Head-Smashed-In

Matthias seemed to have kicked his jetlag with one night’s rest; we were up about 7:00 AM and enjoyed breakfast in the hotel lobby. We then packed and got directions to Wholesale Sports in Calgary before rolling out of the hotel towards downtown and the Glenbow Museum. Downtown Calgary was nice, although it felt a bit deserted. We parked next to the museum and walked along the pedestrians-only Stephen Avenue. We peeked into a couple of the shopping malls and took the elevator up to the third floor of one of the downtown malls to have a look around the Devonian Botanical Gardens, a glass enclosed garden complete with fish ponds and a glass ceiling about that allowed a view of the steel skyscrapers above and around us. We fed our caffeine monkeys at Starbucks.

As we strolled back toward the museum, we decided that primarily due to the great weather, today wouldn’t be a museum day after all. I think we just both wanted to head south to see Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump and the push on to Waterton Lake National Park. We struck out finding a camping chair for Matthias at Wholesale Sports, but crossed the street to stock up on groceries at “The Real Canadian Wholesale Club”, which is like Sam’s Club or Costco, but without the membership fee. They didn’t accept credit cards and wanted to charge us four cents for each plastic bag we used to carry our groceries out to the car. We saved nearly a quarter by loading all of our groceries onto a flat-bed push cart.

On our way out of Calgary, we stopped at Heritage Park, but again, the wilderness was calling, so we took a look inside and decided to skip that one too. So we cruised south out of Calgary on Highway 2 and exited to the west on Highway 785 towards Head-Smashed-In.

Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that provides information on the history and culture of the Blackfoot nation and how they used this particular location – on the plain near a precipice - to drive buffalo to stampede over the cliff to their death below where the Blackfoot would in some way utilize all of the parts of the buffalo. The site is impressively built into the cliff. The name comes from the legend of a young brave who, about 170 years ago, wanted to watch the buffalo stampede over this cliff. He took a position under a ledge at the base of the cliff, like a man standing behind a waterfall. The buffalo jump was particularly good that day and as the buffalo piled up, they smashed in the poor brave’s head.

At the information center just behind the entrance gate, a girl robotically pointed out to Matthias and I the exact path we should follow through the exhibit. We rode the elevator to the top, visited the cliff, then walked down 4 stories through exhibits chronicling the history of the buffalo and their intertwined history with the Blackfoot.

Instead of going back to Highway 2, I decided to continue along 785. The asphalt promptly turned into loose mounds of gravel, so the going was slow, but we pushed on. We passed through hay fields and around several wind farms in which huge windmills were collecting power from the wind. Finally we rejoined the road to Waterton Lake on Highway 3. A few kilometers short of the park, we stopped for a very late lunch (at about 5:00 PM) at a spot on top of a hill with a great view of the park.

The camping gods were smiling down upon us and rewarded us with the last tent site at Crandell Campgrounds. Just inside the park, a black bear sprinted across the path of the car. It was funny to watch and listen to Matthias scramble to get his camera out to capture the sight. Our tent site was not shaded and didn’t include a fire pit, but no matter – we were happy to be there. We unpacked and erected the tent. Then we set off for a quick 2-mile round trip up to Crandell Lake. We did our bear calls on the way up and on the way back, Matthias filled is plastic water bottle with rocks and shook it like a rattle to scare off the bears.

We had the most delicious dinner; while I prepared an instant parmesan pasta packet (my specialty), Matthias concocted Insalata Caprese – tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, olive oil, vinegar, oregano and pepper. We topped it off with tea and Swiss chocolates Matthias had brought me from Switzerland. We tidied up camp, reviewed the day's pictures, and went to bed.

We were looking forward to a hike the next day.