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.
When I was a kid growing up in Kitchener, my dad used to pile my brother and me into the back seat of our ancient 1971 Mercury Marquis Brougham (a true ‘land barge’) and drive us downtown. Not to hit up the park for ice cream. Or to go to the movies. Instead, he’d tour us around the outskirts of the core – pointing out the old factories and historic buildings that had once played a prominent role in the city’s rise to fame as an industrial powerhouse.
As we meander past an amazing number of stalls featuring fresh produce, grass fed meat and handmade crafts on a busy Thursday afternoon at the St. Jacobs Farmers’ Market, I cannot help but feel a bit like royalty. Mennonite royalty. (A contradiction in terms, to be sure, since historically Mennonites rejected any formal connections to their magisterial rulers. But I digress.) Everywhere we go, folks either wave, call out hello, or emerge from behind their stalls to strike up a conversation.
We do not tend to equate tattoos with comfort. Irritation, yes. And a little pain too. Yet for so many folks, getting tattooed is a deliberate – and tangible – act of transformation. Memorialization. Healing. And, ultimately, comfort.
And tattoo artists? These individuals are highly exalted – esteemed as much for their counsel as for their creativity. We managed to catch up with three of our region’s prolific tattoo artists at work – to memorialize those who work in memorialization.
I can still recall the first time I came upon Seth’s house. You know – Seth. The famous and enigmatic Guelph-based cartoonist and graphic novelist and, increasingly, visual artist of all sorts. (If you’re not familiar with his extensive – and greatly valued – works, a good place to start is in the stacks at The Bookshelf in Guelph. Or on the building’s exterior wall, which features a massive mural by this gifted storyteller and graphic artist.)
‘Those are like my Wayne Gretzky rookie cards right there,’ remarks master toolmaker Konrad Sauer with a laugh, gesturing toward six boxes filled with what appear to be neatly arranged, squared wooden sticks. At least a few hundred of them in total. Each measuring around one-by one inch and no more than a couple feet long.
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.
