Le Naturaliste Canadien is a Canadian French-language peer-reviewed scientific journal published semiannually by the Société Léon-Provancher d'Histoire Naturelle du Canada.

The journal publishes articles on all topics of natural sciences with a specific focus on ecology and conservation biology in Quebec.

"Disperse knowledge of natural history, trigger research, gather new observations, find out about new findings and diffuse new applications for existing knowledge for the profit of the arts, industry, and all needs of life, such will be the goal of this publication" For all his life, Provancher would remain the owner and editor of the journal, as well as its main contributor, although a number of other prominent naturalists of the time also published in it: Dominique-Napoléon Saint-Cyr, Charles-Eusèbe Dionne (who also for a time edited a concurrent journal), François-Xavier Bélanger, Joseph-Alexandre Crevier, James MacPherson Le Moine and Jean-Baptiste Meilleur amongst others.

[6] Despite a number of interruptions, the monthly publication was relatively steady until 1879, when a series of ministers successively canceled and reestablished the grant Provancher depended on to publish his journal.

After Provancher refused to retract an article criticizing Premier Honoré Mercier in 1890, the grant was definitively canceled and publication stopped with the May 1891 issue.

Despite Provancher's hopes that Charles Boucher de Boucherville's government would be more open, Huard could not secure any grant until 1919, and published the journal himself with very little interruption from 1894 until his death in 1929.

[7] While entomology had a noticeable priority, like it did under Provancher, the journal, under the impetus of its many contributors, published on a much wider variety of topics including ichthyology, geology, anatomy and microbiology.

As early as 1931 it was one of the most circulated French-Canadian publications, its 600 copies going to individuals and institutions in 18 countries,[5] but changes in leadership and editorial problems left the journal wobbly until the 60s.