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   Tallest inuksuk-world record set by Allstone Quarry Products

[Sep 17] SCHOMBERG, Ontario,Canada--Joe Melo, owner of Allstone Quarry Products, owns the largest inuksuk.

   At 11.9 metres high, Melo’s inuksuk beats the nearest competition, the 2010 Olympic mascot, by almost three metres. Built from 11 pieces of solid granite, the giant statue weighs 82 tonnes.

   The arms alone—made of a single slab of granite—are a half-metre thick and span more than 8 metres across. The statue was assembled by crane and is held together by gravity alone, with only the inuksuk’s feet imbedded in solid concrete.

    Melo, owner of Allstone Quarry Products near Shomberg, extracted the granite from his quarry in Big Wood Township located about 40 minutes south of Sudbury.

   Melo, who supplies some of the biggest chunks of rock in the province, says he never intended to beat the world’s record. He built the structure about five years ago and says he wasn’t aware that the inuksuk was the world’s tallest until several marketing companies brought the fact to his attention.

  “We didn’t want to commercialize it,” says Melo. “We built it to create an awareness of the beauty of natural stone, promote northern Ontario granite and to honour Canada’s aboriginal people who used these statues as a navigation aid along northern waterways.”

  Melo says that the granite used in the statue—granite gneiss—has a high micah content, which imparts flexibility to the stone, allowing him to mine large slabs that won’t crack when extracted. “We supplied a 28-foot (8.5-metre) slab to the University of Waterloo,” says Melo. “That slab can be flexed by up to four inches (10 centimetres) either way.”

   The inuksuk also has a name, but it isn’t engraved on the statue. The nickname “Little Joe” was chosen as a gag by Melo’s employees. Melo stands a little over 173 centimetres. “One of our engineers likes to say that the inuksuk stands about ‘seven Joes high,’” says Melo.




   


   
         

    Media: BBC Video News on Youngest DJ     

      
          
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