2020 North Dakota - part 2: Jamestown and all you want to know about buffalo/bison and how to build a tipi - Travel With Us

Jamestown’s city fathers wanted tourists to come to their city, so they made bison their marketing draw. In 1959, they commissioned a 26-foot-tall, 60-ton concrete giant to stand watch over Jamestown in an attempt to have tourists stop in their city for a while (see next post). In 1991, the National Buffalo Museum was formed nearby, and the foundation started a buffalo herd to roam the nearby hills.

The most famous of the nearby herd was White Cloud, an albino bison who lived with the herd for most of her life.

White Cloud had 13 calves, including a white male named Dakota Miracle (2007-2019), who also lived with the museum’s herd.

Up until 2010, the large man-made bison on the hillside was known as Big Buffalo. To celebrate its 50-year anniversary of being a calling card for the city, a contest was held to name him. The winner was Dakota Thunder, and he has proven one of the Midwest’s most popular roadside attractions.

More about Dakota Thunder in the next post.

National Buffalo Museum

We knew so little about bison that we were glad to walk through the museum and take in all the information it provided. Grab something to drink; we’re for a long but informative read.

Ancestors of the American bison came from Asia to the North American continent over 200,000 years ago. They joined other, now extinct, species already here: the mastodon, giant ground sloth, camel, and the giant beaver.

These ancestors were 1-1/2 times larger than the buffalo we know today and had a horn span of up to 6 feet from tip to tip.

According to the museum, we will now be referring to the American bison as the buffalo (most of the time; sometimes the signage uses the word bison).

These hollow-horned, cloven-hoofed ruminants are related to pigs, hippos, camels, deer, giraffes, prong-horns, sheep, goats, antelopes, and cattle. (I didn’t know that!) A ruminant is a mammal that gets nutrients from plants by fermenting it with microbes in a specialized stomach before digestion.

Buffalo didn’t really migrate, they just kept on walking to find food. Their thick layer of fur equipped them for winter survival by protecting them from severe cold. They were also able to push snow aside to reach the grasses below, something domestic cattle can’t do.

But their thick hide didn’t protect them from summer insects or heat. As a remedy, the buffalo rolled on the ground, creating depressions that filled with moisture. The animals rolled in these wallows, covering themselves with a protective layer of mud.

The darkened section shows the original range of the American Buffalo.

This map shows the local migration patterns of the Saskatchewan herd (north of where we are) and the Red River herd (by eastern North Dakota).

Researchers think that each herd retained its own territory year after year. The dark areas mark the herd’s winter range.

The buffalo’s greatest threat before the Euro-Americans came was nature. In spring when ice was thawing, overflowing rivers threatened the buffalo. Bogs, prairie fires, wolves, and blizzards also threatened them.

Prairie fires fanned by high winds were very dangerous. Some of these fires might even have been purposefully set by the Prairie Indians in hopes that the grass would green earlier and make better food for their horses.

mating and cross-breeding

Buffalo bulls would fight each other for dominance and for the females during rutting season. The losers often had to leave the herd to wander alone.

Males tended to go without food during the “rut,” with the dominant male losing up to 300 pounds during mating. See the position of the tails in the previous picture? When they are raised this way, the bulls are excited and ready for combat either with another bull or with an intruder, such as a hunter.

Buffalo cows give birth to a single calf each year. Mating happens in late summer or early fall, and the cow carries the calf for 9 months over the winter. Calves weigh about 50 pounds at birth and mature at 3 years.

Attempts at cross-breeding started as early as the 1750s. By 1908, some 345 hybrids of cattle and buffalo were in existence.

The goal of cross-breeding was to produce a range beef animal that would combine the superior meat qualities of domestic cattle with the rugged traits of buffalo. After years of breeding experiments, the cattalo’s ability to withstand harsh environments had succeeded, but the meat quality wasn’t satisfactory. This inferior meat was attriuted to the humpback, making them somewhat heavier in the shoulders and light in the hindquarters, traits undesirable in high grade beef animals.

By the 1960s, the cattalo business had been abandoned.

early years of buffalo on the Plains

Buffalo trails were the first roads used by colonial settlers moving westward. The animals had picked the best routes through treacherous terrain, and these trails acted as compass lines for colonial migration, influencing settlement in the Ohio River Valley.

This westward movement of settlers pushed the animals west of the Mississippi River, guiding the Union Pacific route along the Platte River.

Some of the earliest documentation of the vast herds on the plains came from explorers, artists, and scientists who recorded natural resources and sought water routes to the west coast.

