The Project Bench team spent the last several weeks capturing photos and videos of Canada's largest wine region -- the Niagara Benchlands (link is to the official tourism website). And today I'm excited to share that we've launched our own new placemaking website called On the Bench.

The purpose of the site is to help celebrate the region. There's also some very preliminary information about Project Bench. In our humble opinion, we don't feel that the Benchlands region receives the attention that it clearly deserves. More people are familiar with Niagara-on-the-Lake and Niagara Falls, especially globally.

The Bench is a distinct area, with its own unique character and with more -- and arguably better -- wineries. This v1 website is the start of us working to demonstrate this. So if you're a local business or community member that would like to collaborate with us on this overall initiative, we'd love to hear from you.

To join the Bench community and be first to learn more about Project Bench, email subscribe at the bottom of the page, and follow us on Instagram and X.

My two week photo blogging experiment has come to an end. We are now back in Toronto. France was incredible, and I thoroughly enjoyed practicing my French and messing up which nouns are masculine and feminine. Expect some follow-up posts in the coming week(s). I was jotting down notes throughout the trip.

I must say that the experience of getting back to Canada was far easier than I was expecting. Besides having to run around to a few different places for our PCR tests (sante.fr gave us some addresses that wouldn't take us), it was relatively painless.

I am now swimming through my inbox (butterfly stroke kind of thing). There's a lot to catch up on and a lot that I want to write about. But here's something pretty special. Today I am excited to share that Slate Asset Management just announced an NFT digital art collection by Los Angeles-based artist Petra Cortright.

The collection consists of 8 works of digital art that are exclusive to each of the 8 penthouse residences at One Delisle (1/1). We believe that this is one of if not the first example of this -- NFTs being commissioned by a developer for future condominium residents.

Since the beginning, we have wanted to make One Delisle a "project of firsts." We wanted to create something remarkable and usually that means you have to do something for the first time. We are fortunate to have been able to partner with Studio Gang for both the architecture of the building and its interiors.

The Petra Cortright NFT Collection is the next step in this commitment to new ideas. And on October 6th the team will be revealing both the One Delisle Penthouse Collection and hosting a one-time gallery viewing of the eight digital art pieces. If you would like to attend here in Toronto, please send an email to info@onedelisle.com.

For more information about what all of this means (including a bit about NFTs), here's the full press release from earlier today.