ABOVE & BEYOND
From Spock to Canada's Roswell, these far out attractions draw visitors every year
Canadians may have gone boldly outside their houses in the past few weeks, but boldly going beyond our own borders is still a mission too far for most of us.
What better time, then, to look to Captain James T. Kirk for some travel inspiration.
The fictional leader of the USS Enterprise and its mandate to “boldly go where no man has gone before” has been thrilling sci-fi fans since Gene Roddenberry's vision was first brought to life on television in the 1960s.
The exploits of the Montreal-born actor William Shatner, who played Kirk, and his intrepid crew of deep-space explorers have since spawned several feature films — and cemented the legacy of the small Prairie settlement of Vulcan.
Located halfway between Calgary and Lethbridge, the sedate farming town's association with Vulcan, home of the pointy-eared logician Spock of Star Trek fame, has long since supplanted the Roman god of fire for whom it was originally named by a CP Rail surveyor.
And that's fine with tourism authorities. In 2010, the Alberta town was formally recognized as the “official Star Trek capital of Canada,” capitalizing on the abiding passion for Roddenberry's creation and all things Spock- and space-related.
Vulcan first twigged to its interplanetary potential in 1995 with the opening of the Vulcan Starship FX6-1995-A, a five-tonne replica of the Enterprise that has drawn thousands of visitors from across the world.
A few years later, the doors opened to a Star Trek-themed tourist station, and in 2010, Vulcan's out-of-this-world credentials were established beyond doubt with the unveiling of a bronze bust of Spock by the beloved actor who portrayed him in the franchise, Leonard Nimoy. He died in 2015 but he's honoured every year at the VulCon convention, cancelled this year because of the pandemic but expected to be back bolder than ever next year.
In the meantime, Trekkers can get their fix at the Trekcetera Museum or helm the Enterprise bridge through the wonders of green-screen technology at the Trek Station before bedding down at the Star Trek room at the landmark Vulcan Hotel.
Vulcan wasn't the first Canadian town to channel our fascination with the otherworldly.
In 1967, the community of St. Paul, north of Edmonton, used the country's centennial celebrations as an excuse to build what it hailed as the world's first UFO landing pad. It failed to attract any extraterrestrials (that we know of ) — but it did capture Ottawa's attention.
On June 3 that year, it was declared the Centennial Capital of Canada after a dedication ceremony featuring officials dressed in Martian outfits and the smoke-shrouded landing of a fake flying saucer.
The 130-tonne concrete-andsteel pad still stands, awaiting alien interlopers and alienated Canadians driven batty by lockdowns. It was complemented in the 1990s with an adjacent UFO tourist centre, where photo displays of unidentified flying objects, cattle mutilations and crop circles fuel the eternal debate: are we alone?
Heading east, the isolated Ontario township of Moonbeam is the fitting home of a permanent flying saucer. The origins of the town's name are obscure — it's said settlers were seduced by the harsh light of the moon on crisp snow, or perhaps by the Northern Lights — but a wave of UFO sightings in the 1960s and '70s and reports of mysterious crop circles have given weight to more out-there theories.
“Regardless of the truth, the name stuck and Moonbeam has fully adopted the alien as its mascot,” states the township website.
Though the UFO monument is a beacon for tourists to the town, located near Kapuskasing on Hwy. 11 in northern Ontario, its outdoor recreational activities are its main draws today.
In the nation's capital, the story of flight from the 1909 Silver Dart to the International Space Station is told at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa, which houses the most extensive aviation collection in Canada.
Would-be astronauts can experience life at the International Space Station at the Life in Orbit exhibit, while the Canada in Space exhibit showcases the original Canadarm, the remote-controlled mechanical lever that became this country's crowning space achievement. Among its 130-plus artifacts are the largest surviving piece of the Avro Arrow supersonic jet fighter and an example of the Messerschmitt Me 163B, the first rocket fighter.
For the really far out, however, one must travel to Nova Scotia, where Canada's best documented UFO event in the modern era still generates debate among ufologists.
In 1967, in the fishing village of Shag Harbour, located at the southern tip of the province, residents reported a series of flashing orange lights that appeared to dance and dive and then float above the ocean waves about halfa-mile from shore.
An RCMP officer also noticed the strange display and initially feared he was witnessing an airplane crash as he sped toward the scene. He described the lights as being attached to a craft about 60 feet long.
No sign of a plane or other craft was found, but whatever plunged into the water that October night left a trail of yellow foam and more questions than answers, with conspiracy theories suggesting alien visitation or a Russian space experiment gone wrong.
Whatever happened on that day more than 50 years ago, “Canada's Roswell” has generated an enduring industry, with the Royal
Canadian Mint issuing a special commemorative coin last October to coincide with the annual town UFO festival and the Shag Harbour Incident Interpretive Centre keeping the story alive through exhibits, documentaries and archival papers. A nearby UFO gazebo and picnic site offers views of the crash site.
Eyewitness Laurie Wickens, who was 18 at the time of the bizarre spectacle and leads the Shag Harbour UFO Incident Society, said the memorial coin will help keep the story alive.
“The Shag Harbour incident is one of the best government-document UFO crashes,” she told the local Tri-County Vanguard last year. “Even today, the case remains open and unsolved.”