You see it long before you reach Medicine Hat: a vast steel tepee standing alone on the prairie, 65 metres tall, made of a dozen white-painted ribs converging on a circular crown. It is the world's tallest tepee, and it looks more impressive in person than the description suggests — the scale only becomes clear when you stand beneath it and look up.
The site is built around a small interpretive area with storyboards on each of the supporting columns, telling the stories of the Plains nations whose territories this is. It is not a long stop — twenty minutes is enough — but it is the city's most distinctive landmark and worth pulling off the highway for. Free, open year-round, no reservations needed.