Real Vulcans Hoping To Live Long, Prosper With Trekkies Canadian Town Is Getting Used To ‘Star Trek’ Fans, But Some Draw The Line At Wearing Those Ears

When Canadian Pacific railway builders founded this town in 1911, they couldn’t foresee residents’ modern-day dilemma: to wear, or not to wear, pointed plastic ears evoking “Star Trek’s” Mr. Spock.

A modest prairie farming town, Vulcan was named after the Roman god of fire. But many of its 1,400 townspeople have been willing to set that legacy aside and pretend - for the sake of a fragile local economy - that the name derives from Spock’s fictional home planet.

Trekkies are wooed to Vulcan for an annual “Star Trek” convention. A 31-foot spaceship hovers at the entrance to town, soon to be flanked by a flying-saucer-shaped visitor center. For summer tourists, many shopowners and their staff don clingy “Star Trek” uniforms and “authentic Vulcan Ears,” custom-made in Hong Kong for the town, 60 miles southeast of Calgary.

But some townspeople find the whole promotion an embarrassment. Roy Elmer, who runs Stedman’s department store on the two-block main street, admitted that many think the ears are ridiculous.

“We need to get them over this fear of being embarrassed,” said Elmer, whose stock includes several shelves of “Star Trek” items and a license plate that reads, “I’ve beamed through Vulcan, Alberta.”

But Georgie Popovitch, Vulcan’s economic development coordinator, insists there’s a serious side to the silliness.

“We’ve had to be a little creative,” she said. “We’ve got a problem. … Forty percent of our population are seniors. We’re trying to find ways to get young people to stay. When you grow up in a dying town, you want to leave.”

Vulcan’s economy is linked to the fortunes of the area’s grain farmers. In good times, including this year, the town gets by fairly comfortably. When grain prices fall, they look for new ways to cope.

“Slowly but steadily, businesses have been jumping on the “Star Trek” bandwagon,” Popovitch said. “As they see profits, they’ll be more willing to commit time and energy to the Trekker theme.”

Elmer sells Vulcan Ears for $2.45 U.S. a pair. He says the store’s guest book has been signed by 600 to 800 visitors in each of the past few summers, a majority coming for the “Star Trek” link.

The town administrator, Wally Sholdice, sees the “Star Trek” campaign as useful in helping diversify Vulcan’s economy. But civic duty has its limits.

“Some people say, ‘I’m not wearing those stupid ears,”’ he said. “I sympathize with them. I haven’t worn them.”

Still, the town’s welcoming plaque, written in both English and the alien language Klingon, offers the Spock saying, “Live long and prosper.” And hundreds flock to the annual Vul-Con convention, although the town cannot afford to lure the likes of Leonard Nimoy.

Popovitch is grateful to the Trekkies - and occasionally bemused.

“To them, this is reality, it’s not a show,” she said. “Sometimes it’s almost scary.”