One of the biggest trips of my life was two years ago, when I went to Canada to spend ten months with a Canadian family, which I ended up loving more than I could say. I was sent to this family’s home, located in a small town called Medicine Hat, in Alberta.
This city became really important to me and nowadays, even two years later, I feel like it has a big and special place in my heart.
During the year, I had time to enjoy so many places of this special city and discover some interesting things about it.
______________________________________________________________
Medicine Hat High School.
This is probably one of the most meaningful places for me, as is where I learned a thousand new things, met beautiful people, and lived many experiences that I would never forget.
Without any doubt, I would say that the most valuable aspect in high schools there, are the sports. You can reaffirm that by just crossing the entering door of the building, as the first thing you would see is a screen on the wall, normally with all the information about the school teams appearing every two seconds. Then if you only turn your head to the left, you would be admiring the enormous gym, which is full of really tall people almost the whole day, and you are free of sitting on the stands to each them train.
There was a sporty atmosphere in that high school, and not because the 80% of the students where as tall as a basketball net, but because there were sport events almost every week. For example, on my first week, there was an event to choose a sport (if you wanted) and maybe be part of their team. Then on the next ones, there were uncountable basketball and volleyball games, and some other random events like “teachers versus students”.
Medicine Hat High School sports team’s moniker is Mohawks, and is also spread over the whole building, as for example in the clothes shop of the Hat High, where you can buy many stuff with the Mohawks logo on it. Before the name “Mohawks” they were the “Redskins”, but there was a change, and I suspect they are changing it again.
________________________________________________________________
World’s tallest tepee.
One very curious thing about this city is that has the world’s tallest tepee, called the Swamis Tepee, deeply related with the indigenous people, as it is a tribute to Canada’s native heritage, and considerated a landmark.
When I found out about this tepee, they told me that there were a lot of cities there in Canada that had a wold’s biggest something, for example one city where another student was staying had the world’s biggest hockey stick, but that is just a random fact.
I also discovered that Medicine Hat had a lot of respect for the indigenous culture. On June 26th, we were in the car when we found a place with multiple tepees placed forming a circle, so we decided to go take a look. It was some kind of memorial to their native heritage, and had all the cultural information you could imagine to understand their culture and sacrifice of the native Americans. We can also see that in the high school, with their sport’s program name and its logo, that is very representative.
If you pay attention to the city name, “Medicine Hat”, and compare it to other cities names in Canada, you will see that many of them has this composed names that seem weird at first sight. Its name also has relation with their native heritage, as it is inherited from the native word “saamis” which means medicine man’s hat.
BIBLIOGRAPHY__________________________________________________________________
https://www.medicinehat.ca/en/government-and-city-hall/our-history.aspx