Wahkpa Chu'gn Meat Market Historical Marker

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Categories:

Historical Markers/Interpretive Sign,  Historic Sites

Keywords:

• Wahkpa Chu'gn Meat Market Historical Marker, 
• Montana Historical Markers

General info

Just behind this modern shopping center is a market of an earlier vintage. Located on the Milk River (called Wahkpa Chu’gn or “Middle River” by the Assiniboine) is a communal bison kill and meat-processing camp used extensively from about 2000 to 600 years ago. This site contains both a bison jump (where the buffalo would be run over a cliff to their deaths below) and an impoundment (where the animals would be corralled, then killed). The hunter could choose the more efficient method for the situation at hand. The grazing area for the buffalo was southeast of Havre below Saddle Butte Mountain. It is farmland today, but you can visualize the browsing herds and the Indians’ drive lanes leading toward the kill site.

The site, listed on the National Historic Register as “Too Close for Comfort” because of its proximity to Havre, is owned by Hill County and administered by the H. Earl Clack Museum. They may be contacted for tours during the summer season.

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