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niori_1709The last time I wrote about my time in Alberta, I gushed about the history, specifically the First Nations history of the southern parts of the province. Writing-on-Stone isn’t the only place like that, and certainly not the last time I’ll write about one either, but I like to sprinkle these travel guides with a variety of places. I want people to get a full picture of the places I’ve been, so I try and give you as many genres as possible. There are times where you just want to go somewhere simple and fun, which is why I’m here to suggest some options.
Let’s start with the place you’re less likely to have heard about (I hadn’t). That place is the small town of Vulcan, located between Calgary and Lethbridge. When I say small, I’m talking a few thousand people small (and that’s the entire county, not just Vulan proper). It’s a town that, like most prairie towns in Canada, owes its existence to the Canadian Pacific Railway. It popped up as the railway went through, and even got its name from one of the railway surveyors. If anyone knows their classical history and/or mythology, the name Vulcan will ring some bells (for sci fi fans as well, but we’ll get to that later). Vulcan was the Roman fire god (the counterpart to the Greek Hephaestus). He was the blacksmith of the gods, the creator of their weapons. I’m a total mythology geek and could go on about Vulcan’s place in Roman mythology (it’s an interesting one! He’s an outsider because he’s disabled- there’s a deep conversation to have there as well), but I’ll spare you my fangirling. For a while, the mythology theme carried on- the street names were those of Roman gods. Sadly, that’s no longer the case. I would have loved that- full on insisting we stop to get a picture with every street sign level of love. Alas, it was not meant to be (probably to the relief of the others in the car).
Vulcan has a few claims to fame since it became a town in 1921. A tornado went through in 1927, but it wasn’t the natural disaster itself that stuck. It was the fact that a picture of that tornado approaching the town became the picture that went with the definition of ‘tornado’ in the Encyclopedia Britanica. I couldn’t get my hands on a copy of that edition, obviously, but thankfully the internet exists. If you Google ‘Vulcan Alberta tornado’ the results will show you a black and white photo of a massive pillar descending from the angry looking cloud with only outlines of a few trees and a telephone pole between it. The tornado is obviously far away, which only makes the size of it even more terrifying. I have always been fascinated by tornadoes- it’s a weird thing to say, but they’re my ‘favourite’ natural disaster- and terrified by them in equal measures. I can’t imagine that behemoth bearing down on me, let alone having the composure to take a picture (especially in a time long before camera phones).
Another bit of Vulcan history is tied to its agricultural economy. At one point, the town had a whole nine grain elevators, more than any place west of Winnipeg. Vulcan was a grain shipping hub, and while there’s only one elevator left, it’s still an interesting bit of historical trivia. Not only for Vulcan, but western Canada itself. There are a lot of towns just like Vulcan dotted all over the prairies. There is, however, one thing that makes Vulcan stand out, something that brought me to the town in the first place.
When I say Vulcan, mythology nerds jump to ancient Rome. For a lot of other people though? Their geeky minds go somewhere else…to a final frontier on might say, or a place where people go boldly where no man has gone before.
Star Trek needs no introduction. It has been absorbed into pop culture since the sixties, so much that even people who’ve never engaged in the property know the basics and highlights. Starting with Gene Rodenberry’s groundbreaking original series up into the new series on Paramount+, Star Trek has launched one of the biggest fandoms in not only sci fi, but fiction in general. You cannot understate the importance of Star Trek on modern media (there have been books written and classes taught on it), no matter your personal opinion on it. So of course, Vulcan looked at all that and said ‘oh, we can work with this’. What else were they going to do when they shared the name as fan favorite’s Spock species/planet? Given how Star Trek has dominated the sci fi genre since the 60s, of course Vulcan looked at that, said ‘yes please’, and went all in.
The first place you’re going to start your Star Trek tour of Vulcan is the tourism office. Why is that? The fact is it’s also called the Trek Station. You’ll know it the minute you see it, since it’s a stark white UFO in the middle of town. You know exactly what the design is meant to be, even if it isn’t exactly a stereotypical one. Coming in from the front parking lot, the building starts as a circle until it arcs out on each side. The door is a glass arch and there are hatch windows all along the wall of the building. The roof pops out, with horizontal spikes jutting out at intervals. A dome at the top centre of the roof, complete with what looks like a radio antenna, finishes the look. It’s actually a really simple design but is still super effective. You know exactly what it’s evoking (especially when it lights up red at night, though I’ve only seen it in pictures). It’s super fun, something I’d guess would be at home in Roswell.