The work of these explorers, artists, and scientists helped open the territory along the upper Missouri River to the fur trade and Euro-American settlement—events that would forever change the land.

In October 1804, Lewis and Clark counted 12 herds along the Missouri River from 1 advantage point. The next day they saw great herds on the flats near current-day Bismarck. And further on up river they found the plains covered with buffalo.

hunting the buffalo

Early on, the Plains Indians had ways to hunt buffalo until the bow and arrow changed everything. The buffalo was their primary source of protein and raw materials for clothing, tools, and shelter.

A buffalo jump was a communal form of hunting. Working together, the hunters stampeded a herd through drive lines and off the edge of a cliff. The large number of buffalo killed provided what they needed for several families.

Another communal hunting method was the arroyo trap. Buffalo were herded into a ravine where hunters could attack at close range using spears.

Spears tipped with large chipped stone points were the earliest known weapons for buffalo hunting. Paleo-Indians used them to hunt the now extinct giant bison. During the winter, Indians often hunted on snowshoes, outmaneuvering buffalo in deep snow.

Around A.D. 500, the bow and arrow revolutionized hunting techniques in North Dakota. After contact with European traders, metal points became available. Acquiring horses in the mid-1700s added greatly to the swiftness and agility of the hunter.

With the bow and arrow available for hunting, Indians could cover themselves with wolf skins so the buffalo would let them sneak up on those at the edge of the herd.

Artist George Catlin describes this 1832 “surround” as a battle scene where hunters were either thrown from their horses and had to run for the lives or were squeezed between the buffalo and escaped by running over their backs. The entire herd of several hundred buffalo was killed within 15 minutes!

The 1700s brought numerous changes to the Northern Plains. European fur traders and explores were now entering the area, bringing new technologies and items for trade.

The horse and gun played a big role in the changing methods of hunting by the Indian tribes. But many Indian hunters preferred the bow and arrow.

A good buffalo-hunting pony was a prized possession. Well trained, they knew how to weave in and out of the herd without the hunter’s direction, bringing the rider up on the left side of an animal and allowing the hunter to take aim, using both hands for his bow and arrows to strike at the most vulnerable area near the heart. Buffalo ponies were rarely ridden to the hunt so they’d be fresh for the chase.

The chase was oh-so dangerous. Buffaloes have the greatest body weight in their front quarters, enabling them to pivot quickly and unpredictably. A wounded buffalo was an animal to respect. Often ferocious, it would charge its assailant.

uses of all parts of a bison

Just a reminder of the large animal we’re talking about.

Indian women were very skilled in processing buffalo hides and meat. Meat that was not eaten fresh was preserved by drying it in strips.

Buffalo bones were crushed and boiled to get bone fat that was used like butter. Hides were scraped to remove hair and flesh, and some hides were tanned into soft, flexible leather. Hides that weren’t tanned were called rawhide. Stiff and hard, rawhide was used to make items such as carrying containers, drums, and soles for moccasins.

Every part of the buffalo was used by the Plains Indians.

A warrior has a shield made of buffalo hide that was durable and could deflect arrows and spears. Containers (top right corner) were made of rawhide by Sioux manufactures in 1910-1930; different shapes and sizes could hold tools, food, or clothing. The bags in the lower right corner were named “possible bags” because they could be used for any “possible thing.” They were made of bison hide and date from 1873 to 1900.

More of the bags made from buffalo hides.

Moccasins in top left corner were made by Sioux manufacturers in 1910-1930 from buffalo hide. The Sioux dress in the middle was made of buffalo hide. The bull boats were made in 1851 with a fresh buffalo bull hide stretched over a willow frame. The pipe bag in lower right corner was made of buffalo hide around 1880-1930.

Each tipi in this 1833 Sioux camp was made from about 14 large buffalo hides.

After tanning, a hide had to be worked by rubbing the hide on a cord or rope to soften it for use as clothing.

more uses of the buffalo

Bones and organs of the buffalo were used for food or made into tools.

This meat scaffold is for drying buffalo meat that wasn’t eaten when it’ was fresh. The dried meat, or jerky, reduced the weight for easier transport. But . . . it was susceptible to moisture.

Toys for the children were made from buffalo ribs lashed together. Sleds were a popular winter toy.

A squash knife made from the upper part of the shoulder blade is on the left, and a paunch bucket made from buffalo hide in on the right. Buffalo and beef stomachs were used as water buckets, holding the daily supply of water for the lodge.

Different tools made from parts of the buffalo.

