Profile/ Marie- Victorin

Marie-Victorin, a man of faith, science and action, was one of the very first French-speaking North-Americans to break into the international scientific world. He exercised great influence in Quebec and Canada. Particularly in orienting teaching toward a knowledge of the flora of the country, by training disciples and teachers, and by encouraging exchanges among the universities where he was doing his research or having it done. He quickly made an impression on the Quebec university scene, and with modest means managed to carry out considerable projects, in spite of his health which was a constant source of concern. Toward the end of his life, the author of “la Flore Laurentienne”, founder of the Botanical Garden, wrote, “It would be so beautiful not to die completely, but to leave behind a team of young people possessed by a high spiritual and scientific ideal. And leave them in this fortress, which the Botanical Garden already is, with a soul.”Marie-Victorin (Joseph Conrad Kirouac) was born in Kinsley Falls in the eastern townships of April 3, 1885. He went through his novitiate with the Christian brothers at Mont-de-Lasalle, an area of market gardens and horticulture and site of the present Botanical Garden, and spent most of his life at the College de Longueil. University of Montreal professor, author of a number of Botanical works on Quebec and Cuban Flora, lecturer and member of learned societies, he was one of the great scientific pathfinders of the first half of this century, both in Quebec and Canada. He died on Saturday, July 1, 1944.It’s through Marie-Victorin’s greatest work, “La Flore Laurentienne”, that we retrace the life of this lover of nature. Generally, biographical documentaries follow the subject’s life, but this program takes a scientific work as its point of departure, and as inspiration to the Producer. It provides the structure for telling us about Marie-Victorin and his work as a naturalist in Quebec, which he explored so thoroughly.