The best cities are multi-layered. Thom Seivewright found new, surprising ones in his hometown of Montreal, and he’s sharing them through his deep-dive Queerstory tour.
After years as a Clefs d’Or-member hotel concierge, Seivewright, 44, got out from behind the desk to begin working as a local tour guide. He completed guiding-school coursework, learning all about Montreal’s famous sights and attractions, such as its French-colonial origins, religious history, and iconic architecture, but he soon realized that success as a city guide would come from differentiating himself. He wanted his Montreal to be shared.
“I wondered, “How can I stand out from the crowd?”” says Seivewright. “I’m just a big old queer, so why don’t I think about doing things that are more aligned on that. Then, it made sense. [LGBTQ+ life] Where I focus my efforts would be the first place.”
Stories of LGBTQ+ Montreal are hard to come by in the traditional guiding school syllabus. Seivewright wanted to build his own meaningful queer-history tour, but during Quebec’s pre-pandemic tourism surge, he found himself always too busy working. After COVID19 his career momentum, working seven days per week, quickly dropped to zero. With too…
