What a great name. Like calling the Calgary rodeo a Stampede. Gets the juices going, pulls the people in.
This is on a reservation and we spent a lot of time in the hot sun being culturally oriented.
Eventually we worked our way up the many floors of an exhibit built in to the cliff-side. Our First Nations guide explained what this site is all about. Or maybe a site 800 yards away – there seems to be some difference of opinion, but agreement that the present site (where surely some buffalo met their end) has better modern day road access.
As at a number of sites in North America, the native peoples sometimes hunted buffalo (well, bison) in dramatic ways. One of the most efficient was to drive the beasts off a steep cliff. Much like the cliff shown behind our guide. Archeologists have found evidence at this cliff base that thousands of buffalo died here (or perhaps 800 yards away), beginning about 5000 years ago. (Erosion has since greatly reduced the cliff height.)
According to legend, a young buck hid below the cliff during a buffalo run. A severely injured but alive buffalo kicked-out, striking the boy in the head – hence the name Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump.
The expansive view from the jump includes tepees in the foreground and, too distant to show on the screen, large wind turbines along the horizon.
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