Dry Island Buffalo Jump Provincial Park, Provincial park in Alberta, Canada
Dry Island Buffalo Jump is a provincial park in Alberta, Canada, set along the Red Deer River in a badlands landscape. A wide plateau rises steeply above the river, exposing layered rock formations, open grasslands, and deep ravines below.
Cree peoples used this site over many generations as a hunting ground, driving bison herds off the cliffs to the river below. The practice shaped the place so strongly that its name still carries that memory today.
The name refers to the plateau in the park's centre, called Dry Island because it stands 200 m above the Red Deer River and has never been developed, keeping its original prairie grasses. Below it, Blackfoot people drove bison over the cliffs at the ancient jump. The park also holds the world's most important Albertosaurus bone bed, found by Barnum Brown in 1910 and rediscovered by Phil Currie in 1997.
The park has two campgrounds, Tolman East and Tolman West, along with a boat launch that gives access to the river. All facilities tend to be open from spring through fall, so warmer months are the most practical time to plan a visit.
A bone bed full of Albertosaurus remains was found here in 1910, then largely forgotten until it was rediscovered in 1997. The gap between discovery and rediscovery shows how much of the badlands has yet to be fully studied.
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