What makes the Badlands bad? The term was first used by the Lakota people who called the region in eastern Montana and South Dakota “mako sica” or “land bad’. The French Canadian fur trappers agreed in the early 1900s, saying it was “les mauvais terres pour traverse, “or bad land to travel through” because the temperatures were harsh, water was scarce and the land was difficult to cross by foot or horseback.  Outlaws made use of these features to hide after committing crimes.  Famous outlaws like Kid Curry, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Dutch Henry and the Hole in the Wall Gang would take refuge in the barren land escaping into Canada or to remote hideouts. There is now a Badlands National Park in South Dakota where buffalo and big horn sheep live.  The Park has a wonderful fossil exhibit – it turns out that long before humans and modern day animals arrived, dinosaurs lived here and their bones are now fossils!  Purrs, Gulliver