Dry Island Buffalo Jump

[Lori S.]

I imagine that might seem like a very mysterious string of words!      (Kind of like the titles of those strange, unsolicited e-mails I sometimes get...  )

It's the name of an Alberta provincial park about 180 km north and east of here... where the present-day Red Deer River winds through a negative-topography landscape of buttes and mesas - "badlands".  The  Red Deer River is a classic "underfit" stream... meaning that the river is much too small to have cut the valley it now flows through.  The valley was instead cut (catastrophically) by a vast, powerful river that drained a glacial lake that formed a couple hundred thousand years ago(+/- ??)  from the melt of continental glaciers.  The power of the water release was such that a 450' (or 650' deep - my sources differ!) deep valley was eroded down through recent sediments, and into Cretaceous sediments (~80 million years old... the age of dinosaurs, and paleontological exploration has turned up many finds here).   There is an isolated grass-topped butte in the center with forested slopes... the "dry island".  (Water levels would have to rise back to some previous level - a couple hundred feet higher - to make it a true island again.)  

The "buffalo jump" part is explained thusly... aboriginal people used the area to hunt bison, driving the herds off the high cliffs, and to their deaths some 140' below.  It's the most northerly buffalo jump in Alberta, and apparently, it was used on and off over the past 4000 years, up until about 400 years ago.  Not many spear points have been found in the archaeological digs here (as compared to the jumps farther south) since the fall off the cliffs was fatal, and thus the buffalo did not need to be dispatched!*  

Anyway, we visited on June 30, to find an extremely dry vista... with the exception of the aspens and shrubs in leaf, it looked almost as it did in fall....



*Ref.: In Search of Ancient Alberta, Barbara Huck and Doug Whiteway

[Lori S.]

1) The gently rolling prairies... (Umm, the other purpose of this photo is me marking the location of the informal trail down, so that we can just park up at the viewpoint henceforth if the very steep road is wet or icy.   )
2, 3) ... suddenly drop off to these sorts of vistas...
4) Buttes and mesas showing the horizontal layering of Cretaceous estuarine/marine sediments...
5, 6) And views from the bottom looking up...

[Lori S.]

It was really shockingly dry, hence there was very little in bloom.
1) Hymenoxys richardsonii, Colorado rubber weed.
2) A game little Sphaeralcea coccinea.
3, 4) Opuntia polyacantha
5) Artemisia longifolia
6) Sagebrush, Artemisia cana
7) Juniperus communis, branching across the white silt fans that form at the bases of the buttes...

[Lori S.]

1) I like the way gravity arranges these little ironstone concretion chips on the alluvial fans... reminds me of terrazo or mosaic...
2) Coal seam (or at least carbonaceous shale trying to be coal) exposed near the top of the valley
3) Buckbrush, Symphoricarpos albus(?)
3) More scenery
4, 5) Bentonitic soil, formed from the breakdown of air-borne volcanic ash layers; hellishly slippery when wet (hence bentonite is used as the main ingredient in oil well drilling mud to lubricate the bit and to add weight), it swells when wet and shrinks when dry, causing it to take on this rather popcorn-like texture when dry.
6, 7, And down to the Red Deer River...

[Hristo]

Hi Lori,
Fascinating, so different from the view out of my window where once again it is raining!
The apricot coloured Opuntia polyacantha is very attractive and the foliage on the Sphaeralcea too.
Many thanks for this 'dehydrating' post!
Chris 

[Lori S.]

1) Lusher vegetation on the riverbanks... Indian hemp, Apocynum cannabinum
2) Vetch, Vicia cracca (an introduced weed)
3) Nest holes of bank swallows in the mud cliff
4, 5) We were quite amazed to come upon a couple of garter snakes that were hunting completely submerged underwater in the shallows, butting their heads between stones, looking (seemingly) for aquatic invertebrate larvae.    
6) White spruce forest in coulees leading to the river, and on the opposite north-facing slopes.
7) And a last shot of aspens at the picnic area (where we saw a charming Franklin's ground squirrel... beautiful little creatures that are becoming quite uncommon... no good pix though!)

[Lori S.]

My pleasure, Chris!  Thanks for looking!

[Paddy Tobin]

Lori,

What an amazing place! Such contrasts in conditions within a relatively small area is astonishing, certainly something never experienced here. Of course, Ireland would certainly never experience such dry conditions at any rate - raining away here as I write.

I'm not sure if the vetch is the same as is found in great numbers here. It certainly looks perfectly similar though it is in seed now here. And the swallows - here they would not nest in the sand cliffs as you show. Perhaps, sand martins or similar?

Enjoyed the photographs very much, such a completely different set of conditions.

Paddy

[David Nicholson]

Very interesting set of pics Lori. I know absolutely nothing about geology but I'm always fascinated to read about it.

[Martinr]

Thanks Lori, history, geography, geology and botany all in one post!

The most intersting bit for me was finding out Opuntias grow that far North

[Paul T]

Great stuff, Lori.  Thanks.

[Kristl Walek]

Thanks Lori, history, geography, geology and botany all in one post!

Martin said it exactly, Lori. You have the gift of fleshing out a piece of our earth to make it rich, understandable and fascinating to the onlooker. Always look forward to your posts!!!

I recall when I was first adding a new large pond here, which ultimately refused to hold water (unlike the other two which were fine just with our hard-packed grey clay). A company in Montreal sold Bentonite by the truckload for this purpose--which, had we been able to afford it, would have been the perfect solution.

[Lori S.]

Thanks, all!
Yes, Paddy, "bank swallow" is the North American common name for Riparia riparia, sand martin... a fact I had not realized until your question.  I was also surprised to find that they are not just circumpolar but even extend into South Asia!

Martin, we have Opuntia polyacantha and O. fragilis here, and they have more or less the same range across the Canadian prairies... O. fragilis has, in addition, a quite broad (isolated?) distribution in the Swan Hills in far NW Alberta.   Coryphantha vivipara also occurs in approximately the same range across the prairies; we haven't seen them yet at Dry Island but they are probably there... the best way to find them is by sitting down for lunch in what looks like a nice grassy spot...  

Finishing off...
1) Eriogonum flavum were also in bloom, sparsely... though they were probably the most common species in bloom on the dry slopes.
2) Zizia aptera, in the wooded coulees.
3) Unknown astragalus(?), looking hale and hearty in the drought... very well-adapted to the setting.

[Lvandelft]

This is very interesting stuff Lori. A totally different landscape than the agrcultural parts of Canada.

[cohan]

great post lori!
i haven't had a chance til now to even look in Travel/Places to Visit, in weeks....lol
when i went with my school to drumheller in grade 6, we stopped at a buffalo jump on the way home, which must have been this one.... i havent been there since..

it certainly was dry there, interestingly more so than drumheller area...i wonder if they have got some of this recent rain..hopefully..
interesting also to see the spruce starting again in that area--virtually none down where i was, and of course as you follow the red deer river farther north and west, there are more and more..we are often in the City of Red Deer, and of course you wouldnt recognise the valley as the same place--fully forested and green..

someone on a cactus list gave me a few references for Escobaria vivipara--i asked for farthest north and west possible, and it seemed drumheller area was mostly just the starting point, and they become much more common farther south, so i guess more southerly distribution overall than the opuntias, in alberta, at least.. some locations a bit farther north were also farther east..