Medicine Hat sits in the dry southeast corner of Alberta, perched above the South Saskatchewan River valley. Rudyard Kipling famously described it as a city "with all hell for a basement" — a reference to the vast natural gas reserves that lie beneath it and gave the city its nickname, the Gas City.
The setting is dramatic prairie: wide skies, coulees, and the river cutting through town. The Medalta historic clay district preserves the old pottery factories that once made Medicine Hat a ceramics centre, and the riverside parks — Police Point to the north, Echo Dale to the west — are pleasant for walking and (in summer) swimming. The Esplanade Arts Centre is the city's main cultural building, and the giant Saamis Tepee standing alongside the Trans-Canada Highway is the most photographed landmark.
Medicine Hat is also one of the sunniest cities in Canada, with more annual sunshine than most Mediterranean capitals — a fact worth knowing for travellers passing through the prairies. Dinosaur Provincial Park, one of the richest dinosaur fossil sites in the world, is about an hour and a half's drive northwest, and Cypress Hills Interprovincial Park is an hour southeast.