For many generations, First Nations people told stories about how this landmass we live on came to be. Each of them had their own variations, but many had a common element: the turtle that gave their shell to become this land.

The first ancestor arrived to a world filled of water, they said. Without land to stand on, an ancestral turtle volunteered themselves to be the island for everyone else to live on, bearing the first ancestor’s weight on their shell, across those stories. The island was still too small, though, so the ancestors of many other animals dove to the depths of the endless waters to bring back soil so the turtle’s island’s could grow.

Despite the failures of its fellows, varying across different nations, the ancestral muskrat finally managed to bring a clump of primordial soil back to the turtle with its dying breath. With that seed of earth and the muskrat’s sacrifice, this turtle’s shell grew so large that neither shore could be seen from the center: this very turtle island we live on.

When European colonists arrived, they simply referred to this land as “North America.”

While not one of the stories originally told by the nations calling K’emk’emeláy̓ home (“the place of the maple grove”, colonially named “Vancouver”), the name of Turtle Island for what’s colonially named “North America” has been used to highlight the names given through colonial settlement of unceded territory, such as the land where these plants are now being grown.