A iron made statue of a Buffalo on Scarth Street. Here is a brief history of the settlement area before it was known as Regina:
In the days when huge herds of buffalo roamed the northern plains, a place in what was to become Saskatchewan had gained fame among the First Nations hunters. The place was ideally suited for construction of a buffalo "pound" - a large corral into which buffalo were herded to be killed. The site also had an abundance of water and level ground for drying the buffalo meat.
The Cree Indians, who came to this place to hunt buffalo, believed that buffalo would not leave the bones of other dead buffalo. As long as there were bones there, buffalo would be plentiful and the hunting good. Therefore, the Cree piled buffalo bones in a huge pile, six feet high and 40 feet in diameter.
The site and the surrounding area became famous for these bones. The Cree Indians called it Oskana ka-asateki "the bones that are piled together." The first settlement at the site was called "Pile O' Bones," though other names for the area, such as Bone Creek and Manybones, were also used. In 1857 the explorer Captain James Palliser heard the Cree word for the region and named the creek "Wascana," as it is still known.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Give me a home, where the Buffalo roam
Posted By The Letter A at 7:04 PM
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2 comments:
That is a stunning sculpture and an interesting piece of history. Do you still have buffalo in the area? Quite a few species in the Eastern and Western Cape are now extinct, because of unscrupulous hunting by our forefathers.
The buffalo were nearly all killed off by over hunting. There are designated areas that buffalo are raised and protected. I do not think that they roam freely anymore, but that may be due more to the fact that most is the land is used for growing crops now. I would have to check into that a bit further.
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