A Hunting Song

We are heading south now and anxious to cross the border to the US. Leaving Calgary, Alberta, the road passes through rural towns and lots of prairies. The Rockies are off to our west and it is a pleasant drive. I noticed in the tour book a World Heritage Site and we decided to stop. Near Fort MacLeod there are great plains where natives have summered for 6000 years. One of the last activities before the cold weather set in was the buffalo hunt. This is an actual site where thousands of buffalo were stampeded and jumped to their deaths over these cliffs. The seven story structure was opened in 1986 and it is a museum and learning center. We saw a movie which enacted the actual stampede and was really hard to watch. The people used every part of the buffalo for food, shelter and to make tools. We walked outside to the side of the cliffs and now green grass and plants grow in the rich soil. Thousands of skulls and bones had been taken from this site over the years. The name Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is interesting and unusual. I'll quote from their brochure, "A long time ago, according to one legend, the people were driving buffalo over these sandstone cliffs. A young brave wanted to watch the buffalo tumbling past. Standing under the shelter of a ledge, as if behind a waterfall, he watched the great beasts fall. The hunt was unusally good that day and as the bodies piled up, he became trapped between the animals and the cliffs. When his people came to do the butchering, they found him with his skull crushed by the weight of the buffalo carcasses. Thus, they named this place "Head-Smashed-In". Jeff, being Jeff, said they didn't know the word, "schmuck." Anyway it was well worth the stop and very educational.