For some strange reason, I feel compelled to build Inuksuks. Not quite sure why, I guess I really like the ascetic of rocks piled on top of each other. This started a little over 10 years ago when I was in Waskesiu.  Now, quite often on trips to the mountains or ocean, I build an Inuksuk or two. There is something very zen like in wandering the beach in quiet solitude looking for rocks that will work well together to form a small effigy. I have built these at Waterton Park , Scott’s Bay, Horseshoe Falls, Drumheller, Waskesiu, Bealach Na Ba, Hall’s Harbour, Tofino,  etc.It is interesting to create a small Inuksuk and come back a day or two later to find that 5 others have been built by strangers to keep it company. There must be something compelling others to build these as well. Perhaps we need a conference.

A couple of areas of note that kind of blew me away. There is a guy that builds amazing Inuksuks in Stanley Park, BC. These are feats of balance and coordination. How they remaining standing is a mystery to me. I photographed some of his work on a trip to Vancouver a few years ago. Another instance was when a group of us were cycling the Kettle Valley Railway. We emerged from a tunnel to find hundreds of tiny Inuksuks flanking the trail. Pretty damn cool. As long as were are discussing cool things, the artist Andy Goldsworthy makes some incredible artistic creations in nature. Check out some of his work at this link: Click Here

I find it rewarding to build a small token of my appreciation to nature. These are fleeting shrines, as nature soon works to reclaim her materials. Rewarding to build, rewarding to look at.

Looking, touching, material, place and form are all inseparable from the resulting work. It is difficult to say where one stops and another begins. The energy and space around a material are as important as the energy and space within. The weather–rain, sun, snow, hail, mist, calm–is that external space made visible. When I touch a rock, I am touching and working the space around it. It is not independent of its surroundings, and the way it sits tells how it came to be there. ~ Andy Goldsworthy