Where Have All The Buffalo Gone?

About the performance

Where Have All The Buffalo Gone? follows two souls through seven different periods of Métis history. Filled with stories about the Sun Traveller and the Callihoo family, incorporating a life-like buffalo puppet. Inspired by historical events of the Métis people of Canada, this original play for young audiences explores the loves, the losses and the fight of Treaty 6’s Métis people – and their love and kinship to the buffalo.

The play takes the audience through the emergence of the Métis Nation across the plains, then leads into the robust colonization that arises from the fur trade, the disappearance of the buffalo, as well as the political uprising of the Métis Association of Alberta in the 1930s. The story starts in creation among the stars and ends in 2024.

The play is broken into seven scenes. Below is an outline of the time periods and the main historical events that each scene features.

Among the Stars - Reference to Métis creation story.

1830 - The Fur Trade

1885 - The Riel Rebellion (Red River Rebellion)

1915 - World War I

1925 - Residential Schools

1935 - The Great Depression and The Indian Act

2024 - Contemporary Métis

Content advisory

Where Have All the Buffalo Gone explores aspects of Métis history through theatrical storytelling. Scenes include a character preparing a rabbit and hunting a buffalo (1830), stylized gunfire during the Battle of Batoche (1885), and a depiction of characters escaping residential school and ascending to the stars (1925). The use of props such as a knife, rifle, and musket is purely theatrical and intended to support the narrative. 

Additional context can be found in the study guide. For more information, please visit Axis Theatre's Where Have All The Buffalo Gone web page.