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For almost two decades, Robert Watt has been putting a uniquely Canadian twist on the medieval art of heraldry.

As Chief Herald of Canada, he has produced personalized coats of arms for prime ministers, governors-general and countless other prominent Canadians.

But when Mr. Watt, 61, retires at the end of the week, he'll leave behind a body of work that goes far beyond knightly helmets and mythical dragons.

Mr. Watt has produced coats of arms in which unicorns and manticores 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.

Mr. 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 Mr. Kwong's birth name, Lim Kwong Yew.

Linda Thom, the Olympic shooting medalist, 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 former 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."

Governor-General Michaëlle 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."

Mr. 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.

Mr. Watt has been the Chief Herald since the inception of the Canadian Heraldic Authority in 1988.

He began his career as an archivist, and later became a museum curator in Vancouver. Along the way, Mr. Watt developed a personal interest in heraldry and worked with Vancouver-area communities on their coats of arms before parlaying it into a full-fledged career.

He and the other heralds 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.

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," Mr. 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.

Other Canadians must apply, with a biography, a record of service and at least two references.

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

As in so many things, the challenge in heraldry 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," Mr. Watt 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."

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

"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," he said.

In other countries, heraldry is linked to family names through male heirs - but not here.

Canadian women can get their own coats of arms and pass them to their heirs, 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," Mr. Watt said.

"No one else has ever done that."

Armed glossary

The language of heraldry is called blazon and derives from an archaic form of Norman French.

A brief glossary of some terms:

Argent Silver, usually seen

as white on a coat of arms.

Bend A diagonal bar running across the shield from upper left to lower right.

Bend sinister A bar running from upper right to lower left.

Bezant A gold circle

representing a coin.

Chequy A checkerboard design.

Chevron A V-shaped bar.

Gouttes Tear-drop shapes.

Griffin A mythical beast

with the head, chest and claws

of an eagle with ears and the hindquarters of a lion.

Gules Red.

Hippogriff A mythical beast with the front of an eagle

and the hindquarters of a horse.

Fess A horizontal bar.

Pale A vertical bar running down a shield.

Proper Describing objects shown in their natural colours.

Rampant An animal rearing up with one back foot on the ground.

Sable Black.

Saltire An X-shaped cross.

Sejant A sitting animal.

Tincture The various colours which make up a coat of arms.

Wyvern A two-legged dragon.

Canadian Press