The inside continues the theme, this time throwing Star Trek right in your face. A great way to describe it is a Trek museum with a tourism desk somewhere in there. We’re talking walls and ceiling painted in the swirling darkness and colours of space, which various Milky Way planets suspended above you. Everywhere you look there’s memorabilia. An entire wall is all photo op land. There’s a backdrop of the Enterprise’s bridge (painted in quite a bit of detail. It’s no cheap job- it was clearly done with love) and even a replica transporter. There are life sized cardboard cutouts of the characters from across the franchise, a lot of them I didn’t know. There are uniform cosplay shirts (not exactly the same as the show, since they’re your average oversized unisex long-sleeved shirts) in all the colours you’d see in the bridge (including the dreaded red). There are even silicone Vulcan ears you can slip over your own to give you that elf-like point. Of course, I went all out. I threw on a pale-yellow shirt, the Starfleet insignia proudly displayed on my ill-fitting shirt and even more ill fitting Spock ears (they only stayed on for one photograph, because silicone will not staying on by themselves). From there I struck a pose. In front of the bridge mural there’s a chair set up (though sadly not a replica of the actual captain’s chair- that’s painted right behind you- but one that a crew member would sit in). I parked myself on that chair, threw an arm over the back, arranged some cast cutouts around me, and then did my best to look like a badass.
Before I give you the impression that the tourist centre is the only Trek place around, let me be clear about one thing- it’s not. Outside there is a replica of the Enterprise itself (sadly not life sized, obviously), a huge statue on a tall pillar. It’s an oversized model, painted in great detail, like the massive version of something you’d find lovingly put together in a hardcore Trekkie’s room. At the bottom of the pedestal is a sign in multiple languages, including Klingon. Even if you’re not a fan, the way Klingon as a concept has developed is fascinating. Fantasy and Sci fi have invented languages, of varying degrees of nuance and difficulty. There are thousands of them across media, and Klingon is arguably not only the most popular, but the most famous constructed language in the world. Here’s the thing about conlangs: for the most part, enough is made to cover whatever is needed for the actual media (and maybe a bit more to cover the bases). Star Trek was no different…until the fans got involved. It was built up, little by little, until it became a full language. There’s a full dictionary, there have been classical works translated into Klingon, such as A Christmas Carol and Macbeth (based on a one line joke in the show). The language learning app Duolingo will teach it to you. There are people out there that have fully fluent conversations. I find that amazing. If there’s ever been a sign of the power of fandom, I’d argue it’s Klingon. It’s a sign of just how much a person can love a story, and why a place like Vulcan would have full advantage.
My amazement at the sheer creativity of Trekkies aside, there’s still more to check out in Vulcan. There’s one of those face cutout character signs for you to take pictures (which always fun) that works as the ‘welcome to Vulcan’ sign. There’s a virtual reality game and space themed murals on buildings all through town. There’s a bust of Leonard Nimoy’s original Spock that was unveiled in 2010 to commemorate the actor’s visit. Fun fact- there was a push to have the premiere of the first JJ Abrams reboot movie to be in Vulcan, though it didn’t happen. If you want to see Vulcan as its most Star Trek-iness, head on over on the second week of June for the Spock Days convention. It might not be the biggest geeky convention around, but based on the pictures I found online and the sheer love I saw put into that place, I think it would be more than worth the trip.
I’ve honestly never been a huge Trekkie. I’ve only seen a few episodes here and there across the series and the newest movies. It’s fine and I get the appeal, but sci fi has never been my wheelhouse. I didn’t go to Vulcan as a Star Trek fan, but more of a fan of random touristy spots that give me good photo ops. Even so, in the moments when I was running around in a costume, memorabilia surrounding me, I felt like a Trek fan. It’s probably only a shadow of a true Trekkie, but it was still a lot of fun. Being there, in a place that was in every way a love letter to the franchise, you can’t help but love it. That’s the best any fandom site can hope for, isn’t it?
