As we approach what looks remarkably like a peak district edge, a concrete bunker pokes out of the landscape. It looks like a James Bond villains lair, but actually contains a cleverly hidden museum about this fascinating UNESCO world heritage site; Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump.
This sandstone edge in the foothills of the Rocky mountains is where the 1st nations people hunted buffalo. They did this by lining up piles of rocks and bushes to create a funnel, leading from the plain, towards the cliff edge. When the timing was right, the buffalo were lured by a man keening like a lost calf and then spooked by more men dressed as wolves. The herd thundered towards the cliff edge and over they went crashing 20m to the floor.
The name of the jump comes from the legend of a boy who stood too close, in an effort to get a better view of the action. The buffalo fell on top and killed him. The name is not how the buffalo die, but a warning of how dangerous this method of hunting can be. I found it fascinating to learn that buffalo have poor eyesight but good sense of smell. So the only time the buffalo jump was used was when the wind was in the right direction at the right time of year.
Once a successful hunt had brought a load of buffalo to their doom, the whole tribe would go to work cutting and preserving the meat. The organs, delicacies, were eaten on site as they were hard to preserve. The meat was cut into strips, dry smoked and then pulverised into a powder, mixed with boiled fat and berries into pemmican – the food that would get them through the winter.
Interestingly, this hunting method was done purely on foot. The movies of Indians riding horses only came about by the misunderstanding of the first european travellers reaching this area. Horses were only introduced by the spanish. Early photos of horses in the tribes show how trading had moved horses all the way up from America into Canada by the time white europeans got there.
We started by walking right though the museum and out the top onto the cliff edge. It’s about 12m high now, but used to be over 20m. The change is because of the rock and soil and debris left behind from thousands of years of buffalo jumps, carcases, tools and discarded settlement detritus. This site was the least disturbed by mining and looting and so gave archaeologists a view back in time over 5000 years into the 1st nations peoples history.
It was an amazing view from the top and both reminded me of home and looked completely different. The stone edge was so similar, but the stone was soft sandstone. The rolling hills behind the edge looked familiar but the wide flat plains in front are totally different to the UK. Oh, and it was hot. But apparently not as hot as it could be if the sun wasn’t being filtered out by the thick smoke from wild fires.
Its been really smoggy the whole time so far which we initially thought was just city pollution. Given that everyone drives a honking great big truck we thought this was a reasonable conclusion. But apparently it’s drifting down from the north where there are incredibly large forest fires. It’s stopping us from getting a view of the Rocky mountains that would otherwise be visible from the hilltops around Calgary.
Driving here we were told that usually you’d be able to see for miles across the plains. It’s still blowing my mind how much space they have here. For example, we stopped in a town that was completely built between the two sides of the interstate. A town, on the central reservation. And it wasn’t widened on each side of the town to achieve this strange oneway system, there is just that much space left between carriageways.
We stopped here at an amazing sweetshop Julia had found. It looks like it’s been a sweetshop for about 70 years. The whole place is floor to ceiling covered in shelves for sweets in jars or sweetshop paraphernalia like Nerds boxershorts! Built of bare wooden planks and nails it looks like the set of a Western film was repurposed into a sweetshop. This sense was added by the country & western music in the background as we wandered around pick and mixing from the jars.
After spending the day learning about the fascinating buffalo jump, we were getting hungry. The cafe we had banked on being open had been shut down by COVID and never reopened. Luckily, Julia knew of a cute little coffee shop on the way back. It was lovely to sit out in the sun and have overstuffed sandwiches. I got Turkey and Swiss on Rye, something I’ve heard ordered in the movies, and it was really good. Mostly because of the inch thick portion of turkey in there!
Back in Calgary, after driving what felt like the world’s straightest road, we slumped into the sofa with cups of tea. After dinner and a natter, we head out to a local park. Here we were lucky enough to see a coyote slinking off into the distance and then beavers playing in the ponds. They were really far away but with some binoculars we got a good view of them. On the walk back to the car we saw a dam they had made. Huge logs, not just spindly sticks, but thigh thick logs had been brought to a constriction in the river. Stuffed with smaller sticks and then caked in mud, the dam was holding back an incredible amount of water. We quit the park as we heard thunder rolling in.
