Tasmania is a state comprised of migrants. They make up the fabric of Tasmanian society, businesses, organisations and communities. The Nations of Tasmania series explores the human side of migration to Tasmania. Here are our migrants’ stories.
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Kim’s Story
Tasmanians are known for their love of travel, and many an intrepid Tasmanian traveller has brought home a new love to share the delights of their home state.
Kim Seagram left behind a rewarding career, house, friends, she gave her furniture away to her sister and packed her life into 11 suitcases and left her home of Canada. All for love.
It was at Lake Louise where Kim met her future husband, who was visiting on a skiing trip.
“I’d come up on a Friday night and thought, ‘Oh the locals guys will be playing hockey, I’ll just pop down to the ice hockey rink and see who's around’,” she said.
“I went down there and I met this charmingly handsome young man in a crushed purple velour cap.”
Kim laughs at the memory. The next day she spied the same crushed purple velour cap sitting in the beer garden after skiing.
“I thought, ‘Oh he’s out of town, I better go make him feel welcome’, that was the defining moment because we talked for probably about two or three hours and I just walked away and I said, ‘I think I’ve just met the man I’m going to marry,” Kim said.
From there they maintained a long distance cross-continental relationship between Canada and Australia.
“This is pre-wifi and all of the Facetimes and Skypes and things like that, so we had a long distance relationship for about a year and a half and then I came down to Tassie one Christmas … and he said, ‘We’ve got to choose a continent’,” Kim recalls.
They chose Tasmania.
“It was then packing my life up into 11 boxes, it's amazing how you shed, it was actually quite freeing because you actually realise the important things in life aren’t things,” Kim said.
Hearing her speak about Tasmania now, 25 years on, Kim is a fierce advocate of Tasmania and everything the little state has to offer.
Born in Montreal, Kim spent most of her growing up years in Calgary in Canada’s east before heading to university to study biology.
“[I] did some molecular genetics research there afterwards and then ended up moving back out west because I ended up working for a large hotel chain and had a lot of fun working in the tourism industry in the Rocky Mountains,” Kim said.
Before meeting her husband-to-be Kim didn’t know much about the small state off the south east corner of Australia.
“I put it close to New Zealand when I first met him so at least I put him in the right part of the world … it's better than Africa which a lot of my mother’s friends think I’m living now,” she laughs.
Arriving in Tasmania, Kim wondered why no one from the wider world knew about the beautiful place she found herself in.
I actually looked at this place and thought, ‘Oh my God why doesn’t the rest of the world know about it?’
- Kim Seagram
“I actually looked at this place and thought, ‘Oh my God why doesn’t the rest of the world know about it?’,” she said.
“That’s why I made it my mission to tell the rest of the world how special Tasmania is and I’ve done it in a whole bunch of ways.”
One might assume moving from Canada to Tasmania wouldn’t represent a huge change in culture, but Kim said the differences were “huge”.
“Particularly at that time, 25 years ago chauvinism was very alive and well in Australia and I hadn't really experienced a whole hell of a lot of that,” Kim said.
“I think we were just on a bit of a different trajectory, and of course I ended up working very closely with the wine industry first off and of course there weren’t very many women at that stage in that particular industry.
“Even just walking into the supermarket none of the brands are the same - I still don’t like Vegemite, I’m sorry I never will - it took me probably three years.”
As an “outsider” Kim had a fresh perspective that allowed her to see what Tasmania offered and be proud and excited of it.
“It was just that sense of community, there was a generosity of spirit, there was that focus on the authentic and the things that really matter in life and that’s what resonated with me,” she said.
“I was really happy to see the, not the complete demise, but the diminishing of the cultural cringe because I remember when I first arrived I’d say, ‘Oh my God you’re from Tasmania, you’re so lucky’ and they'd look at me and they'd almost be apologising for being from Tasmania.
“Now when you see visitors say, ‘You’re so lucky to live here’, you'll see people’s back straighten and say, ‘Yeah, I am lucky to live here’.”
Kim was surprised when she arrived at the entrepreneurial strength in Tasmania.
“That was one thing that really blew me away, how in a lot of these bigger cities there aren't a lot of entrepreneurs because you need so much capital behind you to even afford the rent or the initial investment and you can actually give things a go here without too much of an outlay if you want to get a business up and running,” she said.
Kim told her husband-to-be when she was moving to Tasmania that as long as she didn’t get bored she would be okay, and she certainly hasn’t stopped long enough for that.
After selling their vineyard, Kim and her husband set up Stillwater restaurant, where they focused on showcasing “wonderful” Tasmanian produce.
Going on to co-found the Launceston Harvest Market, start Black Cow Bistro and co-found Ferment Tasmania, Kim is passionate about creating opportunities and career paths for people in Tasmania.
Despite being born on the other side of the world, Tasmania could not have a more vocal and passionate advocate for what this little state has to offer.
“I could not have chosen a better place in the world to have moved to and I love sharing with people,” Kim said.