Inukshuk

Just in case you were wondering, an Inukshuk would look quite different from the piles of stones I saw in Tuva.

I just had a chat with my father in law on Skype. He grew up with the Inuit in arctic Canada and has explained the situation to me much better. Unfortunately, my very crude understanding of the facts come from a gross distortion in a Canadian movie.

Inuit people used the Inukshuks for two purposes. The first was as land marks to help with navigation. This is important in the tundra when there are very few natural land marks around.

The second was in hunting but quite differently from what I mentioned previously. Caribou have natural migration routes that have been the same for centuries. The Inuit knew these migration routes. The Inukshuks would be used to herd caribou towards a valley. When the caribou were in the valley a stone wall was waiting for them. The wall was built like a funnel with a narrow opening at the end. A herd could often be up to 300-400 caribou. The opening at the end of the funnel allowed only 2-3 through at once. Inukshuks were placed on the ridges of the valley so that the caribou would not retreat when they saw the trap. The funnel allowed the Inuit to get really close to the herd. As 2-3 came through at a time they were able to cull off the specific number that they needed. They were also able to let mothers and young go through. The Inukshuk enabled them to be highly accurate and conservational in their hunting.

So there's the facts on the Inukshuk. Still it is completely innocent and fine to build Inukshuks by the side of the highway, and something I will try to do in Canada!