The buffalo robe was one of the most common articles of clothing on the plains. Worn year-round as a wrapper, the hair side was worn in for warmth, and the hair side worn out for milder weather. Plain robes were for everyday use.

A man wearing a robe on the left and a Sioux woman on the right is wearing a robe with the hair removed to make it lighter.

a buffalo coat, mittens, and buckskin face mask

These chairs were popular additions to parlors during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This chair was built in the 1890s by August Nelson when he homesteaded in Montana. The horns were gathered in North Dakota when August and his family moved to this state to raise their 3 children.

more about buffaloes

Most of the bison raised for meat are plains bison; the wood bison are in Alaska. A bull can stand as tall as 6 feet and weigh as much as 2000 pounds. Cows can stand as tall as 5 feet and weigh as much as 1000 pounds.

Calves weight around 40 pounds at birth and can stand within the first 10-15 minutes after birth. They can walk and run within 1 hour. At 6 months old, they weigh around 400-500 pounds. They nurse until they are 6-12 months old.

*temperament and agility:* Buffalo living in herds look after and protect one another. While they look docile, they are extremely dangerous to humans when approached too closely. Buffalo can run 35 mph for 30 minutes, jump up to 6 feet from a standing position, and are very good swimmers.

eating habits: Buffalo eat prairie grasses and other ground forage. Their grazing habits are similar to domestic cattle.

seasons: Fall is the best season for the buffalo since the flies are gone and the animals fatten rapidly as they prepare for the long, cold winter. Their winter coats, reinforced by a heavy mane over the vital organs, protect them from the cold. Swinging their heads from side to side allow them to push snow aside to find nourishing grasses and other plants. Their instincts protect them in blizzards since they move into the wind instead of drifting with it like domestic cattle. They shed their thick wool covering in the summer by wallowing in the dirt, which also coats them in dirt as a repellent for bugs.

tipi

This conical tent is made of animal hides and was used by the Plains Indians. It provided a warm, waterproof, and easily transportable home. Most Plains Indians were highly mobile hunter-gathers, and their homes could be broken down and quickly packed when a tribe needed to move in a hurry.

Here’s how to set up a tipi:

Tie together 3 poles at the skin’s radius from their bases. One end of this lashing rope is left dangling from the tie point, long enough to reach the base of the poles (see previous picture).
These tripod poles are stood upright with their unfstened ends spaced apart on the ground to form a triangle, each pole’s base is the skin’s radius from its neighbors. (And we all know that a triangle is the strongest formation.)
12 more long poles are laid onto the 3 primary poles. Their upper ends rest on the lashing of the first 3, and the lower ends are evenly spaced to form a circle on the ground that includes the original 3 poles.
The lashing rope is then walked around the whole structure 3 or 4 times and pulled tight. This ties the placed poles to the tripod at the crown of the tips.
The canvas skin is tied to another pole, lifted up, and the top of the pole rests where all the poles meet.
The skin is pulled around the pole framework.
The overlap seam is closed with wooden lacing pins that are sticks around 10″ long and with 1 or both ends tapered.
Sometimes a door is attached to 1 of the bottom lacing pins.
A blanket, hide, or cloth door was put over the door to secure the opening.

Can you image how long it took them to figure out how to put together a tipi this way?

Interesting tipi facts:

Traveling parties could identify “friend or foe” by the number of poles used in the tipi. The outside (hair side) of the buffalo hide faces out on the tipi to shed water.

Female buffalo hides were used because they were thinner. An open tipi door meant everybody was “welcome.” If closed, a “scratch on the outside of the tipi was considered a “knock.” Often women had their own entrance.

The average tipi height is 12 feet; an 18-foot tipi was a “2-wife tipi” because it took 2 women to put it up. So women set up the homes.

natural predators

Because of their size, the only non-human predators for the buffalo are wolves, brown bears, and coyotes.

Wolves still rely on bison as a major food source. Wolves hunt together with their pack members, taking turns exhausting their prey, and making it easier for the pack to kill weak, young, or injured bison in the herd. A vulnerable bison calf learns to land sharp kicks against the predator.

While being a capable and ferocious predator, brown bears are not very efficient when hunting bison or other large-hooved animals. Grizzly bears, a subspecies, roamed the plains and may have preyed on a bison calf or a cow in labor. But most of the time brown bears got their bison meat from scavenged sources.

Bears are opportunistic feeders. In the spring they take advantage of frozen and thawing carcasses of buffalo and others that perished during the winter.

human predators

As the nation began being populated with those from European backgrounds, *Sharps rifles* were commonly known as “Buffalo Rifles” because these powerful, high-caliber rifles were designed for buffalo hunting.

