I recently made a post on Graffiti Near Me about a mural that featured an inuksuk. This reminded me about a photograph I took of some cairns that someone was building along False Creek in Vancouver, BC, Canada (map). I took the photograph while on a walk with a friend in October 2009. I unfortunately didn’t talk to the person building the cairns and so didn’t catch his name:
Cairns along False Creek, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Photographed October 2009. Please click the photograph to see a larger version.
According to Wikipedia:
A cairn (carn in Irish, carnedd in Welsh, càrn in Scots Gaelic) is a manmade pile of stones, often in a conical form. They are usually found in uplands, on moorland, on mountaintops or near waterways. [...] In modern times cairns are often erected as landmarks. In ancient times they were erected as sepulchral monuments, or used for practical and astronomical uses.1
So now you know! 
I haven’t been back to the spot where I took the photograph. I assume that people have probably knocked them down — many people are probably unable to find anything to appreciate about the patiently and carefully built stone piles pictured above. In any case, the efforts of the person I saw building the cairns hasn’t gone totally to waste: it provided me with something interesting to photograph, think and write about
References
- Cairn http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cairn Accessed November 25, 2009.
Thanks Marcus. Another picture of the same rock garden can be found here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gpeters/4007058769/
take care,
Geoff
Hi Geoff,
Thanks for the the providing the different perspective on the same scene. Have you been by that place recently? Are the cairns (rock piles) still there? I hope so
Have a great day!
Your friend,
M.E.B.
Knobb Music Blog
Just to let you know these cairns are called Inukshuks. You will find them across Canada.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inukshuk
An inuksuk (plural inuksuit) [1] (from the Inuktitut: ᐃᓄᒃᓱᒃ, plural ᐃᓄᒃᓱᐃᑦ; alternatively inukshuk in English[2] or inukhuk in Inuinnaqtun[3]) is a stone landmark or cairn built by humans, used by the Inuit, Inupiat, Kalaallit, Yupik, and other peoples of the Arctic region of North America. These structures are found from Alaska to Greenland. This region, above the Arctic Circle, is dominated by the tundra biome, containing areas with few natural landmarks.
The inuksuk may have been used for navigation, as a point of reference, a marker for hunting grounds, or as a food cache.[4] The Inupiat in northern Alaska used inuksuit to assist in the herding of caribou into contained areas for slaughter.[5] Inuksuit vary in shape and size, with deep roots in the Inuit culture.
Historically the most common type of inukshuk is a single stone positioned in an upright manner.[6] An inuksuk is often confused with an inunnguaq, a cairn representing a human figure. There is some debate as to whether the appearance of human- or cross-shaped cairns developed in the Inuit culture before the arrival of European missionaries and explorers.[6]
At Enukso Point on Baffin Island, there are over 100 inuksuit. The area has been designated one of Canada’s national historic sites.[7][8]