💮 Water Lilies on Perth Road ⚽ Hat Trick, Then Promotion 🃏 A Nobel Winner's Card 🍔 Rotary Free BBQ 🗓️ Events 🔦 August 13, 2026

The Cover

💮 On the Cover: Water Lilies on Perth Road

Local Spotlight

🔦 Several amazing local spotlight articles are coming up soon !

Kingston & Area Local News

♻️ Giveaway Day Is Back on Saturday, and the Curb Is the Shop

🐦 A Lemoine Point Meadow Is Being Rebuilt for Two Birds Running Out of Room

🃏 A Nobel Prize Winner Is Now a Trading Card, and Queen’s Will Send You the Deck

Community Champions

🚪 Somebody May Knock This Week Asking You to Give, and There Is a Number to Check Them

🗳️ Ten Sticker Designs, One Public Vote, and It Closes Monday at 4 p.m.

⚽ Jacob Ball Scored Three and the Sentinels Went Up a Division

New Events In and Around Kingston

🗡️ FEATURED EVENT: The First Ironwood Fantasy Fair | The Spire | August 15

🎻 FEATURED EVENT: Two Concerts Left at the Cataraqui Chamber Music Festival | The Spire | August 5 to 18

📚 FEATURED EVENT: Yann Martel and Iain Reid on Their New Novels | The Spire | August 19

🍺 Art on the Farm, August 15 (free), and Back to the Farm (sold out), August 16 | MacKinnon Brothers Brewery, Bath

🌭 One House, Four Doors: Kingston’s Four Rotary Clubs Throw a Free BBQ | Rotary Park | August 23

📷 Your Neighbours Pick the Winner of the Cataraqui Trail Photo Contest | Cataraqui Trail | July 8 to October 30

Events Calendar

It’s gotten too long to include here in the summary! Click Events Calendar to see our list for the next few days.

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Some places might have played on the old surface another season. Our sponsor Kingston Pickleball Club shut its doors for two weeks in July instead, and laid a brand new court floor. The club says it is the first facility in Canada to use the product, and that the same finish turns up under the Australian Open. The replacement paint came from Spain after the first batch arrived in the wrong colour, so they waited for the right one. Volunteers did the rest of the building themselves, cleaning and repairing and reorganising, which is how this club has done everything since it started out on taped lines at Belle Park. That is the standard. Doors reopened August 4.

ICYMI: a handful of players with portable nets and a roll of tape built the club Kingston plays in now. Read the full spotlight on Kingston Spotlight.

We save this space for local businesses worth knowing. Drop us a line.

These are white water lilies, the ones with the yellow centre, photographed on Perth Road, County Road 10, north of Kingston. This is their season, and the good part is that you do not have to drive far for it. Head up almost any road out of the city and the quiet bays and roadside ponds are putting on the same spectacular show. They open on a bright morning and close again by afternoon, so catching them wide open is partly a matter of turning up at the right hour. Go while August lasts.

🔦 Several amazing local spotlight articles are coming up soon, including the comeback story of the Kingston WritersFest, how Awesome Kingston helps fund valuable micro-projects that make our community better, and Adelitaz Mexican Food, now with a regular presence at Portsmouth Olympic Harbour. Plus lots more !

One neighbour’s spare bookshelf is another neighbour’s Saturday win. Kingston’s third Giveaway Day of the year lands on Saturday, August 15: put anything usable you no longer want at the curb, mark it FREE, and let somebody else give it a second life instead of sending it to landfill. Books, clothing, furniture, small appliances, electronics and unloved kitchen gadgets all count. The City of Kingston asks you not to put out cribs, car seats, strollers, playpens, bath seats, mattresses, blinds or toys, following Health Canada’s Consumer Product Safety Bureau advice against giving those away or picking them up. Whatever nobody takes comes back inside at the end of the day, because the City is not picking it up.