The *Remington* rolling block rifle was referred to as the “other buffalo rifle.” This 50-70 caliber rifle is one of only 3 of all Remington’s sporting rifles listed in their 1878 catalog as adequate for animals as large as a buffalo. This rifle has military markings and was manufactured between 1871 and 1873.

These original lead bullets and bullet casings for the Remington are from the 1920s. Bullets have been lubricated with beeswax and olive oil.

buffalo exploitation

Given our human nature, what starts out as good for our needs can turn into excess. With the buffalo, the Indian tribes had a trade network in place for meat and hides in exchange for needed produce from other tribes long before the Europeans arrived.

Early fur traders also bartered for the furs, exchanging trade goods for the richly tanned hides. By the mid-1800s, the fur trade had reached a peak.

When the market was created for tanned hides to be used as lap robes and coats. the large scale slaughter began. A single season in 1849 saw 110,000 hides shipped down the upper Missouri River to St. Louis. A tanned hide was sold for up to $3 on the market, making buffalo hides big business.

The Indian tanned hide was labor-intensive, and the demand exceeded the supply. The trade shifted to drying raw hides as breakthroughs changed the industrial tanning process.

Winter hides were still tanned with the fur on the for lap robes and coats. The remaining hides were processed into leather.

Superior to cow leather, buffalo leather was used in British army uniforms, belting for machines in industry, and for use in furniture and carriage tops. The need for more raw hides was increasing.

Then came the bone trade.

As buffalo were slaughtered all over the plains for their hide, millions of acres remained with bones scattered everywhere. The decades of the 1870s, ’80s, and ’90s saw a new business enterprise—buffalo bones.

Factories in Midwestern cities used bones for manufacturing industrial carbon and fertilizer. With the money that could come from collecting these bones, immigrants, homesteaders, and the Metis (an indigenous people that’s combined European settlers with local Indian tribes—more about them when we’re in northeast North Dakota). For many it was the only income they had.

Millions of pounds of skeletons were piled along railroad tracks waiting for returning freight cars that had delivered cargo to western markets. During the time of the bone trade, 2,000,000 tons of bones were collected and sold to eastern markets, creating a $40,000,000 in commerce for the Great Plains.

This hill of buffalo skulls is at the Detroit Carbon Works in Michigan. The bones, distilled into charcoal, were used in the refining of sugar. (This I didn’t know; wonder if it’s still done?) By 1894, this business was the largest industry in Detroit, producing 20,000 tons of fertilizer annually, as well as bone black, chemicals, and glue.

As the bone market allowed many to earn money to live and also cleared the plains of the bones, 2 groups of human scavengers found work. The “wolfers” operated by poisoning a few buffalo carcasses and then waiting a few days for their victims to devour the carrion and die. While they were primarily interested in wolves whose hides were worth a dollar or two each, their mass poisoning also affected coyotes, kit foxes, badgers, vultures, ravens, and several birds of prey.

After the wolfers had what they wanted, another group of scavengers emerged—bone pickers. A few of these men made more profit than the hunters before them. They discovered that soaking the bones in water made them heavier so they could sell them at a higher price.

The bone pickers also gathered horns and hoofs for making buttons, combs, knife handles, and glue. Any coarse hair still remaining could be used as stuffing for mattresses and cushions.

One homesteader from Tennessee made enough money off bone picking to make a hefty down payment on a Texas sheep ranch. Even some tribesmen got into the business of bone picking. Instead of burning the prairie to lure or drive herds of live animals, they burned the grass to expose the bones of the slain.

The large scale killing of buffalo by Euro-Americans began as early as 1820 as the supply seemed inexhaustible. Thousands of buffalo were killed just for the tongue, a delicacy in eastern markets (Mom tried to serve us cow’s tongue when I was young because it was a less expensive type of meat and we didn’t have much money. We ate it until we knew what it was.)

Indians were encouraged to kill the animals and trade the robes and tongues at the growing number of trading post on the upper Missouri River (capitalism at work). Unlike the robes that were at their prime only in the winter months, tongues were available year round.

Professional meat hunters, Buffalo Bill Cody was probably the most famous, were hired to furnish buffalo meat for wagon trains, railroad crews, and frontier posts—adding to the demand for buffalo.

This picture shows the Metis chasing a herd of buffalo around 1846. While they lived near the NE corner of North Dakota, most of their hunting expeditions were on the plains of Manitoba and Dakota. They had strict military-style hunting rules to ensure everyone worked together for a successful hunt.

