As reported on CBC.ca, if there’s one thing Albertans do even better than huge trucks and grain elevators, it’s making massive monuments for little places. Follow Tamarra Canu on her summer Albertan road trip as she travels her province to find out what these big things meant to the small towns that call them home.

In this episode of Big Things Small Towns, Tamarra revisits a giant landmark that left quite an impact on her as a child and it’s just as impressive and towering to her today, even though she’s grown a bit since then: Medicine Hat’s massive Sammis Tepee. “Sammis” in Sammis Tepee comes from the Blackfoot word for medicine and was originally constructed for the 1988 Olympic Winter Games in Calgary. Because of the structure’s unique stress points, building the tepee was no simple task. It ended up being a greater engineering challenge than the Eiffel Tower! Its final form now is completely different than what it originally looked like at the Olympics — just the two main trusses remain, and the rest was all engineered and manufactured in Medicine Hat.

“It was built to recognize, out of respect, and to acknowledge our Indigenous past,” says Jeannette Hansen of the Miywasin Friendship Centre who tells Tamarra about the history of the tepee and the message and knowledge it shares with those who see it. Inside the tepee are 10 painted storyboards, all by Indigenous artists, detailing stories of Medicine Hat and its history. “People aren’t born with this knowledge. They need to learn it,” says Hansen.

For Nona Foster, who painted three of the storyboards, the sheer scale of it adds to the site’s impact. “When you’re driving into Medicine Hat, it’s sitting on a high level along the river there, and you can see it coming in from the east or the west, the north or the south. You can see it from every direction. It’s a landmark that I think is most spectacular.”

Keep reading and watch the video on CBC.ca