I’ve always wanted to see a buffalo. By that I mean the American bison. But I didn’t know that. It came to me as a bit of a surprise. I was in Badlands National Park, in South Dakota, where I was researching a piece for Intelligent Life magazine.
Here is one of the world’s fantastical landscapes, but landscapes will only get you so far. They don’t come to life until you encounter living things, for they are the spirit of the place. But then I looked out across these impossible towers and edges and turrets and striations and collapses of this extraordinary place and there, on a patch of green prairie in the midst of all this geological mayhem, I saw that unmistakable silhouette.
All head and shoulders. That huge hump. Head down, getting stuck into the sparse grass. And for about a million different reasons at once I felt a great soaring of the heart. It was a bit like seeing a unicorn.
Because these are mythological beasts. They’re part of American mythology, and that makes them part of the world’s mythology. These animals are the story of the West, and the story of the West is about the subjugation of nature. This process involved the subjugation of an awful lot of people and the extirpation of the buffalo.
The Badlands was the site of the last cowboy and Indian war; Wounded Knee is just down the road. It’s a place heavy with human as well as natural history. And this distant buffalo silhouette was about all those ancient dramas, as well as being a fine thing in its own right.
Buffalos were reintroduced to Badlands national Park in the 1960s, and there are now 800 or more in the park; they can cope with this notoriously waterless place because of the introduction of stock-dams. Later I was to walk among them: they stroll at their ease through Sage Creek camp site.
This transcendent vision of buffalo was about the adventure of the taming of the West, but also about the latter-day adventure of rewilding the West. They’re one step ahead of Joni: don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s almost but not quite gone.
thank you, as ever
I envy your experience and do you know, if you replaced the buffalo photographed with a red deer stag it could just be Richmond Park, early in the October morning. What a fantastic place the world is if only we learned to see!
Glad to have you back in “circulation” by the way
Absolutely, though you tend to avoid the hum of distant traffic in the Badlands. But for urban countryside, Richmond Park really can’t be beaten.
How bloomin’ marvellous is that?! Can understand your emotion, the sheer joy of it being there before your eyes.
Watching Rich Hall’s ‘Inventing the Indian’ last Sunday night couldn’t help but mourn (and quietly rage) about what happened to those peoples and this beast. To me, they’re both the iconic symbols of the USA.
Had to smile wryly about Joni’s song, a week never goes by without saying that line.
Btw, is it true they still shoot buffalo?
When will we ever learn?
It was a very powerful experience travelling across American and through Pine Ridge Reservation. Joni has never spoken anything but the truth.
Awesome post and photo Simon, thank you for sharing.
Thanks Tracey.
Love that image and no mincing of words. Man’s inhumanity to man and beast. At least the buffalo are in with a chance. Further across the globe it would seem the Aussies are hellbent on driving koala to extinction. And, I guess, that will apply to many more lesser known species. Ah, it’s so good to have you back….. Thank you. It is a breath of fresh air to read your blogs.
Thanks for your kind words. There are problems all over, but we must also remember to take the odd moment to enjoy what’s left. We will go melancholy mad otherwise.
I agree with you, Simon, the buffalo is an iconic creature, I too have had the privilege of walking with a solitary buffalo while being on exercise with the army in Canada. A truly unforgettable experience. I am looking forward to your new book, keep us all informed!
Thanks Anthony, I’ve just heard it’s being published in the second week of January. I’ll get some sneak previews in here after Christmas.
Good thoughts millions of Buffalo once …let’s re wild the world Simon
You won’t hear an argument from me on that one!
aaah that’s better. Keep weaving your spell
Thanks Sue, i’ll do my best.
Reminds me of the landscape in Laikipia, Kenya.
great photo!
You should see what the actual photographer got!
Your buffalo story brought to mind a different time and place: there we were, driving towards and into Monument Valley (with the theme from “The Magnificent Seven” blaring from the car’s speakers…what else?), and half an hour later, setting off for a drive around the place. And what do we see that brings us to a shuddering halt? A coyote standing on a rock by the roadside, staring at us staring at her/him! numerous photographs later, we both went on our ways.
But what an event!! Makes one grateful to be alive.
Absolutely, these creatures are part of our mythology. The American west is in some ways part of the English psychology these days.
I’m reminded of more lyrics of Joni’s. Got to get us back, back to the garden. Eloquent words like those can only advance that dream
Yes indeed, Joni got it right time and time again.