On the western tip of the Canadian Badlands, lost in an endless stretch of wheat and barley fields, lies the sleepy prairie town of Vulcan, Alberta.

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Founded in 1915, the town was named after Roman God of Fire, and it wasn’t until the 1960s that this serendipitous christening spawned a unique notoriety.

‘The local folklore is that after the broadcast of Star Trek, our town’s sports teams began to get teased about the size of their ears,’ explains Dayna Dickens at the Vulcan Tourism office, known as the Trek Station. ‘Faster than a phaser blast, people started to come to Vulcan to have their picture taking doing the Live Long and Prosper sign.’

In 1993, the town hosted VulCON: Spock Days/Galaxyfest, its first of what would become annual, community-wide Star Trek conventions. The sci-fi floodgates burst open and just two years later, Vulcan built the Starship FX6-1995-A, a colossus five-tonne statue based on the Enterprise from the TV show that proudly sits on the highway.

In 1998, the Trek Station was assembled, a futuristic cabin filled with memorabilia, merchandise (Spock ears of course included) and the Vulcan Space Adventure, a virtual reality game; Visitors can dress in the Starfleet uniform, stand on the bridge and pretend to be their favourite Captain.

With the resurgence of Star Trek, thanks to the new movie, this weekend found record numbers attending the convention. Under a blazing heat, thousands lined the streets to see a menagerie of Klingons, Romulans, Tholians and Captain Kirk wannabes strut their sci-fi stuff, while hundreds danced into the night at the obligatory convention knees-up masquerade ball.

Although Vulcan missed out on its campaign to premiere J.J.Abrams’ vision of Star Trek (the town’s tiny populace cannot sustain a ongoing cinema), Leonard Nimoy did take 300 lucky locals to see the movie in nearby Calgary, proof that the town of Vulcan has truly become part of the Star Trek universe.

With a population of less than 2000 and land area occupying merely 2.5 square miles, as long as Star Trek remains popular, the quiet town of Vulcan will continue to live long and prosper too. MORE INFO: www.vulcantourism.com/ www.bizarrearchive.com