Hi everyone, I wrote this up on the 29th but haven't had internet access until now, June 3. Will try to update it again tonight but wanted this online so you would know we are still okay and moving on.
Today was a full day of sightseeing with not a lot of driving. Crossed the border into Canada at Sweetgrass yesterday. Agonizing crawl thru the port, took almost 2 hours. The rig is easy to start, so I cut the engine whenever I could to save gas. The woman on duty asked the usual questions, but stumped me temporarily when she asked where my home was. After quickly thinking thru various answers, I came up with the right one – Rapid City, SD. (If you’re not a full-timer you probably wouldn’t understand!) She seemed to not care about much other than running thru her spiel. Gave our passports/registration back to me and said have a good stay. We stayed last night in a small town called Coalhurst, Alberta. They had a small city park and after the soccer games finished it was quiet, even with a railroad running very close. The park was Miners Memorial Park. It probably doesn’t need to be said after those two names that it evidently was a coal mining area. There were no hookups, but it had a dump station on the other side of the park, and had good city water, so we filled our fresh tank. It felt good this morning to light the furnace and take the chill off. We don’t have an outside thermometer, but inside it read 52 when we got up. Not so bad. While we were at Malmstrom AFB earlier, and on their electric, we ran the electric heater full-blast all night, and still had to cover up with our sleeping bags and sometimes even wear socks to bed.
This morning we started out at Fort Mcleod which was a restoration of a Fort built in the 1874 by the Northwest Mounted Police to clear out the whiskey traders. They not only had a film but also a ½ hour play about the time when they arrived. It was interesting to see that even now some of the buildings of the fort had sod roofs.
After a small lunch in the parking lot it was on to “Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump,” a World Heritage Site. This honor placed it in the company of the Egyptian Pyramids, Stonehenge and Taj Mahal. (We think a little less of it though it was interesting!)There is evidence of human activity in the region for at least 11,000 years. This is the only preserved buffalo jump in the country and bears witness to the custom practiced by native people on the Great Plains for nearly 6,000 years. It was interesting, not only the information about the jump but also how they had built the building into the side of the hill, 4 floors with only a small entry way visible. Our bus driver told us it won an award for architecture in 1990, actually it was the Governor General’s Award for Architecture.
The name doesn’t really come from, as we had suspected, the buffalo smashing their heads as they fell. A young brave wanted to watch the buffalo tumbling past from under the cliff, like standing under a waterfall. They had an unusually good day and as the bodies piled up he became trapped between the animals and the cliffs. When his people came to do the butchering, they found him with his skull crushed by the weight of the buffalo carcasses. Thus they named this place “Head-Smashed-In”.
1 comment:
Enjoyed the awesome pictures - what a privilege to be able to experience the great beauty of it all. I think the licking along the highway - were probably licking the salt that they spread on roads for icy conditions. Just a thought. We practiced barbershop last nite and had a good time. George and Wilma are well and keeping busy. Keep up the great work on the blog - enjoying it a lot! Edie & Len
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