West Coast Traveller RV Roadtrip: At Elk Island National Park, these primordial beasts get the heart pumping

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They once numbered in the tens of millions, wandering around the interior of North America in herds so large their footsteps sounded like distant thunder.

They’re massive. Weighing up to 2,500 pounds. They can run as fast as 60 kilometres an hour. And they’re strong enough to leap over Jason Momoa’s head in a single bound, with quite a few inches to spare.

Paul first became aware of Elk Island National Park years ago, when he was a crime reporter at the Edmonton Sun. Some high school students had attempted a grad stunt with one of these huge animals, only to be gored as a result.

Curious, Paul went to the park and walked off through the woods, only to find himself surrounded by bison. The fact that such large animals could hide with such stealth in stands of aspen spooked him, and he insisted that we head there to see what we could see.

We had a few of these facts in mind as we ventured upon our first bison at Elk Island National Park.

The huge, shaggy brown behemoth cast a baleful red-rimmed eye upon us as it scraped its horns against a cottonwood tree, its bark rutted from years of this abuse.

Nearby, in the relative silence of a slowly ebbing Alberta day, it was quiet enough to hear the great beasts breathing, and green grass ripping, as they grazed with their massive heads bent to the ground.

We were lucky enough to stumble on part of a fairly large herd by slowly driving through the park’s bison loop.

A mother and calf at Elk Island National Park’s Bison Loop, which allows drivers to view the massive animals from the safety of their own vehicles. Fiona Anderson/Triumph Social Media Marketing photo

And it was particularly gratifying to see a bison calf suckling from its mother, tails swishing as the two battled flies and mosquitoes.

The fact that this herd exists at all is a bit of a miracle, combined with the bloody-minded obstinance of a few dozen animals and determined hard work from Parks Canada. In 1907, the federal government brought one of the last herds of plains bison from Montana.

The plan was to ship them to Elk Island and pen them there temporarily while bison fencing was built at a complex in Wainwright, Alberta more than 170 km to the southeast. While more than 300 bison were eventually shipped to Wainwright, about 70 of them refused to leave. Since then the remaining herd has grown to about 400 plains bison, and the park has added another 300 purebred wood bison. Meanwhile the Wainwright herd was moved in 1939 so the land could be used for military purposes.

The area has the highest concentration of ungulates in Canada. Beyond the bison, there are hundreds of elk, moose and deer.

There are also hundreds of bird species too, ranging from pelicans to trumpeter swans.

We stayed at the Park’s RV site at the Astotin Lake Campground. The sites didn’t have electricity or wifi, but there were picnic tables and easy-to-access sites with picnic tables and firewood for sale.

After a day of exploring the bison herd, nestled in our snug little travel trailer, a rainstorm moved overhead, with thunderclouds sounding like the bison did more than a century ago.

And in the very near distance, in our estimation only a 100 metres away, a pack of wolves began howling at the sky.

It was primal and glorious. It’s well worth the trip.

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Fiona Anderson and Paul Bucci, from Triumph Social, are travelling across North America this year, first by bicycle from Florida to California and now by truck and travel trailer from B.C. to Northern Ontario and back. Both are veteran writers, editors and social media marketers.

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