Saamis Tepee

The Saamis Tepee is both a landmark and a beacon. It stands beside the Trans-Canada in Medicine Hat and marks the site of both the Saamis Archeological Site and the Tourism Medicine Hat Visitor Centre. The tepee was built for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. When the Games wrapped up, a Medicine Hat entrepreneur bought it and moved to the city. The main masts are 65 m (215 ft) tall and the tepee weighs 800 tonnes. It is ringed with 10 large storyboards that depict aspects of Indigenous culture and history, including how Medicine Hat got its name and the Plains Cree way of life. The Saamis Tepee stands above Seven Persons coulee, where you’ll find the Saamis Archeological Site. The area was once a buffalo camp and meat processing site, and was used for thousands of years. It is home to thousands of valuable artifacts.