[Slideshows didn’t cross over when Forgotten Fort Collins became Northern Colorado History. Hopefully I’ll get this updated at some point.]

Click on slideshow above to see photos at a larger size and with subtitles. 

History isn’t always pretty. Sometimes it’s utterly devastating. And where that’s been the case, there’s something wonderful — something that smells overwhelmingly of grace, and restoration, and blessing — when steps are taken to put things right again. That’s how it felt yesterday afternoon when a small bison herd was released into Soapstone Prairie.

I have to admit that I cried a little when the bison came out, realized how open and free their new home was, and then just ran and ran and ran. It was glorious. It felt like some small piece of God’s world, that we’d screwed up, had been set right again.

This Vine by CSU captures the exuberance of the bison as they left the corral.