I started writing about the Wahkpa Chu'gn buffalo jump to my niece in Huson who loves this archaeological site (she also loves CSI, so archaeology and anthropology are right up her alley). As I was researching the buffalo jump, I realized that it really is quite extraordinary and I should blog about it as well to explain the Hi-line, before the railroad.

Archaeologists have surmisedthat Wahkpa Chu'gn had been used as far back as 2000 years ago as a buffalo jump and Native American camp site.

The Milk River basin has cut a 50-100 foot deep ravine through the prairies of Northern Montana over its 65 million years of existence. The Milk River gets it's name from the "rock flour" that flows within it. Rock flour is formed from glacial erosion as glaciers crush rock into a fine clay-like consistency. In the journals of Lewis and Clark, Meriwether Lewis writes: "the water of this river possesses a perculiar whiteness, being about the colour of a cup of tea with the admixture of a tablespoonfull of milk. From the colour of its water we called it Milk river."

Along the Milk River there are many different types of rock formations. Among the most common formations are the Hoodoo formations. Hoodoos are created by differential resistance to erosion, different hardness values of the rock or sandstone being eroded. Hoodoos resemble the natural bridge formations of the Moab in Utah. Eye of the Needle and Table Rock are Hoodoos. There are many cliffs, overhangs and natural bridges along the Milk River basin due, in part, to the Hoodoo formations.

The Great Plains of North America are the backdrop for the Milk River. Interestingly, in Canada the vast grass lands are called prairies, whereas in the U.S. they are called plains. Northern Montana shares a similarity with Canada in calling them prairies, as well. Some of the largest wild prairies can be found in Northern Montana.

The Great Plains extend from Western Texas, north, into Canada. Eastern Montana is, essentially, all plain and prairie. On these prairies roamed vast numbers of wild bovine known as bison. In North America there are two species of bison, the Woods Bison, found in parts of Oregon and Washington, and the Plains Bison. The Plains Bison is the smaller of the two and, as the name suggests, roamed the Great Plains. It is widely believed that the current North American bison replaced a much larger cousin, the Long-horned Bison, 10,000 years ago. The Long-horned Bison became extinct due to changes in the ecosystem along with the advent of a new hunting technology in the form of the Clovis point spear. Clovis points were discovered in near the town of Clovis, New Mexico in 1929 and gave rise to the notion that this spear led to the extinction of the long-horned bison.

Though its cousin had become extinct, the Plains Bison lived on, prosperously. Native Americans had learned to use fire to fertilize the plains and thus the bison thrived. Before the introduction of horses, the Native Americans would group together and force herds of bison through hand-built rock chutes towards cliffs to harvest the valuable meat, hide and bones. The bison has often been referred to as the "Indian's supermarket".

In the area that became Havre, Montana, that "supermarket" came in the form of a cliff along the Milk River that goes by the name Wahkpa Chu'gn. Discovered in 1962 by an amature archaeologist, John Brumley, the Wahkpa Chu'gn Buffalo Jump is the largest and most intact buffalo jump in North America. The site has been excavated by the Milk River Archaeological Society and has also become a major tourist stop in Havre. Evidence of mulitiple tribes and their camps have been discovered in the area, indicating that the buffalo jump had been used by three Indian nations, the Besant, Avonlea and Saddle Butte Peoples, over the course of hundreds of years.

To get to the site and museum, you have to drive through a shopping mall parking lot, around the back of the mall and down the banks of the Milk River. I find it rather ironic that the "white man" has built their shopping center on top of an ancient Native American "shopping center".  "Wahkpa Chu'gn, serving the needs of locals for 2000 years."