By Ian Ross
Inukshuks. You know those little stone, human-like figures that crown highway rock cuts everywhere? They are selling in Europe, in Saudi Arabia, in Japan and just about everywhere.
In northwestern Ontario, it is a booming cottage industry with craftmakers sprouting up, well...like inukshuks.
And they are all following the lead of Kenora resident Maurey Bedard who has so many orders for these handcrafted artforms that he needs more manufacturing space and some extra hands to keep up with the demand.
As the self-dubbed Inukshuk Man, he expects to move between 8,000 and 10,000 pieces this year through individual and mass orders to more than 100 giftware retailers from British Columbia to Newfoundland and down into the midwestern states.
After dabbling in the business on a part-time basis beginning in 1995, the demand for his pieces eventually outstripped his ability to work two jobs.
“I went from high tech to low tech,” says Bedard, 50, who quit his phone company technician’s job in 1999 to devote his energy full-time to his craft. And the gamble paid off.
“I’ve grown scholastically. I’ve doubled my gross sales from the first year to the second year and from the second to the third.
“And two years ago I doubled it again, and I suspect it will double again this year,” he says. Bedard started out dealing with 36 retail stores, expanded to 51, then recently peaked with 102 outlets that include one shop in Devon, England.
Through hits on his Web site and word-of-mouth on the Internet, product is regularly moving out to Massachusetts, Virginia, Washington State and overseas to Belgium.
“I just sent 30 pieces to Russia, 15 to Saudi Arabia and 20 pieces to Japan last week.
“So yes, the Internet works for me.”
Fifteen or so years before, erecting inukshuks (pronounced In-uk-shooks) along Highway 17 and Highway 71 was a weekend outing for Bedard and his young daughter, not realizing they were doing some pre-promotional work for a future business venture.
Intrigued by the legend of the stony figures, he began researching them, learning more about Inuit culture and what they were used for
.
His homemade crafts caught the eye of a local gift shop owner who began retailing his miniature versions to curious motorists who noticed them on the highways.
A resident of Coney Island, about a two-minute boat ride from Kenora, Bedard was preparing in April to move the operation and his two full-time employees out of his basement and into a 1,000-square-foot renovated warehouse in town.
“It’s almost sad that more people in Kenora don’t realize the value of dealing nationally and internationally. Small towns feel they have to be local. We found our market is not only national, but international.”
Bedard says he is not surprised at all by his success in converting a simple idea into a thriving small business that other local entrepreneurs are duplicating.
Bedard selects colourful pieces of Precambrian stone, fashions them into inukshuks, stone candle holders, pen sets and other forms before tissue-wrapping and boxing each piece with a tag explaining the history and meaning of the gift.
Long recognized in Inuit society as a kind of Arctic compass, the stones are placed in a manner to resemble a human figure and provide a trail direction marker for hunters on the barren Arctic tundra.
His entry into the world of e-commerce has spawned another e-business he plans to launch this spring.
AutheticallyCanadian.com will be a Web-based food and goods distributor geared to homesick Canucks overseas who long for a taste of Canadiana.
