Travel tends to sharpen taste. It introduces new ideas, uncovers unforeseen obsessions, and offers the occasional epiphany – nudging your sense of beauty and your grasp of craftsmanship in new directions. For Ryan LeClair, founder of Makoto Watch Company out of London, Ontario, it was travel – and specifically a trip to Japan – that transformed his infatuation with watch collecting into his initiation of a brand built on craft, restraint, and everyday practicality.
Almost nothing we carry defines us more clearly than the books in our bags: tactile objects filled with ideas and stories – testimonies to time well spent. They tag along with us, mark our days, and shape the rhythm of how we move through the world. In Uptown Waterloo, three long-standing independent bookstores – Carry-On Comics & Books (46 years young), Words Worth Books (42 years), and Old Goat Books (25 years) – offer distinct ways to build this bracket of everyday carry: a nostalgia-driven comic haven built for the thrill of discovery, a curated literary hub grounded in conversation, and a densely-packed used bookstore where the search is part of the reward. Together, these enduring fixtures map a reading life – charting not just what we read, but how we come to find it.
In my line of work – as writer, photographer, editor, regional explorer – EDC isn't a trend. It's infrastructure. Most days I'm in motion: tracing backroads toward a brewhouse, mapping my way to an artist's studio, or sliding into the corner of a coffee shop where I turn field notes into final copy and RAW files into photographs that will pop on paper. My office is wherever I set my bag down. My tools make it possible.
At the time of writing this, the future is uncertain, to say the least. Talk of tariffs is giving us whiplash with all its pausing and unpausing, while the flood of news headlines is, quite frankly, exhausting. In the last five minutes alone, I received another alert with tariff updates: this time they’re targeting our cows. (Moo! I mean…Boo!) Dairy jokes aside, it’s hard to predict where this will end and, as much as I hope things will have calmed down by the time you read this, it’s quite possible at least some of the chaos will remain.
I recently heard a story about a grandparent who was leaving a hand-written letter detailing the future inheritance of each of her grandchildren. As much as this grandparent wanted to pass down wealth to the next generation, she also wanted to pass down her story and a piece of history with each gift. I thought this was beautiful: her gesture would humanize the process and the gifts and bring focus back to what matters most.
CAMBRIDGE IS WELL ON ITS WAY TO BECOMING OUR REGION’S PREEMINENT WEDDING DESTINATION – AND WORD IS GETTING OUT. THIS SHOULD COME AS NO SURPRISE. AFTER ALL, THIS IDYLLIC EUROPEAN- ESQUE CITY THAT’S BUILT UP AROUND THE BANKS OF THE MIGHTY GRAND RIVER BOASTS A PLETHORA OF THE KEY INGREDIENTS THAT COUPLES IN LOVE ARE SEARCHING FOR WHEN PLANNING AND LIVING OUT THE DAY OF THEIR DREAMS.
WHEN ‘FRIENDS OF THE MAG’ RAISA AND JON GAVE THEIR WONDERFULLY-RUSTIC CABIN IN KEARNEY, NORTH MUSKOKA, A COMPLETE MAKEOVER, THEY TRANSFORMED IT INTO PAPER BIRCH CABIN – THE MOST SERENE (AND PHOTOGENIC) THREE-BEDROOM
AIRBNB RENTAL COTTAGE IMAGINABLE. DOCK WITH REQUISITE MUSKOKA CHAIRS? CHECK. SCREENED IN PORCH WITH LAKE VIEWS? CHECK. EXPANSIVE WRAP-AROUND DECK?
A classic love story: boy meets girl, boy follows girl [to Japan], boy and girl fall madly in love – over the perfect dish. Ramen. In this story boy (Jared) and girl (Miki) dedicate themselves to learning the traditional craft of ramen from scratch and travel Japan for ‘research’ (read: more ramen).
Travel tends to sharpen taste. It introduces new ideas, uncovers unforeseen obsessions, and offers the occasional epiphany – nudging your sense of beauty and your grasp of craftsmanship in new directions. For Ryan LeClair, founder of Makoto Watch Company out of London, Ontario, it was travel – and specifically a trip to Japan – that transformed his infatuation with watch collecting into his initiation of a brand built on craft, restraint, and everyday practicality.
Almost nothing we carry defines us more clearly than the books in our bags: tactile objects filled with ideas and stories – testimonies to time well spent. They tag along with us, mark our days, and shape the rhythm of how we move through the world. In Uptown Waterloo, three long-standing independent bookstores – Carry-On Comics & Books (46 years young), Words Worth Books (42 years), and Old Goat Books (25 years) – offer distinct ways to build this bracket of everyday carry: a nostalgia-driven comic haven built for the thrill of discovery, a curated literary hub grounded in conversation, and a densely-packed used bookstore where the search is part of the reward. Together, these enduring fixtures map a reading life – charting not just what we read, but how we come to find it.
In my line of work – as writer, photographer, editor, regional explorer – EDC isn't a trend. It's infrastructure. Most days I'm in motion: tracing backroads toward a brewhouse, mapping my way to an artist's studio, or sliding into the corner of a coffee shop where I turn field notes into final copy and RAW files into photographs that will pop on paper. My office is wherever I set my bag down. My tools make it possible.
Stratford – and, by extension, Perth County – lends itself to takeaway. A coffee to carry, a sandwich in hand, something sweet tucked alongside – then out into the streets for window shopping, into the theatres for a performance, or down to the riverbank for a nosh.
