Buffalo Headache

Robert, Tuesday, September 23

We set out to see the Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump today. It is a cliff where the Indians used to drive buffalo over the edge. The buffalo were killed or injured from the fall and the Indians could easily stock their larders. I’m guessing here but I’ll bet the Indians had another name for the place. Might have been something like Buffalo Meat Market. Anyway we drove out to the site and hiked one of the trails along the base of the cliff. The signs said the cliff used to be much higher but after something like 6,000 years of use, the cliff eroded and buffalo bones piled up and the drop became less. This caused the Indians to have to kill many of the buffalo that were just injured. The evidence of this is the arrow heads found in upper levels of the debris under the cliff. There was a center that would have cost us slightly less than $20 to see and we passed. It was just a beautiful day to be out for a walk. We then went into town to find a laundromat. We found one that was clean and not crowded. The place as had a sweet shop where they sold ice cream. What more could you ask for? We asked in the sweet shop as we ordered out ice cream about a restaurant in town. It turns out there is exactly one. After laundry, we headed for the restaurant for dinner. While it wasn’t great, it was good and we didn’t have to cook it or wash dishes. To pay the bill I took all of our Canadian money and had it applied to the bill, then I paid the balance with a credit card. Many times in the past we have ended up with two or three dollars in Canadian money with nothing to do with it. After dinner we headed home.