Claire Whitmore

Claire Whitmore has spent 12 years showing up to things so you know whether to bother. Based in Ottawa her entire life, she covers the city's events, food scene, arts community, and cultural calendar with the kind of obsessive local knowledge that only comes from actually being here, not parachuting in for a weekend and filing a listicle. She knows which festivals are worth the parking nightmare, which "hidden gems" stopped being hidden in 2019, and which neighbourhood restaurants will still be open next year. Her writing doesn't work for venues, tourism boards, or event sponsors. It works for the person standing in their kitchen on a Thursday night trying to figure out what to do this weekend. Ottawa is a city that constantly undersells itself. Emily's been arguing against that for her entire career.