21 August 2016, Sunday
We are the first ones up in the Frenchman’s Creek campground this morning. We bake our breakfast quietly. Soon others are awake. Most are packing up to leave. A little before 9 we are finished cleaning up the dishes. As we wander over to the grey water disposal repository, an official parks Canada car pulls up. I approach the car to inquire about officially checking in. Bonnie, a park interpreter, asks which site. “Seventeen,” I reply. “Ah!” She opens her backpack and pulls out a park registration sticker. One of her jobs this morning had been to see if we had arrived. Bonnie also tells us she is leading a hike this morning during which she will discuss how First Nations peoples used the bison (pronounced “bizon” in Canada.) She says she’ll be happy to wait for us to get ready.
We hurriedly finish tidying up our campsite and ourselves and head onto the prairie with Bonnie. We have her all to ourselves! (Poor Bonnie!) O peppers her with questions about geology, history, flora and fauna. It’s Bonnie’s first season working here so she is still learning, but the three of us have a great time. Bonnie points out rings of large smooth stones. These were teepee rings of the First Nations peoples who lived here. There are over 10,000 rings located throughout the park. The pine logs that were used to suport the teepees were brought from western Saskatchewan. Each teepee had 13 poles and 14 pegs holding the edges of the bison skin covering together. Each log and pin had spiritual meaning.
Bonnie points out some prairie flowers with medicinal uses. She also carries a box containing tools and toys made from parts of the bison. We feel the difference between the shorter soft fur from the bison’s rump and the long, coarser hair from head and beard.
She tells us the story of how the plains bison were brought back from the brink of extinction all because a First Nations man from the Flathead tribe in Montana protected a small herd and nurtured it. The herd grew too large for him. He initially offered to sell some of the bison to the US government. They declined, but the Canadian government later accepted the offer. There was also a “near-calamity” of intermixing between a pure bred herd of plains bison and a pure bred herd of woods bison, a slightly larger, northern variant. All bison were descended from a larger buffalo, now extinct, that crossed the Bering Strait from Asia hundreds of thousands of years ago.
After our walk with Bonnie we finally make it to the visitor center. We choose a short and easy hike for the afternoon as the temperature will reach into the 90’s today. While at the visitor center we read that prairie grasses are very resilient in large part due to their extensive root system. One scientist discovered that the roots of a 4 month old rye plant, if laid out end to end, would reach from here back to Riding Mountain, 600 km away! We also learn that the Frenchman River Valley, where this park is located, was formed by glacial run-off as two glaciers, one flowing east, and one flowing south-southeast, collided. The glaciers scoured the land and left behind glacial till, the rocky ground that was so hostile to people who tried, and failed, to homestead here.
As we return to camp for the evening we stop to look for the rare burrowing owl family that has been reported to be nesting in the prairie dog colony we pass on the way back to camp. I think I have managed to capture one of the birds in a photo.
As the sun finally falls below the rim of the hill behind our campsite the evening turns pleasantly cool. We are hoping tomorrow will be a bit cooler than today so we can hike to the top of 70 Mile Butte, a major landmark in the area and the highest point in the park.