‘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.’
‘Sometimes,’ I suggest to Cai Sepulis, my TOQUE Partner and breakfast companion, ‘familiarity feels so good.’ I push a morsel of perfectly fried egg onto my fork with my knife and continue: ‘And this place conveys it.’ I deliver the egg to my mouth. Morning sunlight catches my utensil. I blink. Smile. Take another bite. Enjoy.
As we tear across open countryside somewhere between Guelph and Caledon – red and orange and gold autumn leaves flying up in our wake – I think to myself that it doesn’t get much more Canadian than this. Two folks from a company called TOQUE visiting an apple orchard and cidery. During harvest. As we approach our destination I can feel the anticipation building.
‘So you’re basically in the Hall of Fame, then?,’ I inquire with equal parts wonderment and envy – my eyes as big as baseballs. It’s a question I never thought I’d be posing on such a gorgeous autumn morning. Or on any morning, for that matter. After all, it’s a rare day that you get to meet a Hall of Famer. ‘Well,’ Sean replies, ‘not me, per se. But without hesitation, I shoot back (sincerely): ‘Good enough for me.’
It’s a quiet morning on James Street North in Hamilton and the air is still damp from last night’s storm. A slight fog lingers in the air. I marvel at the iconic, round Mulberry Street Coffeehouse sign swinging above me and take a few photos before going in. ‘That sign used to be a table,’ managing partner Ella Shepherd will inform me later over food and drinks. ‘And that one,’ she'll add, pointing to a big neon ‘M’ that sits above another door, ‘is from an old Shopper’s Drug Mart sign.’ Handcrafted personal touches – and traces of re-purposing – are everywhere.
‘Let me get this straight,’ I exclaim to Ryan James over americanos in the small hamlet of Morriston, at The Folklore Barber & Company – Nathaniel Shields’ booming business offering classic men’s grooming services fueled by coffee and conversation. I continue: ‘You’re telling me that just over three years ago you’d never even worked with leather?’
‘Nothing in this studio is safe,’ artist Heather Kocsis says with a laugh, holding up the tattered cage of an electric fan missing over half of its radiating spokes. ‘When I realized the spokes would be perfect for a staircase I was building, I cut them free from their cage and used them in my piece.’ She pauses, before adding (with a grin): ‘I had to buy a new fan, of course. But the piece looks great.’
We follow the group ahead of us down the narrow flight of stairs from street level into the subterranean world below. Behind us, the humming sights and sounds of Elora’s Mill Street. Ahead of us, something completely different – yet no less inviting. The thrum of chatter, laughter, and The New Pornographers’ ‘Champions of Red Wine’ beckons us forward.
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.
