The rolling prairies, the majestic, snow-capped mountains, the lush forests--these are the images that typically come to mind when picturing Canada. However, for many travelers driving the sweeping farmland outside Calgary, it's difficult to miss the quaint town of Vulcan, Alberta, which boasts a spaceship-shaped visitor's center and a welcome sign that's translated into English, Klingon and Vulcan.
With a population of a little less than 2,000, the sleepy town of Vulcan got its name not from Dr. Spock's home planet, as you might have guessed, but from the Roman god of fire. Ironically, it earned its name well before the first episode of "Star Trek" even graced television screens. Even once the show became a household name, the town of Vulcan didn't notice the uncanny similarity until it faced financial problems in the late 1980s.
Pat Wisener, owner of the Vulcan Funeral Home and a key player in reviving this farming community, said the town was dying. "During that time, a lot of people were closing up businesses. The hotel on Main Street was boarded up because the owners had just walked away ... Main Street was looking pretty desolate," he relays to the Today Show.
Determined to not see their beloved town fall by the wayside, Wisener and the community needed to find a way to bring their town back to life. It wasn't long after that they noticed something peculiar. People were driving up to pose and take pictures with the town's sign. They quickly realized that these visitors were loyal Trekkies, and soon light bulbs went off. To keep their town afloat, they could easily use this to their advantage.
However, being that Vulcan was a small farming town, touting a science fiction theme didn't make everyone in the community feel warm and fuzzy. "Our community was not in that head space," Wisener tells The Today Show. "They were in the farmer head space and so when we mentioned this futuristic, science fiction thing, they were not totally in support of it."
Despite the opposition, the officials boldly accepted the "Star Trek" theme and have never regretted the decision. In fact, it has proven to be a major success for this now thriving town, which has a "Star Trek" museum, an annual Spock Days Convention and a starship Enterprise replica. Thousands of visitors flock to this quiet Canadian hamlet, including actor Leonard Nimoy, the original Mr. Spock, a well as the "Star Trek" creator's son. "It's a great attraction for tourists," Howard Dirks, Vulcan Mayor, told NBC News. "Prairie towns are prairie towns and without some kind of a hook to bring the tourists in, such as 'Star Trek,' you really don't have a tourist trade."
This prairie town is now prospering under the 'Star Trek' moniker, with 30,000 people visiting Vulcan each year. This is a major increase from the couple of thousand visitors they had in the late 1980s. "There's people and cars and traffic," Wisener says. "It's come a long, long way."
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
