Chief Saskitune

A land formation in Alberta, Canada, that looks like a native American wearing an iPod was recently discovered in satellite images on Google Earth near Medicine Hat.

The origins of Canadian city names are always interesting, but the origin of the name of Medicine Hat is the stuff of legend.

Approximately 150 km east north-east of Lethbridge, the name of the site of the present city was noted as Medicine Hat by W. Johnson, a member of the North West Mounted Police, in 1882. There are many possible explanations for the name, which is a translation of saamis, Blackfoot Indian for "the head-dress of a medicine man."

One of them connects the name with a fight between the Cree and Blackfoot tribes, when the Cree medicine man lost his war bonnet in the river. Another associates it with the slaughter of a party of white settlers and the appropriation by the Indian medicine man of a fancy hat worn by one of the victims. Another explanation is that the name was applied originally to a hill east of the town, from its resemblance to the hat of an Indian medicine man. Another possibility describes the rescue of a female Indian from the South Saskatchewan River by an Indian brave, upon whose head a well-known medicine man placed his own hat as a token of admiration of the act of bravery. Still another story suggests that the name was given to the locality because an Indian chief saw in a vision an Indian rising out of the South Saskatchewan River wearing the plumed hat of a medicine man.

Similarly, the name of Saskatoon in the adjacent Province of Saskatchewan was inspired by a Cree word, according to local lore.

The original townsite of Saskatoon, on the east bank of the South Saskatchewan river 235 km northwest of Regina, was part of a 100,000 acre grant in 1882 to the Temperance Colonisation Society of Toronto. The same year, John N. Lake, the leader of the new Temperance Colony, christened the spot Saskatoon. The word comes from the Cree name for "early berries." Lake described the naming of the settlement as follows:

"On the first Sunday in August (1882), I was lying in my tent about 3 p.m. when a young man came in with a handful of bright red berries and gave them to me. After eating some, I asked where they were found. He said 'along the river bank.' I asked if people had a name for them. He said they were saskatoon berries. I at once exclaimed 'You have found the name of the town -- SASKATOON.' The name was formally accepted by the directors that winter and entered in the minutes."

It seems only natural that the land formation discovered near Medicine Hat should be named Chief Saskitune.