Who is Brother Marie-Victorin?
Marie-Victorin was an intellectual monument in Quebec throughout the 1920s, 30s and 40s. As well as a writer, an educator and a cleric, he was a staunch nationalist and a firm defender of French language rights in Canada at a time when those rights could not be taken for granted.
His real passion, however, lay in botany and its place in the formation of the eco-social cradle of the Saint Lawrence River Valley. Almost single-handedly over the course of two decades, he travelled up and down the province, cataloguing its plant life, finally publishing what would instantly become the standard reference work on the flora of Quebec – La Flore laurentienne. As soon as it was published in 1935, it was hailed, both within Quebec and internationally, as a major work.
Marie-Victorin then almost immediately set to work on his next project: creating a botanical garden for Montreal. It is is now the third largest of its kind in the world.