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.
Today's mainstream luxury watch world is largely defined by restraint: staid aesthetics, conservative design, and glacial progression. Place a vintage Rolex Submariner next to its modern counterpart and try to spot the difference. Not easy, right? Repeat this action with a vintage Omega Speedmaster and you'll find the same pattern.
I'm a sucker for multi-tools. They colonize my life the way good gear should: a cycling tool in every bike bag, a handful of Swiss Army knives rattling in kitchen drawers, and at least two larger multi-tools permanently stationed in my Land Cruiser – one in the centre console, another tucked into a rear compartment beside a plug-in pump (for inflating river tubes in warmer months) and a heavy-duty tow strap (for hauling neighbours out of snowbanks when winter tightens its grip).
‘I’m so excited for this first bite,’ Cai announces as she slices her spoon through a thick layer of emmental and into the steaming broth below – a wonderful mélange of rich meat stock, gently fried onion, and sourdough crouton. I am not surprised that she’s pumped. After all, I’ve heard Cai wax poetic about french onion soup for years.
I’m sitting in the sprawling loft that is Charlotte McKeough’s Hespeler studio – an industrial backdrop to the minimalist fabrics and pastel-coloured equipment that fill the space – studying a photo in an old issue of House & Garden. It’s a scene of Marc Jacobs’ Paris apartment: his beloved Dalmatian sitting next to a mod red chaise longue, and Charlotte’s flagship Brave Brown Bag perched atop the chaise.
The simple pleasure of gliding across a quiet lake with nothing but one small vessel and self-power to get you from campsite to portage, from campsite to campsite, is a ritual so dear to me. Ever since I was a kid, my summers have always been full of backcountry canoe trips. I’d take these outings with my family - my mom, dad, two brothers, and me.
On the outskirts of downtown Kitchener, in the back recesses of a converted industrial building that’s now home to a handful of tech start-ups and one killer coffee shop, Curt Crossman and Joe Zimmer of Civilian Screen Printing are busy doing their part to uplift a community – one t-shirt at a time. Meanwhile, across our region in a cozy studio space tucked behind storefronts somewhere in downtown Guelph, Graeme Deroux of Alpine Print Company is doing much the same.
‘When we’re rolling at full steam, we can fill eight of these bottles each minute. By hand.’ I’m staring down at the pop-up table where John O’Hara – head distiller at Spring Mill Distillery – and his colleague, Leonardo (LJ) Nolfo, are working. I watch as LJ uses a single fine-tipped metal nozzle to fill a series of thirty-millilitre bottles, one at a time. With eighty percent ethyl alcohol. Hand sanitizer.
IF YOU’VE NEVER TAKEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO VISIT DANA SHORTT GOURMET AND GIFTS ON BRIDGEPORT IN WATERLOO, IT’S HIGH TIME YOU MAKE THE TRIP. FROM READY-MADE AND PACKAGED MEALS (INCLUDING ‘NEW PARENTS RESCUE’ AND ‘THINKING OF YOU’ MEAL PACKAGES) TO CONFECTIONARIES AND GROCERIES (‘AGED CHEDDAR + CAYENNE SHORTBREAD’ AND ‘BLACK MISSION FIG BALSAMIC VINEGAR’, ANYONE?) TO GIFTS (‘THE PAIN RELIEVER’ AND ‘LITTLE SPROUT’ GIFT BASKETS ARE ALWAYS A HIT), DANA SHORTT HAS MUCH TO OFFER – NOT TO MENTION A WEBSITE THAT’S FILLED WITH FANTASTIC RECIPES, INCLUDING DIRECTIONS FOR ‘WILD MUSHROOM RISOTTO’, ‘TOFU WITH LEEKS AND PEANUT SAUCE’, ‘BANANA CREAM PIE’, AND MORE.
‘I’m naturally inclined to be an artist,’ Tim remarks, pulling on the cigarette that hangs loosely from the corner of his mouth. ‘Everything else,’ he sighs, ‘is just effort.’
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.
