May holiday sketches: Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump

 

The second UNESCO World Heritage site we visited was on the way from Waterton Lakes  back to Lethbridge -- Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. (ヘッド-スマッシュト-イン・バッファロー・ジャンプ). It's a beautiful site, with an extraordinary expansive view across the plains from up on the cliff. The landscape becomes especially poignant with the knowledge of its cultural and historic significance as one of many places in the region where the Blackfoot drove herds of bison down the cliff as a method of hunting-- a practice that continued for about 6000 years until the 19th century.

The interpretive centre at the site, built in 1987, is nestled into the cliff and is almost invisible from the highway below. Its main entry hall showcases two bison lurking nervously (?) at the edge of a man-made precipice, perhaps about to plunge to their deaths...