TV’s Spock beams in to Vulcan — Alberta, somewhere he’s never gone before

VULCAN, Alta. – Mr. Spock came home Friday, ironically by going somewhere he’d never gone before.

Leonard Nimoy, the actor who turned the calmative-yet-conflicted, sci-fi science officer into a pop-culture icon on the TV series “Star Trek,” made his first trip to the town of Vulcan, south of Calgary, to be honoured by throngs of fans decked out in pointy ears and Starfleet tunics.

Vulcan was the name of Spock’s home planet on the 1960s show that has since mushroomed into a multibillion-dollar global phenomenon of movies, games and memorabilia.

The 79-year-old icon arrived and was immediately whisked into the Vulcan Tourism and Trek Station, a futuristic circular building epitomizing the town’s fascination with the show and its determination to turn it into a tourism cash cow.

He was the star of a parade, had his handprint immortalized with fingers spread in the famous Vulcan V and got the keys to the town.

Some fans lined up for 14 hours to witness the spectacle.

Michael Black, wearing a yellow Starfleet tunic, brought his 10-year-old son Nick from Calgary the night before. Nick wore a blue uniform and both sported Vulcan ears.

“This is one of the things we have in common,” said Michael.

“I thought what a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to show my boy the kind of thing I used to love when I was his age.

“He’s just an amazing individual, I’m honoured just to be in his presence. What an honour to be part of his legacy.”

Nimoy said he had been trying to figure out a way to get to Vulcan for a year.

“I have never been quite so touched and excited as I am about going to the town,” he said. “It may seem silly and it’s probably illogical.”

Nimoy said he first learned of the Alberta Vulcan when he saw an Internet story last year about how townsfolk were lobbying to hold the world premiere of the latest “Star Trek” movie.

They weren’t successful.

“I was disappointed for them, and I thought something should be done about that,” said Nimoy, who then helped arrange for 300 Vulcan residents to get a sneak peak of the film in Calgary two days before its worldwide release.

“Ever since then, we’ve been in touch.”

Nimoy said when he agreed to come to Calgary for a comic convention this weekend, he decided to make a side trip.

And Vulcan was ready _ with exhibits and merchandise that ranged from cool to kitchsy to downright cheesy.

The town bakery had been making blue-frosted cakes to resemble Spock’s Starfleet uniform. The liquor store brought in blue-bottled Romulan Ale, a beer from Argentina.

Retailers were peddling Spock-themed T-shirts at $25 each. For $10, visitors could get a giant foam hand, the fingers formed in the distinctive Vulcan V symbolizing “live long and prosper.”

Local stores were selling chocolate Vulcan ears. Tourists so inclined could pose for photos by sticking their faces in oval holes on an upright piece of plywood with headless torsos of Starfleet officers painted on the other side.

They could buy pencils with Spock’s round head or water bottles sporting Nimoy’s face.

On the entrance to the town sits a 10-metre-long replica of the Starship Enterprise, large enough that a family of eight can stand under its saucer section when it rains and not get wet.

The Tourism and Trek station is home to the Vulcan Space Adventure, where visitors can dress up in Trek uniforms, look at 800 items of show memorabilia, get their pictures taken on a mock-up of the Enterprise bridge and pose beside life-sized cardboard cut-outs of Spock and others.

Vulcan the town was named by the Canadian Pacific Railway 100 years ago after the Roman god of fire and metalworking. When the original “Star Trek” TV series, which ran for three seasons starting in 1966, took off in popularity, local legend has it that opponents would trash-talk Vulcan sports teams by mocking the size of their ears.

So the town decided to cash in on the show by becoming a Trekkian pilgrimage site.  It hosted its first “Star Trek” convention 17 years ago.

Nimoy himself has grown to accept the Vulcan label, even though he says he has hung up his famous pointed ears for good.

“I will not be doing any more directing or acting in films or television,” said Nimoy. “I have so many other things to do.”

Nimoy noted he has pursued photography since his teen years and has a show of his work opening in Massachusetts this summer.

He has admitted struggling with the role that lifted him from the ranks of TV’s B-list actors to stardom but in the process typecast him as an unfeeling, arched-eyebrowed robot. In 1977 he wrote a book about it, titled “I’m Not Spock.”

His character captured imaginations because his problems were like our problems. He was trapped between two worlds _ a human mother and a Vulcan father _ and struggled on the Starship Enterprise to fit in.

Spock was occasionally mocked and abused as the emotionless, propeller-headed science dweeb _ the kid in school who wouldn’t punch you back because he didn’t want to stoop to your level. He was teased by Dr. McCoy as a “green-blooded hobgoblin.” Engineer Montgomery Scott was more succinct: “Freak!”

When he went back to Vulcan to woo his bride-to-be, T’Pring, she used him to make another guy jealous and then dumped him.

Yet he rose above it all to embody the best of values, a trusted friend but one loyal to a higher calling. He seduced a Romulan she-captain to steal an invisibility device that threatened the balance of power in the universe. He led a mutiny against Capt. Kirk because he didn’t believe Kirk was Kirk but a self-loathing, ship-wrecking harpy trapped inside his body.

He died to save the galaxy in the 1982 movie “Wrath of Khan,” when a well-muscled cosmic baddy return to wreak havoc by unleashing a doomsday device.

In that movie, the Kirk character, played by William Shatner, summed it up best at Spock’s first funeral, the funeral that didn’t take, when he eulogized: “Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most … human.”

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