Virtual Museum of Canada
Jardin botanique de Montréal 
Centre for Forest Research

Transcription of video clip My tree, Carlos

Back to video clip


Photo of Emmanuel Bilodeau, reading a tale

© Jardin botanique de Montréal
Emmanuel Bilodeau reads an Étienne Lepage tale.

Okay, I\'m going to read you a story by Étienne Lepage, called "My tree, Carlos".

The main thing you have to know is that trees talk.


Okay, trees talk like you and I, with hesitations, like "uh" and "Hey, I\'ve got a good story for you", and all that...

They also have personalities. Some are gruff, some never change their mind, some are chatty and always say the same thing. Well, everyone knows that.

But what many people don\'t know, is that trees also move! They can run, go jogging in the morning, go for a walk after a big meal, etc.

Obviously, it\'s a bit of a shock to common sense to hear that, because people say, "If we always see a tree in the same place, we\'ll still see it there forty years later."
Of course, it\'s true...

But it\'s not because they never move that they can\'t. It\'s simply that most trees are very, very particular beings.

They\'re not really interested, for example, in American football, or grocery store discounts and all that. They tend to let things take their course.

Even serious events. They prefer to watch them passively, like thinkers, let\'s say, and to bear them rather than to act.

It\'s true. It\'s been well documented in scientific journals.

So, since I love to prove to others that we can do what others think, that we can\'t just do things just for the pleasure of doing them... I was determined to figure out something that would make a tree move.

I also said to myself that if a tree decided to move, it would certainly be for a good reason, and that would help me get my butt moving too.

Photo of Emmanuel Bilodeau, reading a tale

© Jardin botanique de Montréal
So, as I say, I was with Carlos...

So, as I say, I was with Carlos, a particularly chatty tree, and I was talking to him about the state of the planet.

I was explaining to Carlos that humans in general would be happier if the Canadiens had made it to the finals.
I also explained to him how issues related to pollution concern him directly.

I talked to him about murder, Kraft Dinner, rape, sugar-free desserts, global warming, Spiderman III, cancer, politics...
But it was no use.

He looked off into the distance, sighing, looking like he was thinking tree thoughts and shrugging his tree shoulders.
Then he said, "What good is it, Emmanuel? In any case, one day the Earth will disappear."

Well, I got angry in the face of his inaction, and so I said to him, "What! How can you not move? It\'s your own world that you\'re letting rot! And you stay there, taking the punches silently without a word.

You stay there, in the middle of the garden while the rest of the world goes down in flames in the middle of Lake Leman...
You, you stay there and you shade the flowers.

That\'s when I saw him... I saw him... tremble. I don\'t know if it was my ranting about child prostitutes that finally touched him. Or maybe it was the drama of polar bears, or the latest Disney movie that I told him about.

In any case, I saw, slowly, very slowly, each of his branches lean over to the side. And I saw my Carlos, with super-tree effort, pull his roots out of the ground. Really, right there!

First he pulled out the largest one, then each of its ramifications, in a kind of horrible squirming, extracting himself from the corridor of earth where his roots had been sheltered and fed since his early youth.

Then he started... to pull out another foot, then a third. I was quite dumbstruck to see my Carlos, standing before me, on his three feet, looking rather awkward. And he, very proud to see me speechless, smiled with all his leaves.

But as soon as he was free, he plunged his roots back into the ground. They went down, like worms, burrowing millions of new tunnels, and Carlos was once again rooted there, more solid than ever before.

"But what happened?" I asked him. "You looked so determined, why did you move only three feet to the side?"

"You were right," he answered...
"I was shading the flowers."


Back to video clip