Location: Great Falls
When: beginning of June
Miles traveled: 1237
Price of gas: 3.29
Interest: Reading books
High point: Campground's hot tub
Environment: Mountains on half or more of the horizon.
Low point: Probably burned out again
One thing learned: Ya' lure one bison, don't chase a herd of them.
Did not learn: Why do kids enjoy chasing and trying to catch rabbits?
I wanted to visit Giant Springs State Park in Great Falls, MT. I originally also considered visiting Glacier National Park, but decided I did not want to drive the extra (round trip) 6 hours and wanted a week in one location rather than changing campgrounds often. So...Great Falls is not a pretty city. It has the bones of a healthy flourishing community, but currently the main road is a utilitarian strip mall with a lot of small casinos. Later I learned from a Montana native who now lives in Minnesota, there's a lot of drugs in the city too. Thankfully the KOA campground I stayed at was very nice and I did not encounter any unruly behavior. (Unless kids trying to catch rabbits, and teens successfully hitting/killing? a rabbit with a rock counts as unruly behavior.)
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Ryan Dam/ Great Falls
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Named after one of it's waterfalls, Great Falls is part of Lewis and Clark's journey west. This was one of the hardest part of their journey, as they had to portage their canoes 18 miles around the five waterfalls of the Missouri River. They finished the task on July 4, 1805 and celebrated Independence Day by firing their guns and drinking the last of their whisky (hopefully in that order). By 1930, the waterfalls had all been dammed and now generate power for the town. I visited the dams and they are still beautiful, just in a different way from what Lewis and Clark saw.
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Black Eagle Dam
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Giant Springs State Park contains the dams, a fish hatchery, and the smallest river, which is 8 feet long. Called Giant Springs, everyday over 150 million gallons of water flow from the springs into the Missouri River. The spring water is bluer than the water of the larger river and it's interesting to see the two merge.
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Giant Springs
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Merging waters
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Thirty minutes west of Great Falls is First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park. I wish I knew why it's called "First Peoples" instead of "Native American", but I forgot to ask. "First Peoples" is the term Canadians use, and frankly I think it is a better fit, but I suppose the people whom the term refers to should be the ones who decide. The sight was used by many tribes to hunt bison. (The animal's name is Bison Bison, not buffalo. "Bison" twice possibly because the scientific community is upset that people keep getting it
wrong. The staff at the visitor center was insistent about using the proper name.) The tribes often at war with each other, had a truce when they came to this location. A successful hunt meant that almost a 100 bison were killed and all hands were needed to preserve so much meat which could feed all the tribes.
Hunting at this location started with one young adult being chosen as the Runner and sent out on his own to find and lure a cow (female bison in charge of a mini herd) to the cliff. I was told this could take weeks and even a month or two to find and lure the bison. Only one person went because it was a dangerous task, pretending to be an injured/lost calf and trying to stay upwind so the bison don't smell that you are an interloper. Luring one cow, meant the mini herd followed. The goal was to make the cow concerned for the "injured calf" come to the top of the cliff, and then make it run to the cliff's edge following the Runner who had jumped off onto a ledge below. The bison not seeing the edge of the cliff until too late, would be unable to stop or turn because of the speed it was running and the other running bison right behind it. The entire mini herd would run off the cliff and die on the rocks below, or be killed by the waiting tribes. Even if a bison survived falling from the cliff, the tribes tracked and killed it out of concern that it might warn other bison and prevent the lure from working again.
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The people are at the cliff's edge
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Runner's headdress
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I thought visiting First Peoples Buffalo Jump S.P. was more interesting than Giant Springs S.P. I'm not sure if my time in Montana reduced the feeling of burnout. But I'm one state closer to visiting all 50. Three to go!
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Delicious Cod tacos from Pie Zanos
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Selfie with baby (3 year old stuffed) bison
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| Incoming! |
