Pile of Bones
PILE OF BONES
HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF "PILE OF BONES", SASKATCHEWAN?
A Buffalo
Another name for the buffalo is Bison.
Buffalo can weigh as much as 2400 pounds (1080 kg.). The buffalo cannot see very well, but they have a good sense of smell. The buffalo moved about in very large herds and it is said that the only thing that they were afraid of was fire. In the year 1800 it is thought that there were about sixty million buffalo on the prairie.
The meat of the buffalo was very good to eat. The fur and hide of the buffalo were very valuable because they were very warm. The Metis and Indian people depended on the buffalo for it's food and fur which they traded for the supplies they needed.
For years the Metis and Indians hunted buffalo just to meet their own needs.This kind of hunting did not hurt the buffalo herds. There were so many buffalo nobody thought they could kill too many. As a result they began to kill large numbers of buffalo in order to supply meat and robes to the newcomers with the fur trade. This was a mistake.
So many buffalo were killed that large piles of bones could be found all over the prairies. Did you know that the name of the city of Regina - the capital city of Saskatchewan -- was first called Pile of Bones ?? It was given this name because of the many piles of buffalo bones that could be found all around it.
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