THE TURTLES OF TURTLE ISLAND

Turtles!!! We saw many turtles basking in the sun at the mouth of the Moira river this morning. I had never seen that before.  Amazing.

As Cathy and I with our companion Ruby the Dog paddled our canoe closer to this profusion of turtles I recalled reading about North America as Turtle Island. A native elder had told the creation story about the land being built on the back of a great turtle. A child listening asked the logical question: What is below the turtle? The elder had answered: "It's turtles all the way down."

Watching the basking turtles slipping warily one after the other into the water I had the sense that I was close to the native story of creation. The backs of the turtles were shaped like maps criss-crossed by river-like lines on the rounded shells. As far as I can tell, most of the turtles we saw are what are called the northern "map turtle" though one of my photos show what might be a "painted" turtle as well.

Now that I'm writing about turtles I had to research what a group of turtles is called. Here is something I didn't know. A group of turtles is called a "bale" of turtles.  I wonder who thought of that word?  The map turtle hibernates over the winter in deeper parts of the river or lake bed while absorbing oxygen from the water.

Now my imagination takes me back to the time when the people who invented the canoe paddled these waters. For years now the canoe has been a "sacred" vehicle for me. When I get into the canoe, I slip away from the cares of my everyday life and into the luminous places of creation. The canoe is the perfect entrance into this world away from cars and trucks and noise, quiet and close to the water and little disturbance to the creatures who draw life here.

It wasn't so long ago that the mouth of the Moira river was the home of the Mississauga Ojibway. Was it only last year that there was a money settlement of a land claim that took in most of downtown Belleville?

This coming Monday June 20 at 10 a.m. Cathy, Ruby the dog and I will be on Parliament Hill to unfurl a banner as KAIROS gathers us to show our support for the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Canada has finally signed on to the Declaration and the effort now is to generate public support so that the promise of the Declaration will be fulfilled in the lives of our Aboriginal peoples. We have received so much from these ancestors who lived so close to the earth on Turtle Island.