Stacked

by Lisa Wooten

Title

Stacked

Artist

Lisa Wooten

Medium

Photograph - Photograph

Description

A cairn is a human-made pile (or stack) of stones. The word cairn comes from the Scottish Gaelic: c�rn (plural c�irn).[1]

Inuksuit in northern Canada were markers used for wayfinding and to locate caches of food or other stores.

A cairn to mark a mountain summit in Graub�nden, Switzerland.
Cairns are used as trail markers in many parts of the world, in uplands, on moorland, on mountaintops, near waterways and on sea cliffs, as well as in barren deserts and tundra. They vary in size from small stone markers to entire artificial hills, and in complexity from loose conical rock piles to delicately balanced sculptures and elaborate feats of megalithic engineering. Cairns may be painted or otherwise decorated, whether for increased visibility or for religious reasons. An ancient example is the inuksuk (plural inuksuit), 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 and has areas with few natural landmarks.
In modern times, cairns are often erected as landmarks, a use they have had since ancient times; but, since prehistory, they have also been built for a variety of other reasons, such as burial monuments and for defense and hunting, as well as ceremonial, astronomical, and other purposes.
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Modern cairns[edit]

Line of cairns used to mark the way above the treeline on Mount Washington, New Hampshire, USA.
Different types of cairns exist from rough piles of stones to interlocking dry stone round cylinders. The most important cairns commonly use around the world are an interlocking stone survey cairns constructed built around a central survey mark about every 30 km on the tallest peaks across a nation. These physical survey mark cairn systems by surveyors as the basis for national survey grids to interconnect individual land survey measurements for entire nations. On occasion these permanent interlocking stone cairns were taken down then reconstructed for survey mark for measurements to increase the accuracy of the national survey grid. They can also be used in unpopulated country as emergency location points. In North America and Northern Europe any type of cairn can be used to mark mountain bike and hiking trails and other cross-country trail blazing, especially in mountain regions at or above the tree line. For example, the extensive trail network maintained by the DNT, the Norwegian Trekking Association, extensively uses cairns in conjunction with T-painted rock faces to mark trails. Other examples of these can be seen in the lava fields of Volcanoes National Park to mark several hikes.[2] Placed at regular intervals, a series of cairns can be used to indicate a path across stony or barren terrain, even across glaciers. Such cairns are often placed at junctions or in places where the trail direction is not obvious. They may also be used to indicate an obscured danger such as a sudden drop, or a noteworthy point such as the summit of a mountain. Most trail cairns are small, usually being a foot or less in height. However, they may be built taller so as to protrude through a layer of snow. Hikers passing by often add a stone, as a small bit of maintenance to counteract the erosive effects of severe weather. North American trail marks are sometimes called "ducks" or "duckies", because they sometimes have a "beak" pointing in the direction of the route. The expression "two rocks do not make a duck" reminds hikers that just one rock resting upon another could be the result of accident or nature rather than intentional trail marking.
The building of cairns for recreational purposes along trails, to mark one's personal passage through the area, can result in an overabundance of rock piles. This distracts from cairns used as genuine navigational guides, and also conflicts with the Leave No Trace ethic. This ethic of outdoor practice advocates for leaving the outdoors undisturbed and in its natural condition.

One of many cairns marking British mass graves at the site of the Battle of Isandlwana (1879), South Africa.
Coastal cairns, or "sea marks", are also common in the northern latitudes, especially in the island-strewn waters of Scandinavia and eastern Canada. Often indicated on navigation charts, they may be painted white or lit as beacons for greater visibility offshore.
Modern cairns may also be erected for historical or memorial commemoration or simply for decorative or artistic reasons. One example is a series of many cairns marking British soldiers' mass graves at the site of the Battle of Isandlwana, South Africa. Another is the Matthew Flinders Cairn on the side of Arthur's Seat, a small mountain on the shores of Port Phillip Bay, Australia. A large cairn, commonly referred to as "the igloo" by the locals, was built atop a hill next to the I-476 highway in Radnor, Pennsylvania and is a part of a series of large rock sculptures initiated in 1988 to symbolize the township's Welsh heritage and to beautify the visual imagery along the highway.[3] Some are merely places where farmers have collected stones removed from a field. These can be seen in the Catskill Mountains, North America where there is a strong Scottish heritage, and may also represent places where livestock were lost. In locales exhibiting fantastic rock formations, such as the Grand Canyon, tourists often construct simple cairns in reverence of the larger counterparts.[4] By contrast, cairns may have a strong aesthetic purpose, for example in the art of Andy Goldsworthy. Wikipedia

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June 4th, 2016

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