On my last trip up to Canada on the northern highway which was cut through stone, there were little piles of stones perched on the rock set up on the sides of the road. After seeing many and wondering what they were, I asked my Canadian relatives. "Inuk" means person and "suk" means substitute in Inuit languages and the rocks are piled on each other to create an abstract form of a person. These forms have become a symbol of Canada and were used as the 2010 winter olympics logo. Inuits used them as markers in areas that didn't have many natural landmarks. Markers could show the location of routes, sacred sites, and food caches but now everyone seems to want to leave one behind.
For more information from Wikipedia:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuksuk
My own idea of direction and what shows the way:
Finding My Way Home
The Hmong bury placenta,
close to home.
Danger rises in direct proportion
to their distance from it.
The Navajo began
the long march home
where each tree,
each stream tells the past.
The spot that fixes me
to the ground, floats.
Lost in the birches
and pines of the Baltic,
to nest in the bell towers
of Castillian churches,
I´m finding my way home.
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