Jumping Buffalo: Places to See

Updated: February 3, 2026

First Peoples Buffalo Jump State Park, near Ulm just south of Great Falls, is widely recognized as one of the largest and best-preserved buffalo jumps in North America and has been designated a National Historic Landmark. Archaeological studies indicate that Indigenous peoples used this sandstone cliff and the surrounding drive lines as a hunting site for at least a thousand years before the Lewis and Clark Expedition passed through the area, with bone beds up to 13-18 feet deep showing repeated large kills. Today the park features a 6,000-square-foot visitor and education center with buffalo culture exhibits, a storytelling circle, classroom, gallery, bookstore, outdoor amphitheater, and traditional games fields, along with ranger-led programs, hiking trails, and panoramic views over the plains. First Peoples Buffalo Jump is typically open year-round with extended hours in summer and a reduced schedule in winter, and it continues to serve as an important place to learn about Plains Indigenous history, ecology, and ongoing cultural connections to bison.

The Madison Buffalo Jump, about 25 miles southwest of Bozeman off Buffalo Jump Road, sits on limestone cliffs overlooking the broad Madison River valley and preserves another major pishkun used over many centuries into the Late Prehistoric period. Archaeological surveys there have documented multiple stone drive lines, dense bison bone concentrations below the jump face, camp and processing areas in the nearby creek valley, and dozens of stone tipi circles that mark former lodge sites. Artifacts such as stone tools, hearths, and an Early Archaic projectile point show that this landscape was used repeatedly for hunting, toolmaking, and ceremony long before the last recorded jumps a few hundred years ago. Together, First Peoples and Madison Buffalo Jump are two of more than 300 known buffalo kill and jump sites in present-day Montana, offering powerful evidence of the rich cultures that developed sophisticated ways of living with and hunting bison.

For visitors who want to see live bison as well as ancient jump sites, the CSKT Bison Range (formerly the National Bison Range) near Moiese in the Flathead Valley remains one of the best places in Montana to observe bison in a grassland setting. Established in 1908 as a federal refuge and restored in 2020 to the ownership and management of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, the Bison Range today supports a herd of roughly 300-500 bison along with elk, deer, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, black bear, and many smaller mammals. Driving routes and overlooks give visitors a good chance to see bison grazing and moving across portions of their ancestral homelands, while interpretive materials highlight both the animals and the Tribes' long conservation leadership. The surrounding Ninepipe and Pablo National Wildlife Refuges provide additional habitat for waterfowl, raptors such as bald eagles and herons, and a wide variety of songbirds, underscoring how bison conservation is linked to the broader health of prairie and wetland ecosystems. Rather than fully "restoring" an earlier landscape, these protected places-along with Montana's preserved pishkuns-help people remember, study, and continue living relationships among bison, land, and the Indigenous nations who have cared for both for countless generations.

Updated: February 3, 2026