A NEW LIFE
Immigrant makes Blue Thistle Tours a family affair
Former carpenter now operates bus tour company.
A carpenter by trade, Sean Newman is now making a new life for himself and his family in Cape Breton as a small tour operator.
A native of Staffordshire in England, Newman began coming to Cape Breton as a visitor more than 25 years ago at the invitation of his in-laws who live in the Ingonish area.
“It’s been great, we love the place,” Newman said.
The visits became pretty much annual trips and it increasingly became more difficult for Newman and his family — including wife Justine, daughter Jessie, 12, and son Zachery, 14 — to leave each year. Finally in 2012, the family moved to Cape Breton.
Newman was a conservation and restoration carpenter in his
home country, mostly working on churches and older properties.
When the family first moved to Cape Breton, settling in Albert Bridge, the initial employment that Newman received was carpentry work. But he found the work was mostly seasonal.
“That was a big thing for me. It was like sitting on your hands for four months of the year plus a dip in your wages and it’s not a thing I could handle, really,” he said. “Instead of us thinking about moving or anything like that, we just kind of diversified.”
To supplement the family’s income and to keep himself a bit busier, Newman revisited work he had done previously while living in Scotland, where he was employed as a guide by a tour operator who owned several vans.
“We realized there was a little gap in the market for a high-quality larger van and the kind of service we offer and it seems to be doing very well,” he said.
Newman received approval for a motor carrier licence from the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board earlier this year to provide sightseeing tours or charter service in Cape Breton under the name Blue Thistle Tours, using an 11-passenger Mercedes Sprinter van.
Nearing the end of its first season of operation, Newman said word is now getting out about his company.
In designing the tours they offer, he said they approached it as visitors who have come to live here, “and all of the beautiful things we’ve come across that we’d like to introduce other visitors to, and we’re forever learning.”
“Better and better and better,” Newman said, of how business is going, while admitting they got a bit of a late start during the season. They are already getting some bookings for next year.