Parc Marie-Victorin greenhouse (2010 tropical greenhouse, Mysterious Carnivores garden)

Parc Marie-Victorin was created for the centenary of the birth, in 1885 at Kingsey Falls, of Brother Marie-Victorin, founder of the Montreal Botanical Garden. The company Cascades ceded three acres beside the Nicolet River; volunteers turned a former dry-waste dump into a garden, inaugurated in 1985 according to the official site (Wikipedia says 1984). Still following the official chronology, the tropical greenhouse was fitted out in 2010, the year the park grew from 3 to 29 acres according to Wikipedia.

The park's history page and its English site speak of a tropical greenhouse. After a record 2023 season with 41,638 visitors, the park unveiled in November a 13.7-million-dollar project whose first stage, 3.2 million, consisted according to La Nouvelle of fitting out "the current greenhouse" for carnivorous plants, turning the former General Store into an exhibition hall and building an outdoor circuit. The seventh themed garden, Mysterious Carnivores, was inaugurated on 30 May 2024 with the firm GSM, which specialises in museum projects, and opened to the public the next day (the official chronology dates it to 2023). A museum completed the improvement plan in 2025.

The refit of "the current greenhouse" and the mention of only one greenhouse in recent communications suggest that the tropical greenhouse and the carnivorous-plant greenhouse are a single building.

In a free-licence photograph of 21 September 2015, captioned "reception pavilion and tropical greenhouse", the greenhouse runs alongside the reception pavilion, a gabled building of timber and glass. It has large glazed walls with pale framing and a sloping roof of translucent panels. The OpenStreetMap outline, marked "position approximate", gives it a footprint of about 220 m².

The 2024 works are presented as a fit-out of the existing greenhouse, with seven interpretation panels planned in the 2023 announcement. The park's horticulture management stresses the challenge of combining two climates in one greenhouse. The side doors are opened to let in the insects the plants feed on, and watering uses rainwater or distilled water.

At the 2024 opening, the local press counted more than 1,000 carnivorous plants, covering more than 80 cultivars including 15 species from Quebec; the 2023 announcement had planned about 800, and Tourisme Cantons-de-l'Est and Wikipedia give 1,200, whereas the park's own page on the carnivores says more than 1,000. Panels explain the prey, evolution and habitat of these plants.

The route continues outdoors, with four giant structures illustrating pitcher, suction, sticky and snap traps, and then in the exhibition "Les dents de la terre", housed in the former General Store and devoted to the place of these plants in popular culture.

The greenhouse stands near the park's reception pavilion, at 385 boulevard Marie-Victorin in Kingsey Falls. The garden opens in season, from late May to late October: 30 May to 25 October in 2026, according to Tourisme Cantons-de-l'Est. Guided tours of the gardens, the greenhouse or both are offered. The site is fully accessible to visitors with reduced mobility and parking is free.

The visit continues with the other themed gardens, the giant mosaicultures, the outdoor Mysterious Carnivores circuit, the exhibition "Les dents de la terre" and the museum opened in 2025.