The spacey Vulcan Tourism & Trek Station features the Vulcan Space Adventure Virtual Reality Game, Star Trek dress-up costumes, a large Star Trek memorabilia collection, and a gift shop. (Vulcan Tourism)
Hundreds of trekkies and other intergalactic visitors from across North America and throughout the alpha-quadrant are expected to descend on the prairie town this weekend for its annual Spock Days/Galaxyfest, a three-day Star Trek Convention.
“Our town always doubles in size [for the convention], and I believe this year will be the biggest one probably ever,” says Dayna Dickens, a coordinator with Vulcan Tourism.
Klingons, those darkly coloured humanoids with high, ridged foreheads and big hair, will also be present, says Vulcan Tourism information services coordinator Erin Melcher.
“This year is very special to us because we are helping celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Klingon Assault Group of Canada, and so we have some special Klingon guests joining us from all over Canada. They’ll be coming to Vulcan to celebrate that 20th anniversary here at our Spock Days.”
Highlights of the convention include fireworks and a parade through town, a family fun fair, a Galaxyfest Star Trek auction, a masquerade party, tandem skydiving, Klingon Karaoke, and a Q&A session with Star Trek celebrity guests.
Among this year’s celebrities are Barbara March and Gweneth Walsh, who played Klingon sisters Lursa and B’Etor in some of the Star Trek movies, and Suzie Plakson who played K’Ehleyr, the daughter of a human mother and a Klingon father.
The 2008 guest of honour was Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry Jr., son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, who unveiled a memorial tribute to his father on the opening day of the convention.
Sitting at the western edge of the Canadian Badlands an hour south of Calgary, Vulcan was named not after Mr. Spock’s famous home planet but by a CPR surveyor who had a particular fascination for Roman Mythology.
In 1910 he named the town Vulcan, believing that to be one of the Greek gods from Mount Olympus. Vulcan, however, is actually the Roman god of fire and volcanoes. Early Vulcan street names include Juno, Neptune, Apollo, Minerva, Jupiter, and Mars.
With a name like Vulcan it was only natural that, when seeking to boost tourism in the early 1990s, the town’s residents would capitalize on this coincidental link to Star Trek. Vulcan now sports a large replica of the USS Enterprise, named the Starship Enterprise FX6-1995-A.
The town also features a visitors’ centre built in the shape of a spacecraft, home to all manner of Star Trek-related goodies including an 800-piece collection of Star Trek memorabilia donated to the town by the estate of Albert Cave, a long time Star Trek fan and Vulcan enthusiast.
Mr. Spock himself, also known as Leonard Nimoy, went to bat for Vulcan in March to have the Canadian premiere of the new Star Trek movie shown there, for which the town had been lobbying for over a year.
"It seems to me that someone at Paramount should show some interest and not take this lightly. This is a serious issue," Nimoy told the Canadian Press.
While Nimoy didn’t manage to get the screening in Vulcan, he was instrumental in arranging a special sneak preview in Calgary. A lottery enabled 300 grateful Vulcan residents to travel to Calgary to get an early look at the movie, which was officially released on May 7.
Melcher says Vulcan’s latest attraction is a time travel tour in which “people can explore the past, present, and future of Alberta… They can act as their own time-travellers which ties into the new Star Trek movie, because, of course, it was all about time-travelling.”
Giving a prairie tradition an outer space feel, Vulcan also holds a Spock Days Rodeo each year.
Visitors to the town are greeted by a sign bearing the Vulcan mantra, “Live Long and Prosper.” Or as the Vulcan/English dictionary puts it: “Dif-tor Heh Smusma.” A greeting, no doubt, that will be tossed around freely over the Galaxyfest weekend.
Additional reporting by Jasper Seren
