Brian Scullion was born in Alma, Quebec in 1959. He is the 5th child in a family of 8. He is the father of 3 children, Laurie, Livia and Daniel. He is married to Josée Fortin, with whom he founded his company. He received most of his education at an English school, first in Alma and then in Saguenay. From a very young age, he has loved everything that has to do with nature. He has studied and bred many species of birds and mammals. From the age of 10, he became interested in building aquariums and breeding fish. This passion would later lead him to work for 3 years in Calgary, Alberta, importing and distributing fish and domestic animals in the four provinces of Western Canada.
But first and foremost, he is a man passionate about nature but also about aviation, music, cinema and painting. In 1979, after making several parachute jumps, he developed a mechanism with a camera attached to his helmet to film his teammates in free fall during jumps at an altitude of 3000 meters. In 1981 he obtained his commercial pilot license for multi-engine airplanes and seaplanes in Calgary, Alberta. He will take advantage of his experience in Western Canada to shoot two short films about the fauna and flora of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. He also produced several oil paintings of landscapes and mountains.
A music lover, he created his own band in 1986 with 4 accompanists. He composed more than a dozen scores on the piano. Brian Scullion also had an experience in the woods in northern Quebec with his first girlfriend. Without any source of communication, the couple spent 100 days in the forest, in the middle of winter at the 54th parallel. They had to build their camp and survive in harsh conditions. Following a dwindling food supply, the couple decided to return to civilization in January 1980. Miraculously, they were visited by two friends with a crew of 8 sled dogs who accompanied them on the return trip or they probably wouldn’t have survived. It took 5 days of walking, in extreme cold, to reach Chute des Passes dangereuses, south of Lake Péribonka.
After his many travels, journeys and adventures, Brian Scullion fulfilled another dream by acquiring an abandoned piece of land on Ascension Day in Lac Saint-Jean, to start his business. He quickly became interested in horticulture and worked as a production manager at the Girardville Forest Cooperative. It produces 5 million trees annually with a team of 60 employees. He is also responsible for staff training. During the same period, he held the position of President of the Alma Horticultural Society for 4 years.
Mr. Scullion is a founding member of the Saguenay-Lac-St-Jean skydiving Cooperative. He participated in research on the Atlas of Breeding Birds of Quebec and is the editor of the Directory of Migratory Bird Breeders of Quebec.
In 1987, he won the “Become an entrepreneur” competition course with the 4 CEGEPS of Saguenay-Lac Saint-Jean as well as a $5000 scholarship for his business plan with his horticultural project. That same year, he founded Scullion Nursery and became a wholesaler of ornamental production for the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, Chibougamau and Côte-Nord regions. Thanks to his talent as an artist, and the support of his wife, Josée Fortin, he decided to push the dream even further and created the Scullion Garden in 1999. The project quickly reached the size of a real botanical garden with its 42 hectares and 2000 plant species. Today, the Scullion Garden is home to imposing infrastructures such as the reception building, built on the booms resulting from timber rafting operations in the forestry industry. There is also a 520-ton stone bridge, inspired by the gardens of England. The site includes a collection of more than 350 conifer varieties and cultivars with 4 km of electric cart trails, a project unique in North America. The Garden has been a three-time recipient of the Grands prix du tourisme québécois, as well as a “growth and dynamism” winner from the Lac-Saint-Jean East Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The Scullion Garden was selected by the Ulysses guides, for the book of the 150 most beautiful gardens in the world, in 2021.
Over the course of his career, Brian Scullion has presented more than 900 lectures for horticultural societies, tourism associations, schools and in his own backyard. The Scullion couple also visited gardens in several countries in Europe and North America.
He was a judge for the Maisons fleuries du Québec competitions and a horticultural columnist for 15 years on 3 radio stations in Saguenay Lac-Saint-Jean, namely, CKAJ, Rouge FM and Planet 104. He has also participated in numerous horticultural reports and columns on TVA and Radio-Canada.
The horticulturist also has a solid reputation as a designer of landscaping plans. He has carried out hundreds of projects throughout Quebec over the past 35 years.
At the same time, for a quarter of a century, Brian Scullion and his wife, Josée, have acquired a piece of land by the sea on the coast of Oaxaca, Mexico, where they have developed a little paradise to devote themselves to their passion for horticulture during the winter months.