The Midnight Watchman — Chris Marchment
Not a flag. Not a border. Not what we stand against, but what we stand for. For more than a century and a half, Canadians have asked the same four-word question and never quite answered it: what is a Canadian? Most of us reach first for “we’re not Americans” — a strange way to describe yourself, by pointing at your neighbour. Others reach for hockey, the maple leaf, or a double-double on the way to work. These things are real, but none of them can carry the weight of the question.
In this companion to Dominion: North of Dependence, the Midnight Watchman takes his own “I Am Canadian” declaration line by line and gives the question an honest answer: a people of many nations bound by a promise rather than blood, a land held in trust under God, a debt still owed to the First Peoples, and the quiet courage that winter teaches. Along the way he visits the rink, the road, the river, and the cenotaph.
Honest about our failures and hopeful about our calling, this is Book Two of the Canadian Identity series, written for every Canadian who has ever been asked who we are and struggled to answer. It closes with the full text of the declaration.
Psalm 72:8 (ESV)
“May he have dominion from sea to sea, and from the River to the ends of the earth!”
Contents
Part One — Who We Are
- A Question Without an Answer
- Nations, Not One Nation
- A Name From a Psalm
Part Two — What We Steward
- Coast to Coast to Coast
- This Land Was Never Ours to Possess
- The Debt We Have Not Paid
- A Neighbour’s Need Is a Shared Debt
Part Three — What We Practise
- Elders and Children Under One Roof
- The Rink, the Road, the River
- Winter Teaches What Summer Cannot
Part Four — What We Vow
- The God Invoked at Our Founding
- Liberty Joined to Duty
- Those Who Serve
- Identity Under Pressure
- One People Under the Maple Leaf
Closing: the “I Am Canadian” Declaration
We are a village of villages — and that is our strength, not our weakness.