In the 17th century, the Huron-Wendat numbered around 25,000 and lived in southern Ontario, straddling the United States and Quebec. By 1650, following epidemics and wars between the Hurons and Iroquois, the French and the English, only about a thousand remained.
They had left Huronia to settle, after a long journey, in Lorette, near Quebec City.
The Hurons say that in the beginning, the Earth did not exist.
The universe contained only a certain number of animals living in and out of the water. Aataensic, a young woman who lived in the sky and was pregnant, while gathering medicinal plants, had stumbled against the root of an immense tree and fallen through a hole.
Two Great Wild Geese had taken flight and slipped under Aataensic to save her from drowning. But they still needed to find a place where she could live comfortably!
Not knowing what to do, the Great Geese had addressed the Big Turtle swimming in this ocean of the first ages. Recognized by all for its infinite wisdom, the Big Turtle had immediately decided to convene a council gathering all aquatic animals to find a solution.
It had asked the most valiant to bring back some grains of earth from the depths of the ocean. Among the seasoned swimmers, the Otter, the Muskrat, and the Beaver had dived in turn, but all three had returned empty-handed, completely exhausted by the effort.
The situation was desperate.
It was then that, under the amused eye of several, the old Toad had volunteered and immediately plunged towards the darkness of the abyss. Long after, when everyone thought he had disappeared forever, the Toad had resurfaced with a few grains of earth in its mouth. This earth had been, with great care, deposited on the back of the Big Turtle and, very quickly, had become a verdant island of very large dimensions.
Aataensic had settled on this island and had given birth to her child. The island had become a continent, and the continent the Earth we know today.
This is also why the Hurons say that when the Earth trembles, it is because the Big Turtle is changing position.