Quote:
Originally Posted by mac1983
The last Buffalo in the Peace Country was reportedly shot near Ft. St. John in 1906. The great buffalo herds of the Peace country were hunted to extinction to supply the Hudson Bay company with pemmican to feed the brigades leaving each spring to Lake Superior.
|
I know that official records do not always reflect reality.
I also know that around about 1964 my dad showed me a Bison skull lying in the bush about a mile from home.
It was old, but not particularly old. It was gray in color, not white like a fresh skull but did not have the eroded appearance of a super old skull and it did not have the moss and lichen growth often seen on really old bones.
If I were to guess, I'd say it was no more then twenty years old when I saw it.
Back then there were well worn paths in certain places that could only have been made by large animals.
These paths were about a foot wide and cut into the soil two or more inches. There was nothing growing in them when I first saw them.
Today the paths can still be found, but now they are completely grown over.
Our cows made paths like that, but these paths were in places no domestic livestock ever frequented.
Dad used to tell about seeing herds of Deer numbering in the hundreds. He never mentioned seeing Bison, I guess they were gone or very very rare when he came into the country, back in 1922.
I can't say that the Deer didn't make those paths, but I find it hard to imagine Deer alone making them.