I visited Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, a World Heritage Site, for the first time the other day.
It’s a lovely centre, perched on the edge of the Porcupine Hills, overlooking the prairie in southern Alberta. Even on a cloudy day the view is amazing.
The centre itself is beautifully designed, built into the hillside and rising six stories to a path along the top of the cliff. It’s a bit of a celebration of death, of the sacrifice of the buffalo so the people could eat, carried through into the cafeteria that serves buffalo (which is delicious, by the way).
The museum focuses on the buffalo jump itself, on the Blackfoot Indians, and the archeology of the site. All of it is interesting. Afterwards, walking along the lower path at the base of the jump, lush with vegetation fed by thousands of years of buffalo bones piled many metres deep, I could feel time, a presence here that is lost in more peopled places.
Maureen
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