Jessica Smith
A large figure has sprung up along Highway 11 in recent weeks and quickly become a roadside attraction for Quetico North visitors. Around ten feet tall, the massive inukshuk sits at the entrance and helpfully directs motorists to the Eva Lake restaurant and outfitting business.
QN part owner Clint Taylor, with help from Marion Lake’s Mickey Ducharme on the backhoe, constructed the inukshuk a few weeks back, using large flat “good old Canadian Shield” stones collected from around the area. The stones have been on hand for over a decade, with this idea in mind, and a mid-July Saturday proved just the right time to tackle the project.
The use of a backhoe was crucial to place each of the stones for the inukshuk because “they are all heavy,” said Taylor. “We had the rocks figured out and then we just had to turn them and position them.”
The structure has a long arm that points to Quetico North, a feature designed to adhere to the tradition of the structures which served as directional markers. It has also been an innovative way of attracting motorists to the home of the famed Quetico Burger, wild rice soup, and one-of-a kind butter tart. It didn’t take long to get results, said Taylor.
“It was up about a half an hour when the first car pulled in and took a picture. There have been lots of pictures taken [of people] in front of it.”
For safety reasons, visitors are asked not to climb on, or get too close to the structure, and signage to that effect will be installed.
Inuksuit (plural for inukshuk) are a familiar sight along northern Ontario highways, and nowadays are usually created by residents or travellers for fun or as markers, although most are considerably smaller than this one. Increasingly becoming a national symbol, the inukshuk means ‘likeness of a person’ in the Inuit language, according to the Canadian Encyclopedia. Traditionally, rocks were piled to resemble a human form and served to direct travellers, warn of impending danger or mark a place of respect, an open channel, good fishing area or cache. They also were used by Inuit hunters to spook caribou and cause them to stampede into a certain area.
While similar structures were used all over the world in ancient times, the Arctic is the only place where centuries-old figures still stand. In Canada, structures representing human forms began popping up in the 19th century, likely with the arrival of European whalers, said the Encyclopedia. Inuit tradition forbids their destruction.
After 12 years in the planning stage and six hours of toil, it is a likely a tradition Taylor and Ducharme will be quite happy to respect.
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