#3: 1, 2, 3 Inuksuks...

Highway 17 inuksuk....an 18 inch high, little stone person

An endless vista (even an attractive one) that goes on and on and on can sometimes be--how shall I say--just a wee bit boring.  But on the Trans-Canada Highway north of Lake Huron and Superior, there are plenty of other details to amuse the designated non-driver. 

When I am the passenger, I peer hopefully out the window on the lookout for wildlife.  Bears are my preferred sighting.  Surely a black bear or two will wander down to the highway to wave at the tourists? 

Moose would also be acceptable.  Every single kilometer boasts a warning sign that moose are in the vicinity, so there must be a lot of them somewhere.  If they were out and about, they would be standing in one of the many reedy marshes that fringe the road.  But the moose must be playing hide and seek with the bears because for 2,000 km, we see neither.

What we do see in abundance, decorating every rocky ridge along the road, are inuksuks.  These  rock-pile sculptures are everywhere -- on every granite ledge from Parry Sound (where the rocks and trees begin) to Kenora (where they almost finish).  There must be well over 1,000 little inuksuks, and each is unique.

Once associated only with Inuit hunters who left these rocky milestones as a message to other travellers, now they are a universal symbol of Canada's northern culture.  Canadians abroad will build them on hiking trails to proclaim "Hello from the Great White North".  I have done this myself, and having had inuksuk-building experience, I can honestly say that you cannot just throw one together.  It takes time to find proper balancing rocks so that the finished product is stable, and looks vaguely human.

All this leads to questions one cannot help but ask about the Trans Canada inuksuks.  Who created them?  One person or many?  How is it that such small rock-piles have stayed intact from season to season?  And why do we never see anyone perched up there above the road, working on the latest addition to this 2,000 km. long exhibit?

I Googled these inuksuk questions and discovered very little.  A few people acknowledge building a couple of them, but what about the other 1, 000?   I am left to make up my own answers.

Perhaps there is a hobbyist or several (retired guys, probably), in a garage somewhere near a rockpile, and every day they make a couple, epoxy the stones together, and drive them to a granite ledge that needs a bit of embellishment.

Do you have a better explanation for the mystery of the roadside inushuks?

Even the service station at Vermilion Bay has built itself a really huge inuksuk.