Inuk-shock – St-Paul Street at Place Jacques-Cartier, Montréal, Québec

An inuksuk is a man-made stone landmark or cairn used by the Inuit, Inupiat, Kalaallit, Yupik, and other peoples of the Arctic region of North America. The word inuksuk means "something which acts for or performs the function of a person." These structures are found from Alaska to Greenland. This region, above the Arctic Circle, is dominated by the tundra biome and has areas with few natural landmarks.

The inuksuk may have been used for navigation, as a point of reference, a marker for travel routes, fishing places, camps, hunting grounds, places of veneration, drift fences used in hunting or to mark a food cache. Historically, the most common type of inuksuk is a single stone positioned in an upright manner. 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. The size of some inuksuit suggest that the construction was often a communal effort.

I found this plastic inuksuk in a tourist souvenir shop in Old Montreal. The statue was made in China.