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Toronto where we live 2021

Too few people know the origin of Toronto, Canada’s largest city. There are lots of stories and the one I remember the most was roughly “where the rivers join and meet by the lake or meeting place”.

One can see that could happen. It evolve from directions to a party or a battle. Or both. There is no one definition because. Toronto is one of those words in Mohawk that’s does Not have a direct one word to one word translation in English. Like Ikigei in Japanese.

The name Toronto was first applied to a narrow stretch of water between Lake Simcoe and Lake Couchiching. The word, Anglicized from Mohawk, was spelled tkaronto and taronto and used to describe an area where trees grow in shallow water.

When the British came in the 1700’s to colonize and reap the benefits of their military and navy, they renamed most things but they power of the trail and the area it Katoronto, remains to this day. The tall trees with deep roots surrrounded by shallow water that ebbs an flows and can feed or kill the trees.

Prior to the Iroquois inhabitation of the Toronto region, the Wyandot (Huron) people inhabited the region, later moving north to the area around Lake Huron and Georgian Bay. The word toronto, meaning ‘plenty’, appeared in a French lexicon of the Wyandot language in 1632.Toronto, however, did not appear on any map of the region before 1650. After 1650, and the destruction of Fort Sainte Marie, the Hurons left the region.

During his travels in Upper Canada in 1796, Isaac Weld wrote about Simcoe’s policy of assigning English names to locations in Upper Canada. He opposed the renaming scheme, stating:

It is to be lamented that the Indian grand and sonorous, should ever have changed for others. Newark, Kingston, York are poor substitutes for the original names of the respective places Niagara, Cataraqui, Toronto.

The challenge continues is the growth of continual places. At once the new comers, want to always remember where they came from and stale claim with the names until the history of the place changes, slowly taking the power for the original people. This happened when the French then the British and arrived to conquer. But is also happened. Before as the Wendat, the Hadnesaunie , the Mohawk and other named things and places as they saw fit to live there. There is no one name of a thing or place on earth. Humans name things they way they will. Those in power get to keep or change place names. They change like a river changes the shore every year slightly and every thousand a great deal. When we remember these things and what they were and how they changed we become greater and more powerful, like the river that creates a canyon and flats where we are live. It is better to remember and acknowledge the past as we build the future.

This is a good reason that governments and schools set up and read land acknowledgements. They keep use whole. In the case of Toronto, what’s wrong with that? This is how the city of Toronto opens most of it meetings. It is a ritual just started seven years ago in 2014.

The City of Toronto acknowledges that we are on the traditional territory of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples and is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples. The City also acknowledges that Toronto is covered by Treaty 13 signed with the Mississaugas of the Credit, and the Williams Treaties signed with multiple Mississaugas and Chippewa bands.

The City of Toronto has been acknowledging the traditional territory since March 2014. Due to conversations with Indigenous leaders, including the Aboriginal Advisory Committee as part of the 2018 Toronto for All Campaign, the language the City of Toronto uses has evolved.

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Notes:

This article is an amalgam. It is from a group of writers that I have edited together. No one person wrote this piece. It is not plagiarized. It is edited.

Portions of text copied from:

City of Toronto

Blog TO : How Toronto got its name.

Wikipedia:Toronto