While Star Trek is certainly the most obvious draw, Vulcan does have other things to offer visitors. There’s a marathon in June, and while I’m far from someone who is up for that, I know marathon runners are always looking for a new challenge. There’s a solar tree park, a celebration of the centennial, and that’s just around Vulcan itself. There’s also the rest of the county, full of First Nation’s history, settler history, nature, and fishing. It’s a place that has a lot to offer, and one that deserves at least a quick stop when in Southern Alberta. If you’re able, make a stop in Canada’s offical Star Trek capital to get a little taste of what makes the geeky world turn.
The second stop on today’s travel guide takes us up to the city of Calgary. Before we get to the zoo itself, let’s talk about Canada’s third largest city. Situated smack dab between the Rocky Mountain foothills and the prairies, the area that makes up Calgary has been inhabited by various First Nations groups for 11,000 years. The story we’re going to tell starts in 1875, when a Northwest Mounted Police post was established. From there, the railroad rolled on through, and the roots of what would become the city of Calgary were planted. It was your basic frontier town, full of drama, intrigue, and more than one instance of political scandal. We’re talking city councilors threatening Mounties, total disarray that destroyed downtown, a riot that destroyed Chinese businesses after cases of smallpox arrived in the city…and that’s all before they even hit the 1900s. Calgary really began to grow once the 20th century dawned. While the city didn’t become the provincial capital, it did get power, water, buses, and streetcars. Then came the stampede, the world famous celebration of rodeo that goes on until this day. It began in 1912 and is still going strong, with hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. The Olympics happened in the winter of ’88, where Canada didn’t manage to win a single goal.
I could go on and on about the history of Calgary- not only an entire travel guide itself, but an entire book. Those aren’t even all the highlights I could have mentioned. I almost went into much more detail about the city alone, but if I did, I’d never get to the zoo (you know, the point of this guide). I’ve decided to save all that for a more appropriate time (AKA when I finally get around to covering the Glenbow Museum. Believe me, Calgary and its history deserve a lot more than I can give it here. Therefore, onwards to the zoo.
The Calgary Zoo is Canada’s most visited zoo, something I didn’t know at the time, but I can see it. It’s on Saint George’s Island, which started as Calgary’s first park. The first animals were settled in 1917, and the zoo opened its doors officially in 1929. There’s been some tragedy for those animals- flooding in 1929 and 2013 sadly killed a number of animals- but a large majority of the animals are under the species survival plans, an international conservation group. Currently 29 species at the zoo at are near extinction, and the biologists at the zoo are their damndest to make sure that didn’t happen. It focuses mostly on eight endangered species from western Canada, from the whooping crane to the northern leopard frogs.
I went to the Calgary Zoo many a year ago, so there have been some changes. Of course, some things never change, and the biggest example is of course, dinosaurs. If I can’t have Jurassic Park (and honestly, multiple movies and books have told me that it’s a very bad idea), I’ll take full sized dinosaur statues in Prehistorical Park instead. I’ve been to plenty of places with dinosaur statues, that is true. What is always true is I will always squeal with joy. I will forever be ten years old when it comes to dinosaurs. Prehistoric Park is where we entered the park, and it was a perfect first impression. The whole gang is there, from a triceratops peaking out from the bushes to a Pteranodon taking flight from the top of a man-made cliff. I love how this part of the zoo is set up, because they do a good job of making it seem like you are just stumbling onto these ancient creatures in the wild. They’re in the woods, sometimes so covered in foliage that you don’t even realize they’re there until you’re right across from them. There’s a few ‘action scenes’ set up, like the aquatic dinosaur popping out of the water, lunging up at a smaller dinosaur on the rocks above, like a crocodile going after a gazelle drinking at the watering hole.
