Fort Steele, British Columbia

Saturday, July 7, 2018

Day 23

254 miles

On our way west from the Calgary foothills in Canada, Daisy and I stopped at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in southwestern Alberta. 

Archaeological data indicate that this hunting site was used by the Plains People for nearly 6,000 years. 

We walked along the cliff-top trail to the actual site of the jump, then learned more of the details by touring the Interpretive Center. 

There is a story about how this site got it name. According to one of the Blackfoot oral traditions, a young boy wanted to witness the plunge of the buffalo from under the shelter of a ledge. As the bodies mounted, he was trapped between the animals and the cliff. When his body was found, his skull had been crushed by the weight of the carcasses. Thus, they named this buffalo jump “Head-Smashed-In.”

The Interpretive Center is built into the hillside near the jump on multiple levels. It provides excellent displays and information about the life of the buffalo herds as well as the Plains People. 

Daisy and I had been to other locations with the story of buffalo jumps, but this one was by far the most complete and interesting. We highly recommend it if you have an opportunity to travel in southwestern Alberta. 

The plains to the east of Head-Smashed-In are often described as an endless, flat, treeless expanse. Actually, the Northern Plains are characterized by a wide variety of features including badlands, sand dunes, high regions, creeks, coulees, and deeply-incised river valleys. The grasslands of the plains supported huge herds of buffalo, especially during summer when grass was most abundant and nutritious. Grasslands were frequently burned by natural causes (such as lightning strikes) and intentionally lit fires. Ancient hunters understood that burning the prairies resulted in greener, more nutritious grass the following season. 

This photo below is of an autumn picture of the cliff from the exhibit, because we had to stay on the trails and didn’t get this view. The location is on the southeastern edge of the Porcupine Hills, at an elevation of 3,650 feet. Buffalo were attracted to the rolling hills, which offered precious water from seeps and creeks, shelter from winter storms, and nutritious blue grama and rough fescue grass. Cliffs and valleys of the Porcupine Hills provided many ideal locations for Aboriginal people to trap and kill buffalo. 

Daisy took this photo from the trail of the nearby Calderwood Buffalo Jump. It provides a side perspective of the line of cliffs that the buffalo were driven over.

These hills are not foothills of the Rocky Mountains but are the remnants of a landform composed of dipping beds of sandstone, siltstone, and shale. Over millions of years, erosional forces wore down the softer layers of rocks leaving escarpments of harder sandstone along the eastern edges of the hills.

One of the exhibits had this diagram of the staging area of the buffalo jump. In the upper left is the gathering area to which the herd was slowly guided by people wearing wolf furs and acting as predators. In the center are dashed lines representing the drive lanes heading toward the cliff. Rock cairns were built and topped with branches to force the herd into a narrowing channel. Because of their poor eyesight, the buffalo could be tricked into running through this lane. In the lower right of the drawing is the 40-foot-high cliff that they didn’t see in time to avoid plunging to their death.

Young men dressed in robes from buffalo calves and acted as if they were injured. The protective instincts of the dominant lead cows and other herd members caused them to follow these “calves” toward the edge of the cliff, as the pressure from the “wolves” in the rear caused a stampede. The Interpretive Center had an excellent video showing how this procedure worked, but it used animation in critical points so that no animals were injured in developing the video.

A crucial feature that made Head-Smashed-In a premier buffalo jump was the natural spring that seeps out from under the sandstone cliff. Water would have been vital to the people, not only for quenching their thirst, but also for use in cooking the buffalo products. 

We spent several hours walking the grounds and exploring the displays in the museum.

And of course we had a late lunch of buffalo stew before venturing back on the road to our evening destination.

It was 4:54 pm and 75 degrees when we stopped for the night at the Fort Steele RV park in the Kootenay Mountains.

Sunday, July 9
Day 24


We decided to sleep in and take a down day. I cleaned the RV, dumped the waste tanks and filled up with fresh water while Daisy did the laundry. The next day, we would cross the USA border.