Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park, Alberta

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If anyone is not familiar with what a "Buffalo Jump" actually is, we are here to help with that! 

The indigenous people used a "buffalo jump" as a communal event for hunting mass quantities of bison for thousands of years. The hunters of the bands would work together to corral the running buffalo off a cliff in order to break their legs causing them to be immobile. At the bottom of the cliff, an additional team of warriors would be ready with hunting weaponry to finish the kills.  

Dry Island Buffalo Jump is named after the large plateau in the middle of the park and is considered the most northern & steepest of all recorded buffalo jumps. With the jump site being 660 feet above the Red Deer River, it was actually considered to be more humane because the animals would have died long before they hit the bottom of the valley due to the distance of the fall. This caused less suffering for these mighty animals and as bad as we feel for the bison, we also realize/understand this was a method of hunting so different communities/bands could survive. Pretty neat to think about everyone coming together like that! 

Archeological digs later proved the bison were not killed by hunters at the base of Dry Island because they would only find tools used for processing the meat/hides and almost no hunting tool artifacts. 

The indigenous people would use every part of the bison they could for everyday uses like bones for tools, hooves to be ground down for glue, hides for clothing & shelter, plus many other items to live. Nothing was left to waste and these hunts helped many people survive through the rough prairie winters.  

Fun Fact - The Blackfoot people called the buffalo jumps "pishkun" which loosely translates to "deep blood kettle." 

A man by the name of Barnum Brown, aka "Mr. Bones," was born in 1873 and was fascinated with fossils from a very young age. So much so that he eventually found himself a sponsorship from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in the late 1800's for his work.  

He began his career in the late 1890's trying to obtain as many fossils as he could via trade or by purchasing them anywhere he found them. After working a few years under AMNH in Wyoming, "Mr. Bones" headed to Montana to lead an expedition around the Hill Creek Formation. In 1902, the team located dinosaur bones and turned out to be one of the most significant fossil discoveries in the world.

Why was this such an important discovery? This dig site was actually the first documented excavation for the remains of the legendary Tyrannosaurus Rex. This incredible feat made Brown and his team's place in our world history of palaeontology. 

After spending nearly a decade in Montana, Barnum headed north to Canada where he began fossil exploration around the future site of Drumheller, Alberta in 1910. That same year, Brown and his team floated up and down the Red Deer River during the spring and summer months scouting possible locations for fossil dig sites. Low and behold, they found something inside Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park which turned out to be the remnants of hind feet and were distinguished as a group of Albertosaurus'. Finding this group together was a bit strange because carnivorous dinosaurs were believed to hunt and live alone. This bone bed showed the Albertosaurus' were actually social creatures and moved together as a group millions of years ago. These fossils were shipped back on a train to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City for additional research and study.  

For many years these fossil's were long forgotten about until a man by the name of Dr. Phil Currie relocated "Mr. Bone's"  dig site by using an old photograph as his guide. Dr. Currie, who also happened to be the head of research at Royal Tyrell Museum at the time, recommenced Barnum's dig site in the summer of 1998 and remained under examination until August of 2005.  

Fun Fact - Barnum was actually named after the famous circus showman P.T Barnum. For those who don't know, P.T Barnum was considered a legend of his time and highly recommend reading up on him and/or watching the movie called "The Greatest Showman."