Staff Photo By: Laura Kish

By: Darcie Thom

Along the side of The Source building, a photographic story depicts the trades that took place between Kyle MacDonald, several intrigued traders and the Town of Kipling. Kyle MacDonald had a goal of trading a simple piece of stationary, a red paper clip, for a fully functional house. He finally met his goal when the Town of Kipling offered him the house at 503 Main St. right in the heart of Kipling.

Kyle MacDonald started off in his trade journey with a red paper clip, which led him to trade with two Vancouver locals who offered him a fish pen in exchange for the paper clip. Now with a fish pen up for trade, he made his way to Seattle, Washington to collect the next item up for bids, a hand-decorated doorknob. The doorknob was destined to be a fixture on a stove-top espresso maker in Amherst, Massachusetts in trade of a Coleman Camping Stove, which was then traded for a red generator from a U.S. Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton. Still following?!

It didn’t take MacDonald long to make his next trade, offers were spilling in at this point. The red generator attracted a New York City local to trade “an instant party” along with a neon Budweiser sign and a beer keg. Headlines were made at this point during the trades between Kyle MacDonald and people involved his paper clip trades when a Quebec radio and television show host offered MacDonald a snowmobile for ‘an instant party’.

A trip to Yahk, B.C., was a new start to MacDonald’s trades. A Cintas cube van was the offer made to MacDonald following the trip to Yahk, which was traded up for a recording contract. Jodie Grant took much interest in the recording contract and offered one year in Phoenix, which caught the interest of a young lady, Leslie, who offered an afternoon with Alice Cooper. A KISS fan was quick to offer his trade of a KISS snow globe to spend an afternoon with Alice Cooper, which attracted globe-collector and actor, Corbin Bernsen, to make a movie role offer.

This is the part of the story where Kipling stepped in and completed MacDonald’s goal and made a dream come true for one of our very own locals, Nolan Hubbard. MacDonald succeeded in his goal for a house when Kipling made an offer to him for the house, which is now best known as the Paper Clip House. Nolan Hubbard became the chosen actor, from the Kipling auditions, to be featured in a movie called “Donna on Demand.”