Small town on the prairie warps into sci-fi heaven

It'sthe big weekend of the year in Vulcan, a small town in southern Alberta that sharesa name with the home planet of Mr. Spock from the originalStar Trek television series.

Situated midway between Calgary and Lethbridge on Highway 23, Vulcan is holding its 16th annual Spock Days and VulCON Star Trek convention.

And thanks to its recent bid to host the world premiere of the latest blockbuster Star Trek movie, the town ishosting the biggest turnout to date.

Despite a pitch from actor Leonard Nimoy, who portrayed the original Spock, Vulcan lost the movie's premiere to Sydney, Australia.But the media attention has resulted in 30 per cent more tourists this year, officials say.

They filled Vulcan's three hotels, including one previously boarded up, and inns and campgrounds in neighbouring villages.

"For tourism in small-town Alberta, that's really phenomenal, especially in this year of economic downturn," tourism co-ordinator Dayna Dickens told CBC News.

Vulcan's Star Trek connection goes back to when the television series hit the airwaves in the 1960s, she said.Local sports team members began to be teased about the size of their ears, and tourists started arriving to be photographed making split-fingered "Live Long and Prosper" salutes.

Atown that seemed to be drifting into anonymity hitched its fortunes to the Starship Enterprise and set about turning itself into a one-stop tourist destination. In 1993, it hosted its first Star Trek convention. In 1995, Vulcan launched a replica of the Starship Enterprise spaceship at the highway turnoff.

In 1998, the Vulcan Tourism and Trek Station opened with its collection of memorabilia. And two years ago, the station unveiled its Vulcan Space Adventure Virtual Reality Game, which parodies the original Star Trek series.

During Spock Days, everyone in town gets into the act. The Scrapbook Caf posts a special Star Trek menu, with items listed first in Klingon, followed by English translations.

Trekkie signs appear in store windows. "Trespassers will be vaporized!" some warn.

Klingons, Romulans, Starfleet officers and cowboys join the parade down Vulcan's main drag.

"Vulcan is great. The people here treat us like we're celebrities," said Rob Uhrig, a Trekkie who caught a ride from Ottawa on a passing starship for the festivities..

"This place is like a festival. I don't know how else to describe it. Where else are you going to have a parade through town? You don't see anything like that at a normal convention."

This year's visitors included a BBC television crew filming a travel special on the event.

Tourist Steven Brown took advantage of the opportunity to show off his Star Trek costumes. "I have a ton of costumes in the closet. I need an excuse to put them on," he told CBC News. "If I just wandered around dressed like that I'd look really weird."

Celebrity guest Barbara March, who played a Klingon in both The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine television series and in one of the Star Trek movies, said she's hearing from people in the U.S. who know about the town.

"Vulcan is on the map," she said.