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The long waitlist for daycare in Prince Edward County has attracted national attention — and funding for an expansion of The Hub Child and Family Centre. In addition to support from Prince Edward Lennox and Addington Social Services, an expansion grant from the joint federal and provincial initiative, Canada Wide Early Learning Child Care means a whole new HUB opens at Base31 in January with licensed spaces for 49 children.

It’s never a good idea to visit a destination expecting it to be some half-baked moniker, like “the Venice of the South” or “the New York of the West Coast.” But when a friend’s wedding brought me to hole up in Ontario’s Prince Edward County earlier this summer, I couldn’t help but fall for a preconceived notion: a sleepy, agrarian region that buzzed with the same creative energy I felt bubbling up in the Hudson Valley some 15 years ago.

Long rows of concrete barracks sprawl across a 70-acre plateau on the edge of Picton. Some have been buffed into sleek venues; others are quietly crumbling, with peeling paint, boarded windows and crooked chimneys. Welcome to Base31, Prince Edward County’s most unexpected cultural destination: a semi-preserved military relic that’s part Second World War ghost town, part creative playground.