Olympic logo design sparks contention

VANCOUVER - By now, whether you realize it or not, most of you Olympic junkies out there have seen an inukshuk.

Inukshuk.

I love saying that word. It sounds like a refrain from backup singers in a 1960s girls group.

"If he loves you true . . . inuk-shuk . . . And he don't make you blue . . . inuk-shuk . . . It's because he's Rod Carew . . . "

Anyway, that funny-looking, multicolored thing that sits atop "Vancouver 2010" on the official logo for these Olympic Games - it's an inukshuk.

The way it's pictured there, the inukshuk sort of resembles the way a child, using a crayon or molding clay, might depict a fat man. In fact, put a headset on it and it's a dead-ringer for Andy Reid.

In truth, it's stacked rocks. The Inuits and other First Nations' tribes in the Arctic Circle region of Canada have long used inukshuks as all-purpose symbols. They can be comprised of one stone or many, depending on how you like your inukshuks.

According to Vancouver Olympic organizers, the one being featured on their logo - and which in typical Olympic fashion they're marketing as "Ilanaaq", meaning friend in Inuit - represents "the eternal expression of the hospitality of a nation that warmly welcomes the people of the world with open arms every day."

In the Arctic, they're sometimes used as navigational aids. Apparently, when you're lost in the tundra, where there aren't any natural guideposts, and very little of anything but endless snow, a stack of rocks is a welcome sight.

Others say they also can be spiritual symbols, à la Stonehenge; or the means by which tribes set the boundaries of their hunting territories; or memorials to departed loved ones.

If you're particularly interested in seeing inukshuks, and would rather observe one in the wild than on a hat or T-shirt, you can visit Baffin Island. (If you don't have a GPS, just make a right at the second inukshuk.)

There are more than 100 of them clustered together there, at Enusko Point, an area that has been designated a Canadian national historic site.

Anyway, like most things Canadian, the Olympic inukshuk has been a point of tribal contention. (Folks here love to fight, which may explain their predilection for hockey.)

First Nations people in and around Vancouver have complained that the organizers could have come up with a symbol for their logo that better reflected the ancient culture of this area. Something like a totem pole.

They also weren't happy that, for them at least, the inukshuk looked like a video-game character.

"The First Nations community at large is disappointed with the selection," Grand Chief Stewart Phillip, president of the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, told the Canadian Broadcasting Company recently.

"The decision-makers have decided not to reflect the First Nations and the Pacific region in the design of the logo," he said. "I can't help but notice the remarkable resemblance it has to Pac-Man."