Medicine Hat Travel Guide

Introduction

The Hat, as locals like to call it, lies 291km (180 miles) southeast of Calgary on the Trans-Canada Highway, and sits at the center of Alberta's vast natural-gas fields (Rudyard Kipling famously described it as the city with "all hell for a basement.") And in case you're wondering where the name came from (who wouldn't?), it's drawn from the Native Canadian word Saamis, which means "Medicine Man's Hat."

A lot of modern industry has moved to Medicine Hat to be near the gas, making this an unlikely factory town surrounded by grain fields. There's not much to recommend for the tourist here: the Hat is largely a center of the gas industry, and a whistle-stop for truckers making the long trek across the prairies. Consequently, the Trans-Canada is lined with the requisite fast-food joints and motels you'd expect.

Though your time in the province is probably best spent elsewhere, Medicine Hat does have some charms. In the early 1900s, the primary industry was fashioning brick and...