You start by peering up from the foot of a towering inside cliff, where three buffalo stand at the precipice above you, and you end with an understanding of how encroaching technology in the West altered history and pushed a thousands-years-old, nature-based way of life sideways.

At this UNESCO World Heritage Site in Alberta’s south, which is open year-round, you can take an interpretive trip with the Plains Peoples of Southern Alberta and the Plains Bison into a haunting, almost vanished world brought vividly to life.

It’s a learning experience imparted through storytelling, demonstrations, crafts, films, interpretive displays and hikes (if you want to do them), and it appeals to all ages. It allows you to become a sleuth, of sorts, into the past.

The Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Interpretive Centre is set into an imposing rise northwest of Fort Macleod and dominates the rolling grasslands and hills that swell in the distance to meet mountains.

Experience 10,000 Years of History

It’s a phenomenal lookout point with a 10,000-year history that’s dramatically heightened by what you experience and learn in the centre, which documents the buffalo hunting culture of the Plains Peoples from ancient times to the arrival of the Europeans.

This is one of the oldest, largest and best preserved communal bison hunting sites in North America.
 
Once you’ve made your way through the presentations of Plains Peoples artifacts and hands-on movies and guides’ stories, you can step up to an outside railing and back in time and see the seemingly endless plains through different eyes. There are colourful tipis far below (which you can rent and sleep in overnight) and the yellowing Alberta plains stretch endlessly away.

When I was there, standing and looking out as my hands gripped that railing, it seemed a forlorn, windswept world.

“Do you know the story of the Steel Snake?” asked Quintin Crow Shoe, our interpretive guide at the centre, as he directed us inside the centre to an exhibit entitled ‘Cultures in Contact,' which depicts the consequences of the introduction of European trade goods in the early 18th century.

I confessed that I did not, but I learned the Steel Snake was the railroad, which as it made its way westward, hurried communications among Aboriginal peoples who relayed stories of buffalo littered along the sides of the tracks (the buffalo were being shot with rifles, and rifles hadn’t yet changed the Plains People’s way of life).

The arrival of the horse and gun marked the passing of the traditional buffalo hunt and forever changed the native buffalo culture. You can view a great short movie inside the centre’s theatre that ends with a final freeze frame (I’m not ruining it for you) on a Plains hunter raising a new rifle and firing a shot that echoes into the future.

$9.8 Million Visitor Centre Oversees Jump Site

There are five main exhibits inside the $9.8 million visitor centre, a seven-tiered building buried in a large slump block, south of the jump site. Architect Robert LeBlond designed the centre. Careful of the fragile archeological deposits, contractors removed a section of the cliff, built a massive concrete box, and then pulled the earth and grass back over the top of the building. Skylights over the ecological and buffalo jump displays provide natural light that highlights the exhibits.

I’d been startled by the centre’s name. The prospect of mammoth, hairy beasts leaping into thin air, then plummeting to their deaths on the rocks below, is enough to intrigue anyone. Since when did buffalos act like lemmings?

You’ll learn that long before they had the horse, the gun or even the bow, Plains Indians hunted the buffalo, driving herds to their death over the cliffs at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump. Buffalo jumping is such a sophisticated hunting technique that modern science is only beginning to understand its workings.

Learn About Buffalo Runners

The hunt began with a spiritual ceremony in which medicine women and men would go through detailed rituals to ensure a safe and successful hunt. During the ceremonies, the “buffalo runners” were sent to locate and herd the animals. These were young men who possessed the skill to move the bison herds.

Ingenious, v-shaped lanes were used to channel herds to the most dangerous point on the cliffs. These lanes were edged with rows of stone cairns which are still visible today. The lanes make their way across the countryside, following ridges, crossing coulees and rising across the tops of high hills.

During the drive, people hid behind brush piles on the cairns and prevented the beasts from straying by shouting and waving buffalo hides. As the herd became more concentrated in the drive lanes, hunters rushed from behind, panicking the animals into a thundering, headlong plunge over the cliff.

The kill brought much needed meat to the people participating in the hunt. The Indians dried the meat, made pemmican, extracted fat from the bones, made tools and tanned hides.

“Almost everything of the buffalo was used,” explained Quintin, as he paused our tour group beside a stuffed, three year old bison that had died of natural causes. “The horns as spoons, the hide as shields, even the eyeballs as an insect repellant.”

This World Heritage Site is rich in prehistory. Bone and tool beds lie beneath the jump’s sandstones cliffs.

Discover a UNESCO Treasure

UNESCO sites recognize (through the World Heritage Convention) natural habitats where threatened species of plants and animals still survive, as well as unique witnesses of lost civilizations (such as Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump).

Other UNESCO sites in the world include Machu Picchu in Peru, the Taj Mahal in India and the Palace of Versailles in France. Alberta has five UNESCO sites.

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is located 18 km north and west of Fort Macleod on secondary highway 785 (Spring Point Road), at the eastern edge of the Porcupine Hills, about 100 km east of the Rocky Mountains. Travellers usually first arrive at Calgary’s (the gateway to the Canadian Rocky Mountains) international airport, and then drive a few hours south to the centre.

Note that the tipis at the centre are usually available to stay in until the end of September, depending on the weather, though the interpretive centre is open year round. You can find prices and contact information, along with other information, on the centre’s web site listed below.

Resources:

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump Interpretive Centre