Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump and Other Site

It’s hard to pass up a sign that says anything about smashed-in heads. For me. This place is a UNESCO world heritage site, but mostly for the sign I imagine.

Although after this sign there isn't much left to interpret.

It’s an ancient native American site. Apparently the braves on top of the cliff would get the buffalo riled up, then chase them over the edge of a cliff. Archaeologists speculate that they would kill all the injured buffalo with knives and that they left no survivors, since any survivors could go back and tell the other buffalo what had happened and thus spark an inter-species gang war.

This is the cliff from which they made the buffalo jump:

Archaeologists speculate that the cliff used to be taller.

It would have been cooler if there were actual buffalo jumping off the cliff. As it was, it just sort of seemed like a warm prairie with a visitors center.

OTOH, this is the house in which my grandpa was born in Cardston:

Although the tree was smaller back then.

For some reason it was closed — they usually give tours.

And thus ends my first post-hack blog post. Excelsior.

bkd

2 comments

  • Christopher Bigelow

    Enjoyed all these new photos and reports. How do you know that’s our grandpa’s birth house, and why would it be open for tours? And I tried those same Mountain Home dishes for the first time while backpacking this summer, and they were all very yucky. The end.

    • bkdunn

      That’s what it says in the photo album that our Great-Grandpa Kimball put together (my mom has a copy). It’s the “Card House”, where the guy who founded Cardston lived. I think young David Kimball did the tour there. When it was open. Obviously. The real question to me is why our great-grandmother had to go 35 miles from Raymond to Cardston just to have a baby. I guess it worked out.