A picture of a Metis hunting camp on the Canadian border in the 1860s. Their hunt would include 1630 men, women, and children; 1210 carts; 403 buffalo ponies; and 740 guns with ammunition.

On the plains for 2 months, these hunters would return with over a million pounds of buffalo meat, selling most of it to the Hudson Bay Company. Many of the hunters would then return to the plains for a second or third time to supply their own families with meat for the winter.

In 1864 through 1876, the western Sioux tried to protect the buffalo herds from slaughter. They herded the buffalo into Montana and western North Dakota. Protected by the herd line that ran south of the Killdeer Mountains, the buffalo were safe—for a while.

The Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876, however, ended their ability to protect these herded buffalo that migrated back eastward over the North Dakota prairie (the land they knew). The buffalo again fell prey to the slaughter of the buffalo hunters.

On January 6, 1893, the final spike of the Great Northern Railway was driven home, and the network of transcontinental railroad was complete across the northern part of the United States (just south of the Canadian border). The railways played a major role in the buffalo story since it was used to haul meat and hides east. The trains also provided transportation of the bones that also became big business.

Buffalo hunters, always downwind of the animals, used all types of weapons, but the professional hunter for a still hunt, or stand, preferred a heavy, long-barreled weapon with an impact great enough to knock the animal off its feet. This method, unlike the chase where carcasses were scattered across the prairie, concentrated in 1 area, saving time and energy.

The hunter in the previous picture is using a Sharps rifle. Some hunters carried several of these guns so they could change them frequently since repeated firing caused the barrels to become red hot.

Passengers even shot herds of buffalo from the tops of train cars. During the late 1860s and 1870s, railway companies ran special trains just for buffalo shooting excursions.

The western expansion of the railroad into Kansas split the buffalo into 2 main herds, the northern (where we are) and southern herds. In 1800, approximately 40 million buffalo were on the plains. By 1875, the southern herd had been virtually wiped out, leaving the northern herd of about 1 million buffalo, the focus of the hunters.

Cattle diseases may have also contributed to the destruction of the buffalo. Epidemics swept through cattle herds, and it is possible that buffalo were susceptible to the same diseases.

why the buffalo didn’t run away

The buffalo, almost blind, weren’t affected by the loud blast of a gun or the falling of another animal beside it, so they were probably almost deaf as well. Being blind and deaf meant that many buffalo were shot before the rest of the herd would run off.

This buffalo hunter is taking robes and tongues near Smokey Butte, Montana, in 1879. The record for a single buffalo hunter was 120 buffaloes in 40 minutes. Because of the large kills, hunters hired skinners to take the robes and whatever meat was wanted. What a nasty job.

By the mid-1880s, the herds of buffalo were almost eliminated, and the Indian tribes that relied on them found life very difficult. The US Army, after the Civil War in 1865, tried in full force to contain and defeat the tribes of the plains by destroying the remaining buffalo.

The buffalo trade reached a peak in the years 1872 through 1874 when an estimated over 5 million animals were killed. By 1889, only 541 buffalo were left in the United States (but this isn’t the end of the story).

This picture shows the hides being shipped from Dickinson, ND, in 1883. (Dickinson is in the SW part of the state.) Just 1 year later, the last recorded carload of robes and hides was shipped from the Northern Plains.

conservation

In September 1883, Theodore Roosevelt traveled to the North Dakota badlands to hunt buffalo, but during this short trip, he began to devote himself to their preservation so others could appreciate them.

But Roosevelt wasn’t the first who wanted to save the buffalo. As early as the 1830s, early explores and visitors noted the widespread waste and destruction of the buffalo. Idaho in 1864 was the only state or territory to pass legislation restricting hunting of game animals. In 1894, President Cleveland signed the first federal bill into law protecting the buffalo—10 years after the greatest slaughter of wild game had ended.

In 1905, the American Buffalo Society, a group of concerned citizens based in New York, began to establish buffalo ranges throughout the United States. President Roosevelt was its first honorary president.

The efforts of 3 men contributed greatly to saving the buffalo.

Walking Coyote, on the Flathead reservation in Montana, raised 6 orphaned buffalo calves. This herd grew to 13, and in 1884 it was sold to area ranchers Charles Allard and Michel Pablo. These 2 men raised the herd that had increased to 300. Eventually they sold half of the herd to the Canadian government and the other half to ranchers in the U.S. Walking Coyote’s 6 original calves became the nucleus that repopulated many of today’s herds.