Canada 2010 Olympic Winter Games Emblem

Recently, some friends and I were laughing at the silliness and strangeness of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games Emblem called Inukshuk. To us it resembled the drunken man’s napkin scribbling of a stick figure, cartoonishly drawn with a comical expression.

Coincidently, I had the opportunity to visit Vancouver and the Whistler Ski Complex the home site of the 2010 Winter Games. To be honest, I wasn’t thinking about inukshuks at all. Since it was still summer I was able to hike along the majestic ski slopes. Mostly living in the east, I was used to the Appalachian Mountains, which are low and gently rolling due to weathering like an old worn leather shoe. In contrast, the Whistler-mountains were carved from rivers and glaciers and are newer formed so that the affects of weather erosion were not so apparent. As I walked along the craggy rim I was astounded by the views of all of the other twisted mountain ridges with their sharp and pointy spires. Snow falls barely clung to the razor like edges. The view was nothing short of breathtaking.

Slowly, almost without notice, I saw my first inukshuk, which is basically a small man-made rock pile often in the shapes of people. I had learned that they were used to mark important spots along a path such as a crossroad or fishing spot. The deafening silence of the walk had lured me into an almost trance like state. Then suddenly I saw another rock cairn. I slowly began to imagine what it had been like for early Pacific Northwest Indians to be traveling for days at a time without seeing a sole person and then to come upon one of these markers. The symbol almost seemed to be saying “I am here” or even more philosophically “I exist” or “You are not alone”.

Before long I came upon a large rock garden where hundreds of these rock cairns existed. Several people were building these themselves. And as I winded through and around the small piles I thought about the hundreds of people that came from all over the world to make these so without much thought I picked out a spot and crouched to make my own inukshuk. There was something childlike about building something without any rules at all. It was freeing to select and set the rocks without any particular reasoning. There was also something pleasing about the weight of each rock in my hand, feeling their unique bumps and edges, knowing that no two inukshuks would ever be alike. I found the simple pleasure to be profoundly meditative. The dirt on my hands connected me to the earth upon which I squatted and as I looked out upon the vistas I felt humbled and small. There was a feeling of wholeness of mind, body, and spirit that reverberated throughout my being. I looked back at the structures as I built.

The week prior to my trip my dog and grandmother had died less than twenty-four hours apart and my heart was still heavy with grief. I had built two rocks cairns, the larger one representing my grandmother, and the smaller one representing my dog. I positioned them carefully to face a majestic glacier. I smiled at the ironic dichotomy between the two. My dog adored the winter. I imagined her here with me running playfully up and down the path, constantly looking over her shoulder to ensure I was following. A photo of her was, in fact, posted on the website of the Atlanta Journal Constitution Photo of Day one snowy day in Atlanta because it was so apparent her love of the snow by her revered expression that was plastered on her face. I took her with me always until she aged because something she loved even more than snow was adventure.

My grandmother, in contrast, who lived to be ninety-five grew up on a farm and traveled to town in a horse drawn buggy. She mostly lived her life in one spot along the hearty banks of the Mississippi River. She never learned to drive and had never flown in a plane. And one thing that I knew was true was that she would never, had she been alive, ever, be standing on the edge of a glacier in Canada. At that I had to laugh and it reminded me of the time I took my grandmother on her first trip to a Chinese restaurant. As we entered the classically decorated joint I thought that she would turn around at the sight of the large fiery red paper model dragon that slithered through the middle of the room. Her face was, as they say, priceless. She fussed and pouted through the menu and about the surroundings. I had to stop her from eating the fortune piece of paper out of the fortune cookie but in the end, she finally admitted that she really like the sweet and sour pork that made me secretly beam with pleasure. As I looked upon her pile of rocks I smiled and wondered what she would be thinking if she were there with me staring at the glacier. For a few brief moments the three of us were reunited and I thought that maybe inukshuks weren’t really so silly after all. It wasn’t until I turned to leave that the tears begin to flow freely down my face as I realized my sadness in leaving them. I was quiet as I descended back from where I had started, the memories and clever thoughts that my grandmother used to say echoed through my mind and it was then that I realized that those who pass never really leave us because they live on inside of us always.