Tulips from Expo 67 continue to bring joy every spring to a Montreal family

Every spring, when her tulips emerge from the cold earth, France Lafortune is flooded with memories — of her father Marcel and of Expo 67, the world fair that brought travellers from around the globe to Montreal.

The tulips were once part of vivid gardens that welcomed tourists and Montrealers alike, as they strolled through the grounds of the futuristic displays.

Lafortune's father, Marcel, worked as a mechanic for the Montreal Transit Corporation, part of the team ensuring smooth operations getting people on and off the site on Île Sainte-Hélène.

One day, as he was heading home, he saw teams of gardeners digging up the bulbs and tossing them into garbage bags.

"He asked them: 'What are you doing with those?'" Lafortune recalls. "When they told him they were throwing them out, he said: 'But they can be salvaged and used again!' and they told him: 'Go ahead and take them.'"

So he did.

Marcel brought home garbage bags full to his Montreal North neighbourhood, where neighbours on Pelletier Street eagerly replanted them.

In 2003, when the younger Lafortunes sold the family home, France and four of her siblings took some of the bulbs for their own homes. Now hers flower in a bed in Saint-Bruno, on Montreal's South Shore.

Every spring when the tulips re-emerge, France says: "It always makes me think of Expo 67, of my family home."

"I just think it's extraordinary that there are tulips that old that have continued to grow and multiply. It's like they are eternal."