Read the full story at: City of Kingston

Twenty-two and a half hectares at the south end of Lemoine Point Conservation Area are being turned back into the grassland they used to be. Shrubs and woody plants crept in over the years, and the bobolink and the eastern meadowlark, both threatened in Ontario, went with them. Cataraqui Conservation has brought in Ducks Unlimited Canada’s Conservation Pro division to clear the gray dogwood, prepare the soil and seed native grasses and wildflowers, work that runs into spring 2027. The north end of the park is unaffected, and closures in the south are short, a few hours or a few days at a time, and get posted on Cataraqui Conservation’s social media with signs at the parking areas and trails.

Read the full story at: Kingston Daily

Somewhere in a Grade 9 classroom this fall, a Nobel Prize winner is going to get played as a card. The Astroparticle Physics Community Card Game comes from Queen’s University’s Arthur B. McDonald Canadian Astroparticle Physics Research Institute, with project partner SNOLAB, and the deck is made of real Canadian researchers: a photo, a note on their work, and a QR code to their professional profile. Arthur McDonald, Nobel laureate and Queen’s professor emeritus, has his own card. Built for Grades 8 to 10, it puts two to four players to work using basic math to combine skill points and staff scientific projects. Creator Zachary Kenny told the Kingston Daily the point is putting science in people’s hands and introducing students to a real person doing real science. The cards are free to download, free to pick up at the Astroparticle Visitor’s Centre in Stirling Hall on campus, and free by post if you email the institute.

Read the full story at: Kingston Daily

If a stranger turns up at your door this week asking you to become a monthly donor, there is a phone number that settles it: 1-833-341-0106. University Hospitals Kingston Foundation has canvassers out across Kingston neighbourhoods until Saturday, August 15, and every one of them carries official identification you are welcome to check before you say anything else. The money supports Kingston Health Sciences Centre and Providence Care. UHKF has signed up 175 new monthly donors so far and would like 500 by the end of the year. Nobody at the door is going to mind you verifying them first. That is exactly what the number is for.

Read the full story at: Kingston Daily

More than 60 people sent the City of Kingston a design for this fall’s election stickers, and the shortlist is now yours to settle: six “I Voted” designs and four “Future Voter” ones, ten in all. Voting closes on Monday, August 17 at 4 p.m. You can vote on the finalists online, though that ballot needs a Get Involved Kingston account, or skip the sign-up entirely by phoning 613-546-0000 or emailing [email protected]. The winning designs get printed and handed out at every voting location on advance voting days, Friday, October 16 and Saturday, October 17, and on election day, Monday, October 26.

Read the full story at: City of Kingston

Tied 1-1 at full time on Sunday night at CaraCo Home Field, with promotion on the line, the Kingston Sentinels men found extra time and Jacob Ball found his hat trick. Final score 3-1 over Railway City FC, and the club is up into Ontario Premier League 2. Ball had just been named the men’s coaching staff’s Player of the Month for July, with head coach Christian Hoefler praising his scoring ability, work ethic and leadership, calling him the team’s leading goal scorer, and saying he has the potential to play at the highest levels of the game. The Sentinels went into the match having conceded fewer goals than any other team in regular-season OPL3 play, just 13. Not a bad way to finish.

Read the full story at: Kingstonist

There is more happening around Kingston and area than most people ever hear about. The fundraiser that quietly hit its target. The volunteer nobody thought to thank in public. The shop on a side street that turns out to be somebody’s favourite place. We go looking for those every week and put them somewhere they can be found.

What happens next is not up to us. A story only travels as far as the people who pass it along, and that is the part we cannot do from here.

So here is the ask, and it is a small one. Think of one person who would like this, and send it their way. Not a list, not everybody you know. One.

Reading this because somebody sent it? Kingston Spotlight is free, and it lives at kingstonspotlight.ca.

