Inuit artists from Nunavut are getting a share of proceeds from Inukshuks they've carved for the Vancouver Winter Olympics.

The Nunavut Development Corp., the territorial Crown corporation that has commissioned 7,000 handmade Inukshuks to be sold as official Olympics merchandise during next month's games, says it's paying carvers an average of $35 for each 7.6-centimetre Inukshuk, which has a suggested retail price of $150.

"There's numerous royalties and commissions, there's freight, there packaging costs. So all of these things go in to the determination of what an officially licensed 2010 Inukshuk costs," development corporation president Darrin Nichol told CBC News.

Nichol said the 2010 Olympic organizing committee, known as VANOC, also gets a commission on Inukshuk sales.

The development corporation has already sent 2,500 of the Inukshuks — an official symbol of the Vancouver games — to Olympic retailers.

Nichol said artists are getting their fair share for the Olympic carvings, but added that the corporation had wanted to pay them more.

"It's not easy to sit outside and knock off a carving in the middle of January. You'd like to get the people as much as they want — it's a tough gig," he said.

"NDC is about job creation; it's not just about bottom line. But we have to balance it, you know, because we're also operating within the private sector, trying to move these particular units."

Nichol said he hopes the handmade Inukshuks will eventually draw buyers into the larger world of Inuit art.