6/18/22

150 miles west of Medicine Hat is the World Heritage Site of Head Smashed-in Buffalo Jump. A "jump" site used by the Blackfoot indians where they would startle herds of buffalo into a stampede and they would run off a cliff to fall to their deaths. The Blackfoot would then retrieve the downed buffaloes from the crash site and process almost every single part of these animals to use throughout winter. A successful hunt would yield them a couple hundred buffaloes.

The cliff below is the jump. The rock formation has crumbled over the decades. This fall was at one point 20 feet tall.

The rest of the Interpretation Center contains multiple floors, each floor describes an aspect of the Blackfoot life and culture: the creation story of the world from the Blackfoot's perspective, how they plan and form these hunts, their tools and clothing and the ramification of the European trade and hunt of the buffalo on the Blackfoot's culture and future.

Head Smashed-in Buffalo Jump is one of the most unique places that I've ever visited. Given it's remote location, you can easily imagine vast herds of buffaloes roaming out here and native groups living amongst them.

After Head Smashed-in, I'm going north to Calgary. I've been watching the radar all day because Calgary has been inundated with thunderstorms over the past week. They were under a flood warning for days. It seems like this area is threatened with thunderstorms everyday. Sometimes it appears, sometimes it doesn't. It's been hard to plan when to start and stop with this unpredictability.

I have another Bunk-a-Biker stay setup with a host in north Calgary. I decide to blast up there on the highway to avoid a potential storm at 7pm. Alberta highway 2 runs almost 100 miles north into Calgary, a major large city in Alberta and Canada. I suit up, turn on some music and prepare myself for some city traffic.