Majestic beast making a comeback in Wood Buffalo

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Would you like to see wood bison? Award-winning wood bison that is. Alberta's Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo is home to the Beaver Creek Wood Bison Ranch where more than 300 wood bison will graze and roam this summer.

About 40 kilometres north of the region's centre, Fort McMurray, the ranch is a joint venture between Syncrude Canada Ltd., the world's largest producer of light-sweet crude oil, and the Fort McKay First Nation.

Originally allocated 25 hectares, the ranch is now 340 hectares in size and is part of Syncrude's reclamation, a project that restores the landscape to a quality at least equal to its condition before mining began.

Starting in 1993 with only 32 wood bison relocated from Elk Island National Park near Edmonton, the ranch's long-term goal is to create 2,000 hectares of pasture supporting more than 1,000 wood bison.

"We believe that will be a five- or six-year goal," said ranch manager Rick Bouchier, a Dene.

Early success saw Beaver Creek named the Rookie Ranch of the Year at the annual Alberta Bison Association's Wild Rose Classic show and sale in 1999, and one of the ranch's male calves won first in its class and Reserve Grand Champion.

The bison may be seen from the Wood Bison Viewpoint, located 43 kilometres north of the city on the left-hand side of Highway 63.

"There is no best time to view them," said Bouchier. "It depends on where they are and what they are doing. They roam wherever they want."

In 1995, to celebrate the success of the Wood Bison project; the Wood Bison Trail was officially opened only a few kilometres south. This trail has four components.

At the entrance to the trail stands the Bison Gateway, a massive stone sculpture of a wood bison herd.

Created by local Cree artist Brian Clark and apprentices from the Fort McKay First Nation, the herd depicts seven life-size wood bison, each weighing in excess of 35 tonnes with an average height of four metres. They are made from siltstone drawn from the local mine site.

The stone sculpture marks the beginning of the Matcheetawin Discovery Trails-a Cree word meaning, "beginning place."

This four-kilometre interpretive trail system situated on 50 hectares of land offers visitors the opportunity to see various types of reclaimed land-spruce/aspen forests, jack pine forests, grasslands and wetlands.

Visitors may also get a spectacular view of the oilsands projects from this area.

The Sagow Pematosowin Trail-Cree for living in peaceful co-existence with the land-is an interpretive area, which teaches visitors about the close relationship between Aboriginal people and the environment.