“It’s Inuksuk,” Solomonie said. “Innuit hunt and fish alone. We make Inuksuk so other Innuits know they aren’t alone while in the wilderness.”
Innuit hunters are always at the mercy of bad weather and bad seas. It is not unusual for an Innuit to get stranded on an island for many days while hunting and gathering. During these times, wherever he may be, he always builds an Inuksuk, a man-sized rock pile in his image. For the next Innuit hunters to come alone, it means, “You’re not alone; I have been here. Stay here. You will not be lonely.”
Solomonie explained that even Innuit children build Inuksuk when at play. The children build small Inuksuks while their fathers build big ones.
When I got home, I did a bit of research. Traditionally constructed by the Innuits, inuksuks are part of their culture and are built to communicate with humans. The real shocker: They have been found in archeological sites dating from 2400 to 1800 BCE in Baffin Island, where I was hunting with Solomonie. A red inuksuk appears on the flag of the Government of
Nunavut.
The inuksuks are helpers to the Innuit hunters. They can be trail markers, which we sometimes see today along roads, or mark a cache of food or good hunting grounds for walrus or seals. We don’t have much need for inuksuks today unless you want to listen to the words of Osutsiak, an old Innuit, who said inuksuks are often built “by those who felt the need to attach their thoughts to distant and familiar places, especially when they were a long way from home.” That’s good advice for many of us, especially hunters and fishermen who cherish their memories.
I killed a good-size caribou on that hunt. Most important, perhaps, I learned that the Innuits hunt and fish under brutal weather conditions. There is always something that can wreck your hunt. If not the weather, it’s the wolves. At one point, we had to leave a caribou until the next day. We urinated around the caribou carcass to ward off any wolf packs, hoping we were leaving enough man-smell behind to ward off any pack of wolves.
Source
My Friend Inuksuk — Ron Spomer Outdoors is written by Vin T. Sparano for www.ronspomeroutdoors.com
