In July of 2010 Frank and I decided to collect a modern skeleton of a Plains Bison. My cousin had run a Bison ranch near Wetaskiwin for a number of years. He eventually sold his herd and moved to Innisfail to operate a grain handling terminal. But, he told us of an 8 year old bull that had died in the back corner of his pasture a couple of years prior. We wanted to collect the skeleton and as Frank was up in the city for the day, we decided to head out in the evening and see if we could find it. My cousin Victor had given us a pretty detailed description of where the carcass could be found. I knew the area well as my cousin and I used to ride snowmobiles there when we were kids. We really didn't know exactly what we would be doing with the skeleton, but we wanted to collect it while the opportunity presented itself. We could use it to produce a skeletal mount of a complete modern Plains Bison, or use the post cranial material to put together with a different skull, and prepare a mount of an extinct ice age bison. Of course in July it is light until well into the evening so we had plenty of time to try and locate it, and hopefully collect it. We parked on the side of the road and hiked the 1/2 mile in to the back corner of the pasture. As it had been a wet summer thus far the grass was lush and up to six feet tall in places.
As we wandered about in that tall grass it very quickly became obvious that it was not going to be as easy to find the carcass as we had thought. The grass was very tall, there was no smell, and nothing obvious to suggest where the old bull might have died. But then by luck Frank stumbled over a femur. Not only was the area lush with tall grass, but also with stinging nettles. We beat some of them down and discovered an inconspicuous mound that must have been the carcass. We were surprised at how little was left of it after only two years. We quickly decided that there was enough time to try and collect what bones we could find, but that we would need to gather a few supplies. So, we hiked the half mile back to the truck and drove in to the Walmart in Wetaskiwin. We were somewhat dishevelled, sweaty and dirty as we purchased a rake and a box of garbage bags. We joked that it was a good thing we we're also buying a tin of lye as we would have been suspects for having a body to dispose of. On the contrary, it was the opposite that was our intention. We drove back out to the pasture and did that 1/2 mile hike one more time. We used the rake to beat down the nettles and the grass and to pull apart the overgrown mound. Paydirt...!! We soon discovered the bones of that old Bison bull.
We bagged up everything we could find and packed it out of the pasture to the trucks. It took us two trips to carry out all the bones. We remarked that it was amazing that the bones of an animal that weighed nearly a ton when it was alive, could be carried out in a few garbage bags, by two guys, in a couple of trips. That short 1/2 mile walk out to the back corner of the pasture seemed pretty long by the time we were done as we each walked it six times that evening. The last couple of trips out we were pretty loaded down. We joked again that is was a good thing that no one was around watching us. What would any of the neighbors think if they saw two grubby looking guys walking into a pasture with a rake and then walking out with garbage bags full of heavy stuff?? Frank loaded all the bones in his truck and headed home for Drumheller. I packed myself into my truck and headed back into the city. By this time it was starting to get dark. The next day, back at the shop in Drumheller, Frank went through all the bones to see what we had. We did not have the skull, but we knew that my cousin had already collected that a year prior. The post cranial material was over 95% complete. We were missing a couple of the tail vertebra, a rib or two, and a few foot bones. We intended to go back out in the fall when the grass died back and sweep the area one more time. We never did get around to it, but maybe in the spring before things green up we can get back out there. Frank laid out all the bones back in the shop and took this photograph...
Later in the fall we borrowed the skull from my cousin so that we could take a mold off of it to make some casts. Eventually when that process is complete, the original skull and horn sheaths will be returned to my cousin. This skull is enormous, with the spread of the horns measuring 21" from tip to tip, and over 27" at the widest part of the curve! We were pleasantly surprised at how clean everything was. Almost every little bit of tissue had been cleaned away by the maggots, grubs and beetles leaving all the bones virtually spotless. A stroke of luck on our part. We will store these bones away and see if we can't find a project to use them on.
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