The Wahkpa Chu'gn Buffalo Jump

On the National Register the jump is not Wahkpa Chu'gn at all: it was listed on December 12, 1974, as the Too Close for Comfort Site. The register plate's gloss of the name, the Assiniboine term for the Milk River, is the usual one; a Havre account renders it little or middle river. The plate dates the discovery to the 1950s. John Brumley, the Havre teenager who brought the site to the archaeologists' attention, found it in 1961 by most accounts and 1962 by others.

What the plaque says

The Wahkpa Chu'gn Buffalo Jump Indian people have lived in this area for at least 11,000 years. Throughout that time, buffalo were their primary source of food. The Indians devised ingenious ways to hunt buffalo with the buffalo jump, or pishkun, the best known. At pishkuns, hunters drove buffalo over steep bluffs or cliffs where the animals were either killed outright by the fall or badly crippled. The hunters sometimes constructed simple corral-like enclosures at the base of the bluffs to contain the crippled animals until they could be killed using either the atlatl or bow and arrow. A series of buffalo jumps were once located along the steep bluffs overlooking the Milk River west of Havre. The Great Northern Railway destroyed three of them when it constructed its line through here in 1887. Today only the Wahkpa Chu'gn ( pronounced walk-paw-chew-gun) buffalo jump remains. It is located just west of here behind the Holiday Village Shopping Center. For over 2,500 years, Indian peoples used Wahkpa Chu'gn as a pishkun. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. You can visit the site and view extensive displays about the buffalo jump and the materials discovered there by archaeologists. Wahkpa Chu'gn Buffalo Jump Immense herds of bison once roamed the great North American prairies. As many as 30 million of the great shaggy beasts moved seasonally in herds of 25 to 300, following the same patterns year after year. Bison, or buffalo, were the lifeblood of the native peoples who shared this vast domain. For at least 11,000 years, the grassy plains along the Milk River were seasonally home to native groups. Knowing the habits of these animals allowed communal hunting, and they gathered at this place where the rolling prairie suddenly gives way to steep river valley walls. The land features were well suited for use as a buffalo jump, one method of communal hunting. Hunters systematically drove hundreds of bison over the slope. Waiting hunters at the bottom dispatched injured animals and butchering began at once. Archaeology at Wahkpa Chu'gn reveals that native peoples used this site extensively for at least 2,000 years. Wahkpa Chu'gn, pronounced "walk-paw-chew-gun," is the Assiniboine term for Milk River. Discovered in the 1950s, the site has been under the protection of Hill County since 1964. Although more buffalo jumps have been found in Montana than in any other plains area, most are very poorly preserved. The exceptional preservation of faunal layers at Wahkpa Chu'gn provides a unique and visually stunning chronology of use over time. The site is of national significance for its superb archaeological record and as the first buffalo jump to be interpreted for the public. Listed in the National Register of Historic Places by the United States Department of Interior In cooperation with the Montana Historical Society

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Wahkpa Chu'gn Buffalo Jump — 0.5 mi
  Two thousand years of bison kills in a bluff behind a Havre shopping mall, with the bones left lying where they were found.
• Havre Beneath the Streets — 1.2 mi
  Basement storefronts under a railroad town that burned twice in one January day in 1904, furnished now as a tour.
• Fort Assinniboine — 5.7 mi
  The brick border post whose Buffalo Soldiers deported the Cree in 1896, and whose land became the Cree's reservation twenty years later.

More markers nearby

• Havre — steps away
• The Havre Air Force Station — steps away
• Fort Assinniboine — 5.5 mi