INUKSHUKS

Thursday, August 24, 2006, Dunn Bros Coffee Shop:


According to a native in Northern British Columbia, the Inukshuk has been used by their people for centuries. It is usually made of rocks in the shape of a man and it is often called a blessing for travelers. Originally it was used to mark the way, or to indicate that a food cache is located nearby. The Inukshuk can also be a sign of friendship or just the simple notation that their people had been there. This woman also told me that it can be used as a kind of thanksgiving altar, as in the case of a successful elk hunt. We saw several along the road in the northern part of British Columbia and in the Yukon. The grandsons thought they were neat, so they took to building their own Inukshuks to show that they had been there. You will find them along the bumpy frost heaved roads in the Yukon, at a pull out along the Cassier Highway in British Columbia, at the top of the narrow mountain road overlooking the Salmon Glacier in Hyder Alaska, and in the middle of a stream, on a sandbar, at Many Glacier Campground in Glacier National Park, Montana. You could say it's the kind of graffiti that I approved of, as opposed to the painted "kilroy was here" kind.