May 28th Arrived in Alberta - Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump &

We finally made it out of BC as you can tell we have not been in a great hurry.

We have decided to take a southerly route and see if we can avoid Hwy 1 all the way to Ontario.

Today we went to Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump in Alberta.

It was about the first nations that herded the buffulo off of a cliff then killed the ones they needed and left the rest. They had a impressive way to hunt Buffalo on foot and dressed as wolves and baby buffalo to entice the buffulo toward the cliff. Buffalo used to number in the millions on the praire, until the Europeans arrived first the spanish bringing horses in 1752 and the arrival of guns, saw a massive slaughter of the Buffalo herds, sometimes for sport, they ran hunting trains and you actually shot Buffalo from the comfort of a train, sometimes for the furs and often for the skin which was used for belts in the fast growing factories in the east. Down to less than 1,000 and with the indians starving, one early conservationist, drove 300 buffalo north to the safety of Northern Alberta. Now almost all surving Buffalo live in protected areas and are direct descendants of the 300 that were saved. It would be one of many tales of European destruction of a traditional way of life.