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.
What do I carry in a day? Honestly, when I finally empty my pockets, it's more than I realize. My work shifts constantly: design, art direction, illustration, and running a print magazine while maintaining my own art practice, prepping for shows, building new work, keeping the ideas moving. My kit isn't really a kit. I'm more of a crow, collecting as I go – drawn to things that are useful, beautiful, or just too good to leave behind.
Long before 'clean beauty' became a global marketing mantra, Cocoon Apothecary was quietly perfecting plant-based skincare in a basement lab in Waterloo Region.
Sometimes a development project comes along so bold and ambitious that it promises to transform an entire community. In London’s Old East Village such an initiative is taking shape: the redevelopment of 100 Kellogg Lane. For over a century — from 1913 to 2014 — this million-square-foot factory produced up to twenty-seven different Kellogg’s cereals: from Frosted Flakes to Raisin Bran.
‘I feel as though the weight of the world has just been lifted from my shoulders,’ I say to Liz with a chuckle, dropping my well-traveled Filson luggage onto the cool, poured concrete floor. I exhale, take a slow look around, and then step fully into the spacious, design-forward oasis. It’s the peacefulness of the space that hits me first: it’s utterly serene, as though the entire suite has been acoustically tuned to quiet my thoughts.
‘I’m jumping in,' I exclaim to Liz as I launch off the wooden dock and sail through the air. Within a short second I hit the water – disturbing, with circular ripples, the glassy surface of a pristine corner of Grass Lake near Burk’s Falls just north of Muskoka. Before long I see Liz a few metres away, deftly navigating a paddleboard with our intrepid husky Ellie standing proud behind her.
In early September, on what turned out to be the first glorious ‘sweater weather’ weekend of the season, Willibald Farm Distillery & Brewery hosted its inaugural charity car show: Willibald Motorfest.
‘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 Guelph native Greg Cox found himself with an opportunity to purchase Crossfit 1827 – the gym where he’d been an active member for four years – he jumped at it. After all, this Royal City community hub was like a second home for Greg: a place where he had forged many close friendships in the heat of physically-challenging, high-intensity fitness classes – as well as after-class chit chat.
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.