These dinosaur statues can’t ne called realistic, not with everything we’ve learned about dinosaurs over the past decade (no feathers in sight), but they do fit the image we all have in a post- Jurassic Park world. Yes, it’s nothing new. I’ve seen it before, but there’s one thing the Calgary Zoo has going for it when it comes to dinosaurs. That is that it has a full-sized brontosaurus. It towers over everything, so tall it won’t fit in a horizontal picture. I look like a small Minifig beside it. That’s plain awesome and gives a bit of a glimpse into just how it would feel if dinosaurs still roamed the world, a mirage it may be.
The dinosaurs are near, but that’s not what you come to a zoo for. You come for the animals, so here they are. We’ll start where I did- the Eurasia section. Smooshing Europe and Asia together has been funny in a way, given how different and varied the environment can range between those two landmasses. For the most part, this section generally focused on the more northern, colder regions. That was fine because I love those colder region critters. The first highlight for me, no matter how many times I see them in zoos, was the snow leopards. There were two of them, these fluffy white and black cats sleeping the day away, bunk bed style. For me, these are the cats that fit the big cat stereotype- slender, powerful, and even asleep, graceful. They’re just beautiful…and man do I want to cuddle them, even though they’d be more likely to eat my face than snuggle. The power of fluffy, I guess.
That brings me to another bit of fluff, and this time it was one I was seeing for the first time. That was the red panda, or two red pandas, to be precise. When it comes to these guys, you’re not going to confuse these with a regular one, and not only because of the burnt orange-red colour. They’re small, way slimer, with long bodies and a fluffy tail that reminds me of feather dusters. I loved them then (and love them even more after seeing Disney’s Turning Red) and I was so giddy when we came across them. It turned into a perfect photo moment: both walking towards me, chill as can be, with one walking on a fallen tree branch above the other. It’s low quality, but it’s still a cute picture where you can see their adorable little faces.
The last animal I’m going to bring up from Eurasia is the (sort of) herd of Bactrian camels. Those are the two humped camels from the central Asian steppes. There are the ones who made sure the Silk Road could thrive, and God are they ugly. I’ve seen (and rode!) a one hump camel before, and they’ve never been pretty, but man does the second hump not help. What gets me about those humps it they’re well…kind of floppy, or at least titled to the side in an unflattering way. They do not look particularly comfortable at all, but they were neat to see, ugly or not.
Those are my big picks for Eurasia (at the time I was able to see Asian elephants there -including an adorable baby one!- but they’ve since moved to another part of the zoo), but that wasn’t the last part of the zoo. Next up is Destination Africa. The main thing we went for (the whole zoo trip, to be honest) was something we didn’t actually get to see. There were gorllias that we all wanted to see (especially Mom), and sadly on that particular day the gorillas decided they’d rather chill inside. It was super disappointing -like stomach dropping unhappiness- but it was what it was. It’s the price of a zoo, you know? You can’t force the animals to come out (and if a zoo does that means it’s not a good place). Sadly, I was still yet to see gorillas in real life.
What I did get to see was one of the African staples- the awkward and majestic giraffe. I get what you might be thinking: doesn’t any half decent zoo usually have giraffes. Well, yes, but do they have babies? At the time I visited, Calgary did. Okay, I don’t know how much of a baby it was, but it was at least a kid one. It’s all about the cuteness. Is there a baby there to aww at now? I’m not sure. It’s something you’ll have to research for yourself when your trip is coming up.
There were also a few of those ‘who the hell designed these animals?’ The first was a dikdik, or as I like to call it, the hybrid of a deer and a mouse. It’s actually an antelope, but I swear, while it’s not actually the size of a mouse, it is small. It has this fat oval body on these long, thin legs that don’t look like they should be able to hold up that body. It’s a deer face, though the muzzle does scream mouse to me. I don’t know why. It’s also really hard to do it justice. The same goes for the next animal, the bongo. To me, it manages to be the red-ish brown body of a horse, roughly the size of a donkey, with stripes like a zebra, and with the slightly wavy straight back horns of mountain sheep. It truly is the platypus of the antelope family, and I love everything about them. They look so cool in the weirdest way, right up my alley.
