In beautiful Canada, located near Medicine Hat in the southeast corner of Alberta, there is a geomorphological feature called The Badlands Guardian.
Viewed from the air, the feature has been said to resemble a human head wearing a full Indigenous type of headdress, facing directly westward. Additional man-made structures have been said to resemble a pair of earphones worn by the figure. The apparent earphones are a road and an oil well, which were installed recently and are expected to disappear once the project is abandoned. Its scale is much larger than the figures of Mount Rushmore.
The head is a drainage feature created through erosion of soft, clay-rich soil by the action of wind and water. The arid badlands are typified by infrequent but intense rain-showers, sparse vegetation and soft sediments. The 'head' may have been created during a short period of fast erosion immediately following intense rainfall. Although the image appears to be a convex feature, it is actually concave – that is, a valley, which is formed by erosion on a stratum of clay, and is an instance of the Hollow-Face illusion. Its age is estimated to be in the hundreds of years at a minimum.
The feature was discovered in 2005 by Lynn Hickox during the Google Earth project when they used satellite imagery and reproduced them in 3-D which led to the identification of the natural world. The Guardian is regarded as one of Google Earth’s most remarkable finds. The precise location of the Badlands Guardian on Google Earth is at the coordinates (50° 0'38.20"N, 110° 06' 48.32"W). The area covered by the Badlands Guardian is an arid land. It receives little but intense showers of rain. It has sparse vegetation and soft, clay soil.
The Guardian of the Badlands as seen from Google Earth
In 2006 suitable names were canvassed by CBC Radio One program As It Happens. Out of 50 names submitted, seven were suggested to the Cypress County Council. They altered the suggested 'Guardian of the Badlands' to become Badlands Guardian. It is listed as the seventh of the top ten Google Earth finds by Time magazine.
The Badlands’ Guardian is near Medicine Hat in the south-east of Alberta and not far from the border with the USA. The location of the geological wonder is very remote, in an area that has been traditionally the home of the Siska First Nation People, often known as the Blackfoot tribes. The Badlands are desolate terrain of gullies, chasms, sinkholes, and hills. They were formed during the end of the last Ice Age when glacial meltwater created valleys and steeps slopes out of the sedimentary rock and clay soil. The effect of wind and water on these landscapes means that they are constantly changing. Winds and heavy rains carve channels in the rocks relatively quickly. The constant erosion of the light sedimentary soil and clay means that there are many unique and strange geomorphic features and topographies which have intrigued people since the arrival of the First Nations. Badlands are found in several areas of North America.
Canadian Badlands
Although the Badlands Guardian could be a favorite tourist destination for many people, there is little tourism with regards to it. According to Mr. Lutz Perschon, Cypress County Manager, the image has a limited tourism potential since viewers can only see it from the air. On the ground, it is challenging to recognize anything unique about the place. Most tourists have become “online tourists” who read about Badlands Guardian’s story and are amazed by it. They can stare the images on the internet and can explore Google Earth to see the image for themselves. However, it is difficult to go further because a real tour of the area is not practical. Furthermore, there is no public access to the site which is a property owned by a family of ranchers.
