Friends and Neighbors (FANS) of Washington Park hosts free monthly educational events including bird walks, tree walks, bike maintenance workshops, pollinator garden tours, lectures, and presentations.
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Sun, Jul 26
|Smith Lake
Washington Park Book Club
Habitat Library and FANS present a discussion of Buffalo for the Broken Heart by Dan O'Brien on the shores of an old bison wallow, Smith Lake.
Time & Location
Jul 26, 2026, 10:30 AM – 11:30 AM
Smith Lake, Smith Lake, Denver, CO 80209, USA
About the event
Smith Lake was most likely once a bison wallow. It makes the perfect setting to discuss this beautiful book by Dan O'Brien, which explores the animal that is at the center of many of the country's most mythic and heartbreaking tales. Our discussion promises to be an interesting reflection on the country's 250th and Colorado's 150th.
For twenty years, Dan O'Brien struggled to make ends meet on his cattle ranch in South Dakota. But when a neighbor invited him to lend a hand at the annual buffalo roundup, O'Brien was inspired to convert his own ranch, the Broken Heart, to buffalo. Starting with thirteen calves, "short-necked, golden balls of wool," O'Brien embarked on a journey that returned buffalo to his land for the first time in more than a century and a half.
Buffalo for the Broken Heart is at once a tender account of the buffaloes' first seasons on…