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Saturday was my last day in the Suffield NWA, and tomorrow I say goodbye to Medicine Hat. Ironically, it took till my last few days to finally explore the heart of the city and even visit the visitors centre to pick up a commemorative sticker of the Saamis Tepee – the World’s Largest Tepee, that watches over The Hat from just off the Trans Canada and is currently under construction.

For those who have never been to Medicine Hat, it is a quaint city that acts as a central hub for the south-eastern corner of Alberta with a population of around 60,000 and a huge love of small festivals and wall art. From the start of May, there has been the Rise Up! Hot Air Balloon Fest, Kin Coulee Music Festival, Medicine Hat Jazz Fest, and the Rubber Duck Derby where they dump 1000 rubber duckies into the Kin Coulee creek and people can win up to $3,000 if their rubber duck crosses the finish first. On Saturday evening, I chose to follow the self-guided mural tour that meanders through the core downtown of The Hat with a variety of different wall art that express different facets of the city, or is purely creativity at its finest.

One thing about Medicine Hat is the crazy amount of mule deer everywhere. I don’t think I have gone a single day without seeing at least one deer on some random sidewalk or behind a fence munching on grass. I thought the mule deer mural was quite fitting.

Another thing I noticed is the pure pride many Medicine Hat natives have for their home town. Medicine Hat itself reminds me quite a bit of Downtown Kitchener in terms of architecture so I have been drawing many parallels and comparisons of the two, especially in the art and community vibe dynamics. From the many Hell’s Basement Brewery t-shirts and hats – a nod to the local slogan of ‘All Hell For a Basement’ which describes the wealth of natural gas deposits beneath the city, the hundreds of Big M (M for Medicine Hat) Ford bumper stickers originating from a local ford dealership, tons of local festivals and pop-up markets, a healthy tourism centre, and the sheer capacity of art that lines the walls of old brick buildings and covers every post and electric box on every corner, you can tell the people who live here love it. I find a lot of southern Ontario cities have been trying to promote more wall art and while the art is beautiful and I don’t doubt the passion the artist has for their creation, it does not feel like it stems from the same place that the art covering Medicine Hat stems from.

Like I mentioned earlier, the Saamis Tepee has been under construction so I haven’t been able to actually visit it, but I do drive past it every day for work. It was built for the Calgary 1988 Olympics, and within the tepee are 10 different pieces of artwork that depict native culture and history of the area. It’s so big we could see it all the way from the tallest point of the Suffield NWA (albeit very far away and tiny). I don’t have any good photos of the Saamis Tepee, I did visit the World’s Largest Chess Set (man, the Prairies love having the World’s Biggest anything).

Medicine Hat is nestled within a small valley, the southern limits of the Canadian Badlands bordering and creating interesting geography in and around the city. The South Saskatchewan river also runs through, with many car and train bridges crossing the expanse. It was a truly beautiful evening to explore, and I realized that there are lots of places to find peace on a warm breezy Saturday afternoon from the many small parks and green spaces, to the nature trails that make you forget you’re in a town at all.

I’ll miss Medicine Hat and I wish I got to learn more about it for a longer time, especially the once in a lifetime chance to explore the Suffield NWA and the many unique critters inside its barbed wire fence line. I would 100% return if fate had it in store, however, I am looking forward for my two weeks in Saskatchewan performing more work on the farms and eventually, the last of my summer in the UoAlberta Wildlife Research Division office working on the data collected from tis field season. Goodbye Medicine Hat!