It is beautiful country and, in the 1860s, it was extraordinarily rich country.

The richness was biological.

The northern Great Plains before the mass destruction of the bison were almost incomprehensible in their abundance.

Estimates of bison population before the systematic hunting campaigns of the 1870s and 1880s range into the tens of millions.

The Powder River Country was among the most productive bison ranges on the continent — the animals wintered there in the protected river valleys and ranged the uplands in summer.

For the Lakota people, the bison was not simply food.