Lost Tracks Buffalo National Park, 1909–1939

While contemporaries and historians alike hailed the establishment of Buffalo National Park in Wainwright, Alberta as a wildlife saving effort, the political climate of the early twentieth century worked against its efforts to stem the decline of the plains buffalo in North America. However, the branch charged with operating the park, the Canadian Parks Branch, was never sufficiently funded and therefore the park was unable fulfill its species recovery aims. And although cross-breeding experiments with bison and domestic cattle proved unfruitful and the attempts at commercializing the herd had no success, the population of the bison did increase as did the hope that this magnificent species might thrive again. By unravelling an intricate web of correspondence and other documentation, Brower reveals the fiscal and corporate management policies that doomed the herd and the park thereby providing important insight into successful wildlife management.

Jennifer Brower has tied together the details of this complex and intriguing story in a readable and informative manner that makes the book a pleasure to read. Unravelling the intricate web of correspondence, conversations, and other documentation must have been a daunting task, but she has done a superlative job of making the complex topic easy to understand. With this ability she takes the reader through the early conservation efforts, the success story of the herd’s recovery, to the fiscal and corporate management policies that, in the long term, doomed the herd at Wainwright.

Wes Olson, former Park Warden, Elk Island National Park

About the Author

Jennifer Brower worked at the Buffalo National Park Foundation in Wainwright, Alberta. Her research continues to focus on BNP and the history of east-central Alberta.

Reviews

Unlike other books on the history of Canadian national parks, this one is different because it describes and explains the history of ‘a forgotten park’ that no longer exists. … The book, based on an MA thesis, is rigorously researched and thoroughly footnoted.

The Canadian Geographer

A thoughtful and provocative work . . . . Brower’s work adds to the recent historiography which exposes a side of Canadian park and conservation policy that is frequently overlooked, and this is where her work makes the greatest contribution.

Humanities and Social Sciences Net Online

Table of Contents

1. Acknowledgements
2. Introduction
3. Chapter 1. Where the Buffalo Roamed
4. Chapter 2. Bison Conservation and Buffalo National Park
5. Chapter 3. A Well-Run Ranch
6. Chapter 4. Zookeepers and Animal Breeders
7. Chapter 5. “Evolving the Arctic Cow”
8. Conclusion: The Forgotten Park
9. Bibliography / Index

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-ND 2.5 CA). It may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided that the original author is credited.