I snapped this picture the other day from atop Ulm Pishkun, now ‘First Peoples National Buffalo Jump State Park’. In the foreground you can see a bit of the edge of this ancient buffalo jump and beyond, Square Butte. Beyond Square Butte, the Rocky Mountains…
As the Lewis and Clark expedition, led them to the Gates of the Rockies over 200 years ago Lewis referred to the sight below:
In the afternoon, he reached a spot where the mountains were crowding in on the river and made camp. He climbed to the summit of a rock he called “the tower…and from it there is a most pleasing view of the country we are now about to leave. from it I saw this evening immence herds of buffaloe in the plains below.” Stephen E. Ambrose, Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West
(p271-272)
Look at the photo, this land was covered with herds so thick the ground appeared black. It is estimated that between 30-60 million bison once roamed this continent.
[Tower Rock, now Tower Rock State Park is about 15 miles South of where this photo was taken and provides a similar view]