Buffalo and other things that fly

One can't walk or drive too far in Alberta without seeing another large raptor, either on a telegraph pole, a street light, a fence post (baseball caps permitting) or a hay bale. There are Osprey, Bald Eagle, Golden Eagles and many more hawks and Harriers all over the place. This is one of the ones that we saw the most, a Northern Harrier.

We saw this one along the road towards Head Smashed In when we went out to visit the Buffalo Jump. All along the drive across the prairies towards Fort MacLeod we saw hundreds of these magnificent creatures.

They are stunning birds and I'm sure that they all seemed to know that I was coming along and quite clearly communicated with each other across the miles as every time we approached one and I dared to switch on the camera, the buggers flew off!

Also along the road to Head Smashed In we saw these Red Deer flying across the road and then quite literally flying over the fences at the side of the road. To give you some idea, I would say that these fences are about 5 feet high!

It was great to see and during the space of around 24 seconds we saw 6 animals leap over into the field.

The Buffalo Jump is an exhibition of how the First Nation people used to lure the animals to their death over a cliff so that they could then butcher them for meat and for their hides. Here's Katie feeling sorry for the one that got away.

In days gone by these Buffalo were so abundant that a herd could take literally days to pass you by. Long before guns existed, the tribes used to very cleverly spend weeks planning a route, marking it out with trees and stones, and then dress up like wolves to quite literally scare the massive hoards of beasts over the cliff which was at the end of their Buffalo Drive. The momentum of the crowds of animals running at over 50kmh would carry many of them over the edge of the cliff and they would smash to the ground and die. When the melee had died down, the people below would butcher their prize and have food for the winter and skins and hides to make clothes, shoes and ti pis.

So just behind this lovely picture of Janet and Eamonn is the cliff. At the bottom of the cliff the archaeologists found thousands and thousands of bones and tools that had been used over thousands of years for this gruesome but fascinating practise.

The exhibition itself is really well developed and tells you in no uncertain terms what happened here and how. Not for the faint hearted!

On the day we visited there was an exhibition of First Nations Drumming and Dancing. This was wonderful to see. The colours and the noises were so entrancing and the explanation of each dance and each chant were fascinating.

It was such a hot day, we were all dying of heat exhaustion in our shorts and vests, in the shade, and these people were dancing and chanting dressed up in full tribal traditional dress.

This guy below looked very familiar to me.... and I couldn't think why... He even came over during lunch and asked me to have a look at his computer!

The finale was the dance of the rings. Whilst dancing around and chanting this guy made acrobatic moves with his collection of rings and each turn and flick of his hands and feet (and head!) made another spectacular display as the rings intertwined. At the end of the dance he was wearing 15 rings..

After the exhibition and the dancing display we took a stroll around the bottom of the cliffs at the jump site. We also had a peek into a ti pi.

This is a Hoary Marmot. He was about 15-18 inches long and just soaking up the sun above the dancers.

The only live buffalo we saw were on the way home. This heard being just outside of Head Smashed In. What a fitting end to this superb historical and engaging visit.

In the afternoon we took a trip out to see Frank Slide. I'll let the picture below tell the story...

You can see the mountain behind Linda seems to be missing something. The side of this mountain just collapsed and slid down the hill towards the sleeping folk in the town of Frank. Linda stood next to this boulder to give an idea of scale.

the tranquility of the place is eerie and beautiful. One can only imagine the noise it would have made that night. As far as the eye can see there are rocks and boulders which have just been left as a memorial to those who died.

It's a good Job that this is only a picture show and not a video. You can't imagine the language out of this lot as they emerged from our gentle walk around the mountain at Frank Slide!

:-)