Botanist and ethnologist, he was the first assistant of
Marie-Victorin at Montréal's Jardin botanique and became its director after the founder's death. He later was director of Canada's Museum of Man and a professor at Sorbonne in Paris at the Arctic Institute before becoming research director of the Laval University institute of Nordic studies. He wrote over 600 articles and books. He was secretary of the ACFAS for 25 years and it now gives a prize honoring him. A mountain, an electoral division and even flora subspecies are in his name.