First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park

Mile-long sandstone cliff used by Indigenous hunters for at least a thousand years

A mile-long sandstone cliff about 10 miles west of Great Falls, where Indigenous people for more than a thousand years drove bison herds over the edge in coordinated communal hunts. The site was used until around 1500 CE and is recorded in the oral histories of the Blackfeet, Salish, Kalispel, and other Plains peoples.

The state park has an excellent visitor centre explaining the choreography of a jump — the runners, the drive lanes, the butchering camp below — and trails that loop along the top and base of the cliff. The view across the Sun River valley is huge.

things to do park
A story
Bone deposits at the base of the cliff are 13 feet deep in places — the longest-used buffalo jump in North America.