The largest section of the zoo, fittingly enough, is the Canadian wilds. It’s a funny thing- I’ve been in the ‘Canadian wilds’- AKA rural and forested Canada for most of my life, yet I’m lucky that, out on the east coast, we’re less likely to run into the wildlife that’s going to kill you. It’s not a sure thing (I still maintain that moose are the devil’s stead). At the zoo though, that’s a perfectly fine place to run into an apex predator. After seeing the sheer size of a grizzly, I can honestly say I thank God I never saw one when it the Rockies. I might have died of a heart attack if I stumbled across a sleeping one. Seeing a sleeping grizzly in the zoo was amazing. The one wolf I could see was sleeping, too far into the enclosure for me to get a feel for the true size, but the point still comes across. It helped that it was the absolute stereotype of when I think of wolves: stocky with pure white fur. It was the exact picture of the character White Fang from an old cartoon I watched as a kid. For a moment, it was nice to pretend.
The last animal in the Wilds isn’t a predator, but the humble rocky mountain goat. They always make me smile, for all they lack the awe inspiring-ness of the other animals I saw that day. Why? Once upon a time, back when I was but a wee two-year-old, my family went out to the BC part of the Rockies. We were driving and came across mountain goats coming towards me. Of course, we pulled aside to take some pictures. My first memory is a hazy thing, a faded impression more than anything, but it’s of those goats coming towards me. It’s a fun thing to half remember, both during that moment at the zoo and as I write this now.
A lot of things have changed since my dad at the zoo: pandas have come and gone, the South American and Creatures of the Night exhibit have closed, replaced by the Penguin Plunge and Land of Lemurs. There are many more animals you’ll wander by, from flamingos (just as pink as the pictures show) to tree kangaroos (hopefully sitting on a tree as they were for me) and even elk (with their antlers molting, at least for me, making it look like a creature from a horror movie). You can spend a day there, family fun all around. I can only imagine it’s gotten better with time.
Between Vulcan and the zoo, it’s a fun little slice of southern Alberta. They’re nothing serious, impactful, or majestic, but that’s the fun of it. Sometimes you just need a day where you can geek out to something, no deep introspection required. Vulcan and the Calgary Zoo are both perfect for that, and I mean that in the best way.
Let’s start with the place you’re less likely to have heard about (I hadn’t). That place is the small town of Vulcan, located between Calgary and Lethbridge. When I say small, I’m talking a few thousand people small (and that’s the entire county, not just Vulan proper). It’s a town that, like most prairie towns in Canada, owes its existence to the Canadian Pacific Railway. It popped up as the railway went through, and even got its name from one of the railway surveyors. If anyone knows their classical history and/or mythology, the name Vulcan will ring some bells (for sci fi fans as well, but we’ll get to that later). Vulcan was the Roman fire god (the counterpart to the Greek Hephaestus). He was the blacksmith of the gods, the creator of their weapons. I’m a total mythology geek and could go on about Vulcan’s place in Roman mythology (it’s an interesting one! He’s an outsider because he’s disabled- there’s a deep conversation to have there as well), but I’ll spare you my fangirling. For a while, the mythology theme carried on- the street names were those of Roman gods. Sadly, that’s no longer the case. I would have loved that- full on insisting we stop to get a picture with every street sign level of love. Alas, it was not meant to be (probably to the relief of the others in the car).
Vulcan has a few claims to fame since it became a town in 1921. A tornado went through in 1927, but it wasn’t the natural disaster itself that stuck. It was the fact that a picture of that tornado approaching the town became the picture that went with the definition of ‘tornado’ in the Encyclopedia Britanica. I couldn’t get my hands on a copy of that edition, obviously, but thankfully the internet exists. If you Google ‘Vulcan Alberta tornado’ the results will show you a black and white photo of a massive pillar descending from the angry looking cloud with only outlines of a few trees and a telephone pole between it. The tornado is obviously far away, which only makes the size of it even more terrifying. I have always been fascinated by tornadoes- it’s a weird thing to say, but they’re my ‘favourite’ natural disaster- and terrified by them in equal measures. I can’t imagine that behemoth bearing down on me, let alone having the composure to take a picture (especially in a time long before camera phones).
