The Madison Buffalo Jump

I will always remember my first hike here and transported in time and cross-cultural understanding.  The cunning, courage, and physical prowess required of the Montana tribespeople who hunted and drew their sustenance from the bison that roamed here were truly remarkable.  Their sophisticated skills are nearly unimaginable by contemporary standards.  Most definitely, they were not primitive or uninformed people.

Wabusk Ragged Robe, a member of the Aaninin/White Clay tribe explains,” Buffalo jumps are locations that fill me with awe and respect for all of the old ones who used them.  They are a testament to the historical presence of Tribal nations and their knowledge of landscapes and buffalo behavior.”

Buffalo jumps were used in the late Autumn, so that tribe(s) would be able to kill and process a large quantity of meat, hides, and bones before winter arrived.  The communal hunts were carefully organized in advance, infused with ceremony, and set in motion by scouts and runners.  Everyone involved had to understand the topography of the land and be able to locate a herd on a gathering plateau.  The enterprise also had to be nearby miles of well-placed rock cairns equipped with fresh-cut brush for prepositioned tribespeople to wave at the just the right moment to help funnel the stampeding buffalo along carefully mapped drive lines that ended in a serviceable cliff. 

Additional hunters (i.e. the renowned buffalo runners) would position themselves downwind of the herd, but above the targeted destination.  Again, the hunters acted out in fits and starts of orchestrated movements, sometimes dragging themselves along the ground.  Their gyrations would eventually draw the interested buffalo toward the hunters who would slowly, over many hours, retreat toward the cliff.  Once the herd began running, they would run beside the on-rushing buffalo.  Not surprisingly, those buffalo runners were young men in the prime of life, who had mastered the tricks of the trade that were passed down to them across many generations.  It was a strenuous, skillful, and dangerous role that earned one honors and respect with the tribe.  One wrong move, a gust of wind from the wrong direction, a suspicious bleating call, a distant dog bark, a hunter showing himself at the wrong instant — the slightest miscue could send the herd fleeing off in any number of wrong directions.

The Madison Buffalo Jump is not a run-of-the mill buffalo jump. An unprecedented National Park Service study in 1962 trumpeted the “exceptional value of this classic site.”  Another renowned scholar and field investigator recorded it to be “one of the best known and the most spectacular of all kill sites in Montana.”  In 1964, Montana State College (MSU) experts first proposed that it be protected as a National Monument.  Just last year, University of Montana Professor of Anthropology and author Doug MacDonald oversaw the most comprehensive cultural and archaeological survey of the site ever compiled.  Using GPS and other new technology, he and his team concluded that they could easily spend the rest of their professional careers mapping and studying the artifacts and unique features of this special place.

Nevertheless, an on-going threat looms over the future of the Madison Buffalo Jump State Park, casting an ominous cloud of uncertainty. It raises the specter of possible closure of the park and the prospect of it being opened to grazing.  Worse yet, the Montana Department of Natural Resources (DNRC), the custodian of state trust lands, could even sell it for residential development. 

The crux of the problem is the cash-strapped Montana State Parks System does not receive any line item appropriation to finance operation and maintenance costs in the state budget from one year to the next, thus having to rely instead upon a $6 vehicle registration fee as its biggest source of funding.  Consequently, while Fish, Wildlife, and Parks (FWP) is willing to continue to maintain the park (i.e. pay for personnel and operations), it can ill afford to pay an escalating annual leasing fee to the DNRC.  

What is a NHA, you might ask?  It is defined “as a place recognized by Congress where natural, cultural, historic, and recreational resources combine to form a cohesive, nationally-distinctive landscape arising from patterns shaped by geography.”  That definition fits the Madison Buffalo Jump, in particular, and its Southwest Montana surroundings exactly. They must be locally conceived, developed, and administered by local nonprofit organizations, civic groups, other private corporations, and/or state governments.