Iqaluit (Jun 19/06) - An inuksuk is not just a pile of rocks.

The Inuit monuments bear messages, and Peter Irniq is using the traditional cairns as a form of tidings that will stand long after he leaves the territory.

He had periodically been building inuksuit - the plural form of inuksuk - on the hills overlooking Iqaluit's Road to Nowhere for several years. But as he prepares to move to Ottawa, where he and his wife Marie have bought a home, Irniq has stepped up the pace.

"I feel good about leaving having built the inuksuit for the people of Iqaluit, the people of Nunavut, the people of the world," he said, adding that he will return to Nunavut occasionally for meetings and to visit.

Hiking up a hillside that is a medley of soft, damp tundra and hard stone, Irniq leans into Iqaluit's wind, which is still fierce even in the spring.

Although a grandfather with a crown of white hair, he insists the uphill climb is not too taxing. He tells of walking close to 100 kilometres from his childhood home in Committee Bay to Repulse Bay and back again with his parents as a boy. During a successful hunt, he would carry a 300 kilogram caribou carcass across his shoulders for long stretches, he recalled.

"That's called survival," he said.

Cresting the hill with friend Tom Sammurtok, Irniq stands alongside two 1.5 metre-high inuksuit, roughly his height. He erected the stone statues with traditional culture in mind.

One of them has a hole in centre, or a "window" as Irniq calls it. Looking through the rocky frame directs one's view towards an area that is prime for fishing or caribou or seal hunting, he explained.

"Inuit, as a hunting society, those are the kinds of messages we put in our inuksuit," he said. "You're never scared when you're among the inuksuit knowing that your ancestors have lived here since time immemorial."

Miniature inuksuit, known as inuksugait, contain rocks resembling arms that point to places of interest.

"I mark my way with inuksuit," Irniq said. "Inuit are particularly good at observing the land because that's what Inuit are all about."

A former commissioner of Nunavut and MLA, Irniq has built inuksuit all over the globe - from Normandy, France, to a consul general's residence in Boston.

In a few weeks he will build an inuksuk in Santa Fe, New Mexico, by request of the Institute of American Indian Arts.

"I like it because it promotes Inuit culture around the world," he said of his deeply-rooted and meaningful pursuit.