Another bit of Vulcan history is tied to its agricultural economy. At one point, the town had a whole nine grain elevators, more than any place west of Winnipeg. Vulcan was a grain shipping hub, and while there’s only one elevator left, it’s still an interesting bit of historical trivia. Not only for Vulcan, but western Canada itself. There are a lot of towns just like Vulcan dotted all over the prairies. There is, however, one thing that makes Vulcan stand out, something that brought me to the town in the first place.
When I say Vulcan, mythology nerds jump to ancient Rome. For a lot of other people though? Their geeky minds go somewhere else…to a final frontier on might say, or a place where people go boldly where no man has gone before.
Star Trek needs no introduction. It has been absorbed into pop culture since the sixties, so much that even people who’ve never engaged in the property know the basics and highlights. Starting with Gene Rodenberry’s groundbreaking original series up into the new series on Paramount+, Star Trek has launched one of the biggest fandoms in not only sci fi, but fiction in general. You cannot understate the importance of Star Trek on modern media (there have been books written and classes taught on it), no matter your personal opinion on it. So of course, Vulcan looked at all that and said ‘oh, we can work with this’. What else were they going to do when they shared the name as fan favorite’s Spock species/planet? Given how Star Trek has dominated the sci fi genre since the 60s, of course Vulcan looked at that, said ‘yes please’, and went all in.
The first place you’re going to start your Star Trek tour of Vulcan is the tourism office. Why is that? The fact is it’s also called the Trek Station. You’ll know it the minute you see it, since it’s a stark white UFO in the middle of town. You know exactly what the design is meant to be, even if it isn’t exactly a stereotypical one. Coming in from the front parking lot, the building starts as a circle until it arcs out on each side. The door is a glass arch and there are hatch windows all along the wall of the building. The roof pops out, with horizontal spikes jutting out at intervals. A dome at the top centre of the roof, complete with what looks like a radio antenna, finishes the look. It’s actually a really simple design but is still super effective. You know exactly what it’s evoking (especially when it lights up red at night, though I’ve only seen it in pictures). It’s super fun, something I’d guess would be at home in Roswell.
The inside continues the theme, this time throwing Star Trek right in your face. A great way to describe it is a Trek museum with a tourism desk somewhere in there. We’re talking walls and ceiling painted in the swirling darkness and colours of space, which various Milky Way planets suspended above you. Everywhere you look there’s memorabilia. An entire wall is all photo op land. There’s a backdrop of the Enterprise’s bridge (painted in quite a bit of detail. It’s no cheap job- it was clearly done with love) and even a replica transporter. There are life sized cardboard cutouts of the characters from across the franchise, a lot of them I didn’t know. There are uniform cosplay shirts (not exactly the same as the show, since they’re your average oversized unisex long-sleeved shirts) in all the colours you’d see in the bridge (including the dreaded red). There are even silicone Vulcan ears you can slip over your own to give you that elf-like point. Of course, I went all out. I threw on a pale-yellow shirt, the Starfleet insignia proudly displayed on my ill-fitting shirt and even more ill fitting Spock ears (they only stayed on for one photograph, because silicone will not staying on by themselves). From there I struck a pose. In front of the bridge mural there’s a chair set up (though sadly not a replica of the actual captain’s chair- that’s painted right behind you- but one that a crew member would sit in). I parked myself on that chair, threw an arm over the back, arranged some cast cutouts around me, and then did my best to look like a badass.
Before I give you the impression that the tourist centre is the only Trek place around, let me be clear about one thing- it’s not. Outside there is a replica of the Enterprise itself (sadly not life sized, obviously), a huge statue on a tall pillar. It’s an oversized model, painted in great detail, like the massive version of something you’d find lovingly put together in a hardcore Trekkie’s room. At the bottom of the pedestal is a sign in multiple languages, including Klingon. Even if you’re not a fan, the way Klingon as a concept has developed is fascinating. Fantasy and Sci fi have invented languages, of varying degrees of nuance and difficulty. There are thousands of them across media, and Klingon is arguably not only the most popular, but the most famous constructed language in the world. Here’s the thing about conlangs: for the most part, enough is made to cover whatever is needed for the actual media (and maybe a bit more to cover the bases). Star Trek was no different…until the fans got involved. It was built up, little by little, until it became a full language. There’s a full dictionary, there have been classical works translated into Klingon, such as A Christmas Carol and Macbeth (based on a one line joke in the show). The language learning app Duolingo will teach it to you. There are people out there that have fully fluent conversations. I find that amazing. If there’s ever been a sign of the power of fandom, I’d argue it’s Klingon. It’s a sign of just how much a person can love a story, and why a place like Vulcan would have full advantage.
