Bison Kill Site Contender For Designation as World Heritage Site
Don Fish explains significance of bison kill site.
©Bert Gildart: Janie and I have been so extraordinarily busy that I have not had time to post on some of the many other exciting places we have seen this past month; and though we’re now back in our OTHER home — catching up on other business matters — nevertheless, I want to post a few images of another place we highly recommend.
While in Great Falls we also visited what was known until recently as Ulm Pishkin State Park. Though little has changed, the site, now a contender for status as a World Heritage Site, is known as First Peoples Buffalo Jump.
LARGEST OF BISON KILL SITES
Bison jumps are located all over Montana, but this is one of the largest of the prehistoric bison kill sites in the United States. A visitor center and interpretive trails tell the story of the people, the animals, and the landscape of the buffalo culture
Trails course throughout the park and Janie and I lucked out. Don Fish, a Blackfeet Interpreter, was scheduled to lead a group of students, and teachers said they’d be glad to have us join. As we hiked we learned from Fish that Indians used the area for over six-hundred years and that they would stampede buffalo to the edge of the mile-long cliff. Though bison might sense danger, by the time these beasts approached the lip of the cliff it was too late.
Bison rushing up from behind would force the front runners over the cliff, where they’d fall to their deaths.
SQUARE BUTTE ALWAYS INSPIRING
After hiking to the top of the cliff we then walked along the face, enjoying expansive views of not only the Rocky Mountain Front, but also of Square Butte, a setting that provided the famous Cowboy Artist Charles M. Russell as an inspiration for many of his paintings, to include several of Indians hunting buffalo.
Don Fish leads school group to top of mile-long cliff face; bison jump, showing drop of approximately 30 feet; burial site of Native Americans back dropped by Square Butte, a setting that appears in several of famed cowboy artist Charles M. Russell paintings.
I’ll soon be posting a few other blogs of Montana travel areas which we recently enjoyed, but rRight now we’re scurrying around trying to prepare for a lengthy trip in our Airstream. We plan to leave before the snows descend much lower (it’s capping the peaks now) in the valley. We intend to take materials we have gathered about Montana to the desert, where we’ll finish the essays for our book about Montana.
Hopefully we’ll be out of her by the first week of November. We don’t want to ever again take the chance of a state truck thoughtlessly dumping magnesium chloride in such as way that it will blast our Airstream. In fact, we don’t want to think about the subject of filiform corrosion, preferring instead to say focused on such incredible subjects as the First Peoples Buffalo Jump.
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THIS TIME FIVE YEARS AGO
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