Medicine Hat (pop. 63,271) is a city on the South Saskatchewan River in southeastern Alberta. Warm winds called chinooks usually keep Medicine Hat warmer than most other cities in the same latitude. One of the largest known natural-gas fields in the world surrounds Medicine Hat and provides the basis for its industries. The city owns its own gas reserves, which are part of the field.
Medicine Hat serves as a trading center for a large farming and ranching area. Its factories use gas for power, and this keeps Medicine Hat free from smoke. The chief products include flour, glass, linseed oil, cement, petrochemicals, rubber products, brick and tile, pottery, and machinery. Workers process lignite coal and clay found nearby. The city has a fertilizer plant, a carbon black plant, a tire plant, and several greenhouses. One of these greenhouses, with 10 acres (4 hectares) under glass, is the second largest in Canada.
Medicine Hat was founded in 1883 and chartered as a city in 1906. The city’s name is the translation of the Blackfoot word saamis (the headdress of a medicine man). A Blackfoot legend says a Cree medicine man lost his saamis there while deserting a battle against the Blackfoot. Medicine Hat has a mayor-council form of government.
