Question: This group of natives in North America were indigenous to the Interior Plains, historically nomadic, and relied on bison hunting.

<P0-S0>  Their historic nomadic culture and development of equestrian culture and resistance to domination by the government and military forces of Canada and the United States have made the Plains Indian culture groups an archetype in literature and art for American Indians everywhere. <P0-S1> Plains Indians, Interior Plains Indians or Indigenous people of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies are the Native American tribes and First Nation band governments who have traditionally lived on the greater Interior Plains (i.e. the Great Plains and the Canadian Prairies) in North America. <SEP> <P1-S0> The American bison ("Bison bison"), also commonly known as the American buffalo or simply buffalo, is a North American species of bison that once roamed the grasslands of North America in massive herds. <P1-S1>  They became nearly extinct by a combination of commercial hunting and slaughter in the 19th century and introduction of bovine diseases from domestic cattle, and have made a recent resurgence largely restricted to a few national parks and reserves. <P1-S2>  Their historical range roughly comprised a triangle between the Great Bear Lake in Canada's far northwest, south to the Mexican states of Durango and Nuevo León, and east to the Atlantic Seaboard of the United States (nearly to the Atlantic tidewater in some areas) from New York to Georgia and per some sources down to Florida. <P1-S3>  Bison were seen in North Carolina near Buffalo Ford on the Catawba River as late as 1750. <SEP> <P2-S0> Cow Creek is a tributary of the Missouri River, approximately 35 mi long, in north central Montana in the United States. <P2-S1>  Cow Creek rises in the southern foothills of the Bear Paw Mountains in western Blaine County and flows east and then south, joining the Missouri approximately 25 mi northeast of Winifred, Montana—or 22 mi upstream from the Fred Robinson Bridge. <P2-S2>  Cow Creek flows down to the Missouri in a canyon that passes through the Missouri Breaks, which are severely eroded badlands that extend out on either side from the Missouri River. <P2-S3>  The floor of Cow Creek canyon provided a pathway of travel from the Montana plains north of the river, down to the Missouri – at the mouth of Cow Creek, Cow Island made fording the Missouri easier – a steep but short trail on the south bank of the Missouri opposite Cow Creek completed this route which led from the northern Montana plains to the central and southern Montana plains. <P2-S4>  This pathway was used by migrating buffalo/bison and nomadic American Natives for centuries. <P2-S5>  During the steamboat era on the Missouri River, when low water prevented riverboats getting up to Fort Benton, the mouth of Cow Creek became a river landing and freighting depot, and it was the start of the Cow Island Trail by which freight was moved on to Fort Benton by going north up Cow Creek and then west. <P2-S6>  In 1877 the Nez Perce Indian Tribe, fleeing to Canada, had several skirmishes along Cow Creek including the "Battle of Cow Island", and several days later at a camp on Cow Creek the Nez Perce, thinking themselves now beyond the reach of the U.S. Army, made the fateful decision to slow down, rather than push on for the Canada–US border. <P2-S7>  Today, modern highways have by passed Cow Creek, and the buffalo and the nomadic Indian are gone. <P2-S8>  Cow Creek is dormant, in one of the most remote spots of the isolated regions of the vast area known as the Montana Missouri Breaks. <SEP> <P3-S0> Bison hunting (hunting of the American bison, also commonly known as the American buffalo) was an activity fundamental to the economy and society of the Plains Indians peoples who inhabited the vast grasslands on the Interior Plains of North America, prior to the animal's near-extinction in the late nineteenth century. <P3-S1>  The species' dramatic decline was the result of habitat loss due to the expansion of ranching and farming in western North America, industrial-scale hunting practised by non-indigenous hunters, increased indigenous hunting pressure due to non-indigenous demand for bison hides and meat, and even cases of deliberate policy by settler governments to destroy the food source of the native Indian peoples during times of conflict. <P3-S2>  Bison were first hunted for their meat, but now they are hunted for sport.