Ask people outside the Arctic to picture an inuksuk, and many will describe a figure built from flat stones, with two legs, outstretched arms and a head. A figure of that kind appeared on the logo of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and copies of it are now familiar worldwide. Yet the markers themselves often look quite different.
The word inuksuk, often written inukshuk in English, comes from Inuktitut, an Inuit language, and means roughly "something that acts in the place of a person." Its plural is inuksuit. Across the Arctic, where the land offers few natural landmarks, Inuit have built these markers to do a job a person might otherwise do: to show a travel route, a good fishing place, or a spot where food has been stored.
None of these jobs requires a human likeness. Many inuksuit are simply a single upright stone or a small stack, and one documented type, a lone stone set up to show direction, has a name meaning roughly "something that removes confusion." Another type frames a gap through which a traveler can sight a distant point. The human-shaped figure has a separate name, inunnguaq, meaning "imitation of a person." When one was chosen for the Olympic logo, some Inuit objected that a figure shaped like a person should not be called an inuksuk.
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