About Us

The art of hand-crafted precision with the highest quality delivered through a timepiece, made in Canada. Starting initially in Toronto, Ontario, the company began with David James' journey to Switzerland to visit family, gaining a true appreciation for fine hand-crafted products, and Swiss engineering. Coming back to Canada, after travelling Europe, Dave moved West from Toronto to Calgary, wanting to create a high quality product that pays tribute to Canada's deep history of railroads, as well as the Swiss mountaineers that supported the exploration of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, helping pave the way for the Canadian Pacific Railway. As an independent watchmaker, learning from expert watchmakers including George Daniels, Roger Smith, Ulysse Nardin, and Louis Nardin, to make a Made in Canada watch with Swiss quality standards. Dave, as the main watchmaker works with a range of Canadian artisans and craftsmen on the dials and other small components and final finishes to bring Enchant Watches to their final form.

History of time keeping in Canada

The first collection is inspired by the history of time through North America, paying tribute to famous Canadian, Sir Sandford Fleming and his contributions to the creation of standard time. As a career, he was a surveyor and engineer for what is now Canadian National Railway and later became chief engineer of proposed Canadian Pacific Railway. 

Up until 1884 when standard time was adopted, every town had its own time based on solar noon, creating significant confusion for railway schedules, for example, if it were noon in Montreal then it was 11:48 a.m. in Kingston and 11:35 a.m. in Toronto. These discrepancies added up to trains that were impossible to schedule. In 1870, Fleming’s solution was brilliantly simple — divide the world into 24 time zones, one for every hour of the day. It was a generalization (each zone was 15 degrees longitude or 500 miles apart) that paradoxically made timetables more precise.

This incident led Fleming to propose a worldwide system of 24 time zones, each spaced 15 degrees longitude apart. He advocated significantly for the system, and was instrumental in the creation of standard time, through the convening of International Prime Meridian in 1884, whereby 27 countries met, and international standard time adopted, still in use today.

Enchant pays tribute to this history, and the first collection of watches called the Canadian Nord, inspired by Sir Stanford Fleming.