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"Just Following The Buffalo": Origins Of A Montana Métis Community, Martha Harroun Foster

Great Plains Quarterly

By 1879 the vast buffalo herds were all but gone from the Great Plains. Many of the remaining animals had moved south from the Milk River of northern Montana and Alberta into the Judith Basin of central Montana. In these rich grasslands, for a few more years, life went on as it had for centuries. Following the buffalo came many Indian bands, as well as Métis who had been hunting on the Milk River for decades. A buffalo~based economy had brought prosperity to the Native people of the Plains. The animals provided essential food and materials in addition to products …