Fort MacLeod
- Maximus Nostramabus
- Oct 30, 2020
- 5 min read
Updated: Mar 24
A gruesome cliff to kill buffaloes and bisons to feed the tribes - Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump 158
What and Why
It is not an over-exaggeration that this is one of the rawest, most brutal but culturally-rich WHS that I have visited. A buffalo jump is a cliff formation which Native Americans historically used to hunt bisons and buffaloes in mass quantities. There are actually quite a number of these buffalo jumps in North America and the most illustrative of them is this oddly-named Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in Fort MacLeod, Canada, which had been in use for more than 5,500 years by the native tribe, called the Blackfoot (Siksiká: ᖹᐟᒧᐧᒣᑯ, Siksikaitsitapi). Situated where the Rocky Mountains foothills transition into the Great Plains, this region encapsulates millennia of human-environment interaction, Indigenous knowledge systems, colonial encounters, and contemporary heritage tourism, and represents one of the most compelling intersections of Indigenous heritage, natural environment, and historical transformation in North America.
The method of hunt is kind of interesting, effective but brutal: the buffaloes or bisons were first gathered at a grazing area approximately 3 km from the cliff. They were then guided along a lane lined with stone cairns to run towards the cliff direction by Blackfoot warriors dressed like coyotes or wolves to scare them. These specialised buffalo runners were young men trained to funnel the buffalo towards the lanes. Then at full gallop, the bisons or buffaloes would fall from the weight of the entire heard chasing behind them at the cliff edge, which is approximately 10 m in height, thus breaking legs and heads and killing themselves instantly at the collecting basin at the bottom of the cliff. After the fall, some of those buffaloes that survived would be finished off by the warriors at the base of the cliff with weapons.
While it does sound disorganised, the buffalo jump was not a random or opportunistic hunting method; it was a highly organised and technical system requiring detailed knowledge of bison behaviours, cooperation, leadership and coordination across large groups and strategic use of landscape features.
Most importantly this took into account of the local geography, and this is fundamental to understanding both the cultural practices at Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump and the later historical development of Fort Macleod. The site lies at the ecotone between the Rocky Mountain foothills and the northern end of the Great Plains. This transitional zone provided a unique combination of open grasslands, rolling hills, and natural coulees (steep-sided valleys), which were critical for both wildlife movement and this particular human subsistence strategies.
The entire buffalo or bison would be in full use, other than just feeding the tribes. The bones and carcasses were usually made into various tools and clothings were made from the skin. Sinews became the strings and ropes and the hoofs were made into glue. Almost no part of the buffalo would go to waste. The skull of the buffalo also became a prized possession and symbolic of a successful hunt. The importance of the site went beyond just providing food and supplies. After a successful hunt, the wealth of food allowed the people to enjoy leisure time and pursue artistic and spiritual interests and prospered the tribes culturally as a community. One good hunt would last the entire tribe almost a year of supplies, as many buffaloes would be hunted in one go.
Toponymy
The town and area is named after James MacLeod, who was police colonel in the area in the late the 19th century, when the area was a police barrack. The site is actually famous for being the mountain in the award-winning movie Brokeback Mountain.
The rather interesting name of the site came from a Blackfoot legend. According to the legend, a young Blackfoot wanted to watch the buffalo plunge off the cliff from below, but was buried underneath the falling buffaloes. He was later found dead under the pile of carcasses, where he had his head smashed in, which came in its Blackfoot name 'ᖰᐧᒧᐤ-ᓱᖽᖽᖽᖹ-ᖾᒧᔈ (Estipah-skikikini-kots)', meaning exactly 'head-smashed-in'!
See
Interpretive Centre
The museum, apparently integrated into the ancient sandstone cliff is an excellent display and exhibition of the site and its history, and the must-watch is the movie that depicts how the hunt was conducted. It contains five distinct levels depicting the ecology, mythology, lifestyle and technology of Blackfoot peoples, presented from the viewpoints of both aboriginal peoples and European archaeological science.
The plains historically supported vast herds of American bisons and buffaloes, numbering in the tens of millions prior to European colonisation. These herds followed seasonal migration patterns shaped by grass availability, water sources, and climatic conditions. As a matter of fact the site remained in use until the mid-19th century, until the buffalo jump area was turned to a hunting ground by the so-called civilised westerners. This eventually almost made bisons extinct in the region.
Buffalo jump
The real site itself, to a naked eye, is just a prairie, in spite of its richness in culture and history. It takes around ten minutes to walk from the museum to the buffalo jump cliff. The video shows the site, which is always very windy due to the openness of the site.
Right at the site, it contains deeply stratified layers of bone and cultural material, some reaching several metres in depth. These layers provide an unparalleled archaeological record of long-term human activity, and they are now all in the museum.
The ecological context also supported a broader range of flora and fauna typical of prairie ecosystems, including grasses such as fescue and wheatgrass, as well as predators like wolves and coyotes. Indigenous peoples developed sophisticated ecological knowledge of these systems, allowing them to anticipate animal behaviour and coordinate large-scale hunts.
For the Blackfoot and other indigenous nations, the jump was not merely a resource but a sacred being central to spiritual belief and tribal identity.
Experience, Buy and Do
There is a number of artisan shops in the town selling handcrafted objects made by local artists including jewelleries, paintings, and the usual touristy souvenirs.
Travel Suggestions and Logistics
No other way but driving. It is really located in the middle of nowhere. In fact the nearest settlement away from the museum is at least 10 km away. The place would give a good day pof visit, including the travel part. The site is around 1.5 hour away from Calgary. The entrance fee for the site is CAD $15.
The town of Fort Macleod emerged in a very different historical context, representing the expansion of Canada into the western plains. Established in 1874 as a post of the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP), it was the first permanent police post in the region. It is itself an uninteresting town.
UNESCO Inscription
In south-west Alberta, the remains of marked trails and an aboriginal camp, and a tumulus where vast quantities of buffalo (American Bison) skeletons can still be found, are evidence of a custom practised by aboriginal peoples of the North American plains for nearly 6,000 years. Using their excellent knowledge of the topography and of buffalo behaviour, they killed their prey by chasing them over a precipice; the carcasses were later carved up in the camp below.
References
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