Last call. The first Ironwood Fantasy Fair is on Saturday and the organisers say tickets are limited, so treat this as the nudge rather than the announcement. By day it is all ages: a wizard hosting the mainstage, workshops, a marketplace of local makers, walk-up sword lessons, a witch handing out free potions, and a friendly meteor dragon named Gaasyendietha on loan from Blades of Glory. After dark it turns nineteen plus and becomes The Empty Throne, a catered ball with a live band, a DJ and a plot. Daytime tickets are $25 for adults, $15 for ages six to seventeen, and free for five and under. Get your tickets before Saturday, The Spire has the practical details, and our spotlight has the story of how a Kingston sword school built a fantasy world for a day.

https://www.facebook.com/people/Harmonaire-Musique/61577876403607/

The Cataraqui Chamber Music Festival has two concerts left in it. On Friday, August 14, soprano Ariane Cossette sings with pianist Ying Zhang. On Tuesday, August 18, violinist SongHa Choi closes the festival alongside Zhang, and Choi is a laureate of the 2024 Queen Elisabeth Competition who has played the Berliner Philharmonie, the Elbphilharmonie, Wigmore Hall and the Concertgebouw, which is not a sentence Kingston gets to write very often. If ticketed concerts are not your thing, the free Indigenous Cultural Corridor designed by Robert Spade is up at The Spire through August 18 and costs nothing at all. Presented by Harmonaire Musique. Closing night has its own page, and our spotlight explains how chamber music and Indigenous culture ended up sharing a building.

Two writers whose books you have probably read, or met on a screen without realising whose they were, are sharing a stage at The Spire on Wednesday. Yann Martel wrote Life of Pi, which won the Booker Prize and became a film that took four Academy Awards. Iain Reid lives here in Kingston, and two of his novels have been adapted: I’m Thinking of Ending Things, which Charlie Kaufman wrote and directed for Netflix, and Foe, starring Saoirse Ronan and Paul Mescal. Both have new books, Martel’s Son of Nobody returning to the Trojan War and Reid’s A New Kind of Clean, written with filmmaker Ellie Foumbi, arriving this fall. Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer moderates. Ancient Myths, Modern Nightmares is the first event in KWF Presents, a new year-round series from Kingston WritersFest, so the festival is no longer only a September thing. We have a Kingston WritersFest story of our own coming shortly, and this is a good week to get acquainted. Tickets are through Showpass.

Sunday is sold out, but read on. Ticket sales closed ahead of the day for a site licensed for 5,000, which is a quietly big deal for a beer and music festival held in a field outside Bath. If you already have a ticket, the running order is Kyra, The Astros, Piner, Stephen Stanley, Eddy & The Dirty Boys, The Free Label, Yukon Blonde, Sloan, and Goldie Boutilier headlining, all of it on the eighth-generation MacKinnon Brothers family farm. Shuttles run from five pickup points: the Memorial Centre and Red House West in Kingston, the Waterfront River Pub in Napanee, Welborne Commons in Bath, and Lakeside Bar & Grill in Amherstview. Local food trucks are on site, Adelitaz Mexican Food among them, and they have a spotlight of their own coming shortly. It is all ages and licensed, general admission was $55, and children under 12 got in free. Everything else is on the festival page.

No ticket? There is still a way in, and it is free. Art on the Farm opens on the Saturday, August 15, with no ticket required: a large-scale installation curated by Birdgirl Arts and woven through the farm by a collective of local artists, turning the forgotten corners of the place into something worth walking out to see. It runs again on the Sunday for festival ticket holders. Note that the shuttle buses do not run on the Saturday, so that one is a drive.

Kingston has four Rotary clubs and many of us could not name one. On Sunday, August 23 all four are standing behind the same barbecue at Rotary Park, 1285 Coverdale Drive, feeding whoever turns up. Their poster puts it as One House, Four Doors: the Rotary Club of Kingston, the Rotary Club of Kingston-Frontenac, the Rotary Club of Cataraqui-Kingston and the Kingston Waterfront Rotary Club, one mission between them. Free food, family friendly, and no membership required. Come hungry and curious, as they put it, meet some local Rotarians, find out what the clubs actually do around town, and work out whether any of the four doors is yours. The invitation is on the clubs’ Facebook post.

