Plum trees that travel
Excerpt from an account by Patrice Fortier, seed grower and owner of La Société des plantes (Kamouraska), September 2019
Directed by Félix Parent and Antoine Hamel
Collection Musée de la mémoire vivante
Patrice Fortier of La Société des plantes experienced a strange coincidence when he identified a Mount Royal plum tree on land he had bought in Kamouraska.
TRANSCRIPT
[Patrice Fortier is sitting in an armchair, in his living room.]
When I bought the land, there were plum trees on it, lots of plum trees, including Blue Damson and Yellow Damson, which I already knew. Plus there was another plum tree with larger, round, blue plums. They were really good to eat; no need to make jam. They were really yummy. I asked around. Well, it was the Mount Royal plum, which is actually quite well known. In Montréal, I saw that there were still some Mount Royal plums at the Jean-Talon Market. So, Mount Royal plums still exist today.
Well, when I did some research on this particular plum tree, it was developed in M. Dunlop’s orchard at the end of the street where I grew up in Montreal. That’s amazing, because I move to Montréal every winter to look after my aunt. I use a basement at an aunt’s house to send out seeds by mail. I work with one of my cousins. This is truly part of M. Dunlop’s orchard. It’s really the old orchard on bedrock, the foothills of Mount Royal.