Hi! Joel here! :)

It all started with making scarves and bow ties as a creative escape from my work as an engineer. But it didn’t take long for me to realize that London’s art/maker scene was exactly where I was meant to be! After only a few craft shows and local events I was becoming good friends with wonderful local artists and the community members I met were all just so awesome!

During this time, I truly enjoyed getting to craft and connect with the London community.

Following my heart, I decided to rebrand Spruce Moose and really give it a go! I participated in more than 40 shows and events in London & Ontario, some spanning multiple days. These were the years when I was still making all of the goods by myself - primarily pillows, blankets, scarves, and bow ties - along with some collaborative designs with local artists.

It was also around this time that I retailed a selection of products in a few local stores, and collaborated with Budweiser Gardens to help create gifts for artists including Sarah McLachlan, Michael Bublé, and Selena Gomez.

I wasn’t done yet though! The more time I spent working alongside such wonderful artists and with London's incredible community, the more my dreams for the business grew.

It was a natural progression to combine my passion for working with London's community with my love of working alongside local artists - hence, Spruce Moose evolved into a retail space! Working with & supporting one local artist at a time, year after year, the store grew into a Canadian-exclusive retail space representing more than 50 incredible local & Canadian artists. Though the shop is ever changing, supporting local artists will forever be our calling!

Spruce Moose's permanent retail store has been open every weekend since Feb 2018, with the exclusion of much of 2020 - because, well, covid. Over the years, we've expanded three times, most-recently opening Cardie by Spruce Moose in March of 2023 - a dedicated Canadian greeting card store with hundreds of fabulous made-in-Canada finds!

We are forever grateful for our community's support and for the market family & community that we've built. Right at the intersection of the local arts scene, queer communities in the city, regular market-goers, seasonal shoppers, and out-of-town visitors, we get to meet so many incredible people - plus, we have the opportunity to see plenty of familiar faces, including a ton of regulars we know by name and love catching up with. It's not lost on us that this experience, one in which we get to create community, support local art, and take part in the larger Market space, is very special. We are so happy to have a business we genuinely love working on every day!

Here we are now - it's our long overdue website relaunch! We closed our pandemic-launched website in 2022 when the retail space really picked up again. Truthfully, we began the process of getting back online in 2023, overhauling our entire store & processes and implementing barcodes across thousands of SKUs to relaunch successfully with unified in-person & online inventory! The store and our offerings have changed and grown immensely over the past years as well, and we are so proud of what we offer and who we support!

As we head into the future, our ever-changing selection will continue to be meticulously chosen to reflect the values most important to us; we continue to strive to be a trusted Canadian favourite for unique, trendsetting, premium Canadian-made accessories, apparel, décor, and gifts while ensuring exceptional value & superior service.

On behalf of Spruce Moose & our 50+ affiliated local artists - thank you!