Here is a contest with no judging panel. The Friends of the Cataraqui Trail are collecting photographs from the trail until Friday, October 30, then handing the decision to everybody else: voting runs from Monday, November 2 to Friday, November 6, and the top rated photo wins. There is a main prize for the overall winner plus prizes for the top ten, all of it Cataraqui Conservation and Cataraqui Trail merchandise. Hiking, cycling, bird watching, flora, fauna and everything in between qualifies, and your photo does not have to have been taken during the contest period, so that shoebox of old trail shots counts. Two rules worth knowing before you send anything: ask permission before photographing people, and dogs have to be on leash to win. Entries go through the contest page.

🗡️ FEATURED: The Ironwood Fantasy Fair  |  The Spire  |  August 15

🎻 FEATURED: Cataraqui Chamber Music Festival 2026  |  The Spire  |  August 5 to 18

📚 FEATURED: KWF Presents: Yann Martel and Iain Reid  |  The Spire  |  August 19

📜 Heritage Hour: Kingston and the 1976 Olympic Sailing Events  |  Memorial Hall, City Hall  |  August 13

🎒 United Way KFL&A Backpack Program  |  United Way office, 417 Bagot St & Cataraqui Centre  |  July 27 to August 14

🏥 Health Adventures Camp  |  Canadian Museum of Health Care, 32 George St  |  August 10 to 14

🚪 UHKF Door-to-Door Monthly Donor Campaign  |  Kingston neighbourhoods  |  August 10 to 15

⛵ Kingston 1976 Community Exhibition  |  Portsmouth Olympic Harbour, 53 Yonge St  |  August 15

🗡️ FEATURED: The Ironwood Fantasy Fair  |  The Spire  |  August 15 🔦 Read our story

🧸 Tamarack Teddy Bear Party  |  BGC South East, 1300 Bath Rd  |  August 15

♻️ Giveaway Day  |  Citywide, Kingston  |  August 15

🎨 Art on the Farm (free, no ticket required)  |  MacKinnon Brothers Brewery, 1915 County Rd 22, Bath  |  August 15

🎪 TK Fringe 2026: 17 Unjuried Shows  |  Tett Centre, 370 King St W  |  August 6 to 16

🧭 Discover L&A County MEGA Geocaching Event  |  Museum of L&A, 97 Thomas St E, Napanee  |  August 12 to 16

🍺 Back to the Farm Beer and Music Festival (sold out)  |  MacKinnon Brothers Brewery, 1915 County Rd 22, Bath  |  August 16

🗳️ Vote: 2026 Election Sticker Design Contest  |  Get Involved Kingston  |  to August 17

🎻 FEATURED: Cataraqui Chamber Music Festival 2026  |  The Spire  |  August 5 to 18

📚 FEATURED: KWF Presents: Yann Martel and Iain Reid  |  The Spire  |  August 19

⛳ 3rd Annual YGK Healthcare Champions Golf Tournament  |  Loyalist Golf & Country Club, 1 Loyalist Blvd, Bath  |  August 20

🎸 Forever Hip: Tragically Hip 10th Anniversary  |  Springer Market Square  |  August 20 to 22

🏛️ Free Fridays at the Museum of Lennox & Addington  |  Museum of L&A, 97 Thomas St E, Napanee  |  Fridays to August 28

🐱 Groovy Cats Art Colouring Book Fundraiser for Napanee Kitten Rescue  |  Napanee  |  to September 8

📷 Cataraqui Trail Photo Contest  |  Cataraqui Trail  |  July 8 to October 30

Festivals, free weekly programs, museum seasons and every farmers’ market we know about, all in one place and updated with every issue. See the full Kingston Events Calendar, and bookmark it while you are there.

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