In this period of expansionism, one prominent figure advocating homesteading in the North West was botanist John Macoun. He undertook expeditions alongside Sir Sanford Fleming in the 1880s during which he had the chance to look at the ostensibly uncultivatable Palliser's Triangle. It turns out that Palliser saw the region in a state of drought during which ample buffalo herds were grazing the grass shorter. He also bore witness to a number of grass fires, all of which gave the impression of an inhospitable desert. Macoun, on the other hand, found the region in a major wet period after a severe decline in animal life in no small part due to the overhunting of bison. This skewed his perspective to the exact opposite of Palliser's assessment: where Palliser could be said to have underestimated the agricultural capacity of the Triangle, Macoun could be said to have overestimated it, as evidenced by both the region's production and its frequent and sometimes devastating droughts.