6 September 2009
I wanted to visit Head-Smashed-in-Buffalo-Jump so headed there in the morning along a deserted side road. This is a UNESCO World Heritage site but there are no huge signs or directions just a very long straight road leading to a cliff with a visitor’s centre blended carefully into the cliff side. The site has been used for over 5,000 years to drive buffalo over the edge in large numbers. The Native Americans would then strip the hides and use them for clothes and shelter and dry the meat to last through the winter. It is estimated that around 60 million buffalo roamed North America at the time the first Europeans arrived in the 1600s. By 1881 the buffalo numbers had reached crisis point and were near extinction.
Now... the sharper amongst you will be wondering why I didn't turn north after Head-Smashed-in-Buffalo-Jump and return to Calgary for a return flight to the UK and the end of the trip... well... I didn't want to - so there!!
The Baron and I had a chat and decided that it didn't feel like the end of the trip and we were both enjoying it so much we decided to carry on. We arrived at the border between Canada and Montana, USA and the border guard asked if he could buy the Baron from me! I told him I needed the Baron and still refused even when he offered to swap him for a border police car with siren and flashing lights!!
It was getting late so I stopped at Babb but the motel was full. The nice lady in the fuel station called Duck Lake Lodge for me and they had a room. I rode up a couple of side roads and along a gravel track to a very pretty wooden building next to a lake. The room was tiny and the bathrooms down the hall but the restaurant and bar more than made up for it. After a delicious supper I sat at the bar with my maps trying to choose where to head next. The locals at the bar helped me decide a route and were great. I ended up staying up far too late and drinking far too much beer but it was a great evening and I received lots of ideas for my route!
There is a national park which straddles the border between America and Canada, on the north side the park is called Waterton Lakes National Park and in the south it is Glacier National Park (not to be confused with Glacier National Park in British Columbia). I’d been told by the same group of guys from Tennessee I met in Skagway, to ride through the park on the “Road to the Sun” which winds though the mountains with a series of hairpin corners followed by long straights revealing wonderful vistas.
| I didn’t think the scenery could get much better after the mountains of Alaska and Canada but this park is amazing. I spent the day enjoying the area then looked for somewhere to stay. Someone at Duck Lodge mentioned that Whitefish was very pretty and so I headed there and checked into the only motel in the centre of town. |  |
I took the following day off and sorted out some chores. The town is very sweet and I enjoyed wandering about the main street looking into shop windows.
I wanted to visit Yellowstone Park so set off along the quieter back roads through the huge national forests of this region. I kept seeing reference to “Montana, Big Sky Country” on the vehicle licence plates and didn’t really understand it until I set off that day. This state really has a bigger sky than anywhere else. It is a state with high elevation and rolling countryside and the roads seem to be nearer the sky somehow. I eventually came to the interstate and had to make a decision if I was going to ride along the interstate or keep on the back roads. I chose the interstate and was delighted to find it empty! The roads in the UK are so choked up with traffic and the motorways are the worst and I thought it would be the same here but it was the opposite.
I stopped to fill up The Baron and met a rather strange man who saw me looking at the map and asked me if I was lost. I said that I wasn’t but was having a rest but he insisted on showing me a seemingly never ending array of tourist brochures retrieved from his dilapidated campervan! He told me, “If you don’t visit anywhere else you must visit Virginia City and Nevada City which are next to each other.” I ringed them on the map and he showed me yet another tourist brochure, writing down the various accommodation options for me. He then asked me where I was staying that night and offered to put me up in his campervan...! I politely declined and zoomed off on the Baron with a wave as we left.
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The Baron picked up a pretty adornment! |
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The Big Cow advertising Stoney's Kwik Stop at Clearwater Junction, Montana |
The next morning I headed towards Virginia City which is roughly on the way to Yellowstone but a side detour. I tried to book into the Fairweather Inn on the main street but they were full so I booked for the following two nights and headed out of town again.
The strangest things happened to me over the following couple of days but you’ll have to tune in next time to find out who I met and what happened!