to do that.”

In other countries, heraldry is linked to family names through male heirs. Not here.

Canadian women can get their own coats of arms and pass them to their heir, male or female.

“What that means is that Canadian coats of arms are not arms of the name, they are arms of the blood, which is revolutionary in world terms. No one else has ever done that.”

Watt works in an arcane language called “blazon” which uses a vocabulary derived from archaic Norman French to describe coats of arms. In blazon, gules means red, sable is black. Among other positions, beasts can be rampant – rearing with one rear paw on the ground – or couchant – lying down with head raised.

A diagonal bar running down the shield from left to right is a bend. If it runs right to left, it’s a bend sinister. A fess is a horizontal bar across the shield.

For Watt and his heralds – and the freelance artists who do the actual painting of the crests – it’s a convenient shorthand.

“It’s fabulously handy, because it means that you can describe a symbol that’s quite complex and quite colourful in a very, very few phrases and that’s advantageous,” he said.

“I can take that language and fax it anywhere on earth to artists that understand it and they will get back to me with the correct symbol.”

The blazon of the Canadian flag, for instance, is: “Gules, on a Canadian pale argent, a maple leaf of the first.”

“If I took that blazon and sent it all over the place, say to 50 different artists in 20 different countries, they would all send back the correct thing.”

There might be some differences, he said, but they would be the sort of differences you might hear from a dozen musicians playing them same score with their own interpretations. It’s the same tune, but with personal twists.

“It’s one of the reasons that heraldry has survived so many centuries, because it’s so beautiful and so useful and versatile.”

Watt began as an archivist. He later became a museum curator in Vancouver. Along the way, he developed a personal interest in heraldry and worked with Vancouver-area communities on their coats of arms.

In’88, he parlayed that hobby into a career.

The chief herald has six others working with him, each with a title derived from a river. The Fraser and Coppermine heralds, for instance, are artists who work on coats of arms for public figures and institutions and who consult with the freelance artists who do most of the work for individuals and private institutions. The Saint-Laurent herald is the registrar of the heraldic authority. There is also a deputy chief herald.

The herald chancellor and deputy herald chancellor – respectively the secretary and deputy secretary respectively to the Governor General – issue the formal warrants for coats of arms.

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Strict process to be followed in getting a formal coat of arms in Canada:

Ordinary Canadians, institutions or corporations can apply for a coat of arms.

For individuals, the process begins with an application to the Chief Herald of Canada, which must include proof of citizenship, a biographical sketch with background, education and details of voluntary and community service and the names of two references.

If the chief herald gives the OK, it goes to the secretary or deputy secretary to the Governor General for final approval and the issuing of a formal warrant.

The application then goes to one of the heralds, who will work with the recipient on the design of the coat of arms.

A freelance artist who works with the heralds will be contracted to provide the artwork.

The last step is the preparation of what are know as letters patent, the formal document granting the coat of arms, describing it in traditional heraldic terms and including a representation.

The process costs between $2,000 and $4,000, depending on the design and how the letters patent are produced – calligraphy and 24-carat gold embellishments add to the costs. The price includes a $435 processing fee.

It takes 12 to– months to produce a coat of arms.

“It is important to remember that grants of armorial bearings are made by the Crown to be valid forever,” the Canadian Heraldic Authority says. “As a result, a sufficient amount of time is required to complete each grant.”

All the details are available at the authority’s Web site at www.gg.ca/heraldry/index-e.asp.

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People who produce coats of arms are called heralds. The language of their art is called blazon and derives from an archaic form of Norman French dating back centuries to the days of armoured chivalry. A brief glossary of some blazon terms:

Argent:(at) Silver, usually seen as white on a coat of arms.

Azure:(at) Blue.

Bend:(at) A diagonal bar running across the shield from upper left to lower right.

Bend sinister:(at) A bar running from upper right to lower left.

Bezant:(at) A gold circle representing a coin.

Chequy:(at) A checkerboard design.

Chevron:(at) A V-shaped bar.

Gouttes:(at) Tear-drop shapes.

Griffin:(at) A mythical beast with the head, chest and claws of an eagle with ears and the hindquarters of a horse.

Gules:(at) Red

Hippogriff:(at) A mythical beast with the front of a griffin and the hindquarters of a horse.

Fess:(at) A horizontal bar.

Or:(at) Gold, usually seen as yellow.

Pale:(at) A vertical bar running down the shield.

Proper:(at) Describing objects shown in their natural colours.

Rampant:(at) Describing an animal rearing up with one rear foot on the ground.

Sable:(at) Black.

Saltire:(at) An X-shaped cross.

Sejant:(at) Describing a sitting animal.

Tincture:(at) The various colours which make up a coat of arms.

Vert:(at) Green.

Wyvern:(at) A two-legged dragon.