My amazement at the sheer creativity of Trekkies aside, there’s still more to check out in Vulcan. There’s one of those face cutout character signs for you to take pictures (which always fun) that works as the ‘welcome to Vulcan’ sign. There’s a virtual reality game and space themed murals on buildings all through town. There’s a bust of Leonard Nimoy’s original Spock that was unveiled in 2010 to commemorate the actor’s visit. Fun fact- there was a push to have the premiere of the first JJ Abrams reboot movie to be in Vulcan, though it didn’t happen. If you want to see Vulcan as its most Star Trek-iness, head on over on the second week of June for the Spock Days convention. It might not be the biggest geeky convention around, but based on the pictures I found online and the sheer love I saw put into that place, I think it would be more than worth the trip.
I’ve honestly never been a huge Trekkie. I’ve only seen a few episodes here and there across the series and the newest movies. It’s fine and I get the appeal, but sci fi has never been my wheelhouse. I didn’t go to Vulcan as a Star Trek fan, but more of a fan of random touristy spots that give me good photo ops. Even so, in the moments when I was running around in a costume, memorabilia surrounding me, I felt like a Trek fan. It’s probably only a shadow of a true Trekkie, but it was still a lot of fun. Being there, in a place that was in every way a love letter to the franchise, you can’t help but love it. That’s the best any fandom site can hope for, isn’t it?
While Star Trek is certainly the most obvious draw, Vulcan does have other things to offer visitors. There’s a marathon in June, and while I’m far from someone who is up for that, I know marathon runners are always looking for a new challenge. There’s a solar tree park, a celebration of the centennial, and that’s just around Vulcan itself. There’s also the rest of the county, full of First Nation’s history, settler history, nature, and fishing. It’s a place that has a lot to offer, and one that deserves at least a quick stop when in Southern Alberta. If you’re able, make a stop in Canada’s offical Star Trek capital to get a little taste of what makes the geeky world turn.
The second stop on today’s travel guide takes us up to the city of Calgary. Before we get to the zoo itself, let’s talk about Canada’s third largest city. Situated smack dab between the Rocky Mountain foothills and the prairies, the area that makes up Calgary has been inhabited by various First Nations groups for 11,000 years. The story we’re going to tell starts in 1875, when a Northwest Mounted Police post was established. From there, the railroad rolled on through, and the roots of what would become the city of Calgary were planted. It was your basic frontier town, full of drama, intrigue, and more than one instance of political scandal. We’re talking city councilors threatening Mounties, total disarray that destroyed downtown, a riot that destroyed Chinese businesses after cases of smallpox arrived in the city…and that’s all before they even hit the 1900s. Calgary really began to grow once the 20th century dawned. While the city didn’t become the provincial capital, it did get power, water, buses, and streetcars. Then came the stampede, the world famous celebration of rodeo that goes on until this day. It began in 1912 and is still going strong, with hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. The Olympics happened in the winter of ’88, where Canada didn’t manage to win a single goal.
I could go on and on about the history of Calgary- not only an entire travel guide itself, but an entire book. Those aren’t even all the highlights I could have mentioned. I almost went into much more detail about the city alone, but if I did, I’d never get to the zoo (you know, the point of this guide). I’ve decided to save all that for a more appropriate time (AKA when I finally get around to covering the Glenbow Museum. Believe me, Calgary and its history deserve a lot more than I can give it here. Therefore, onwards to the zoo.
The Calgary Zoo is Canada’s most visited zoo, something I didn’t know at the time, but I can see it. It’s on Saint George’s Island, which started as Calgary’s first park. The first animals were settled in 1917, and the zoo opened its doors officially in 1929. There’s been some tragedy for those animals- flooding in 1929 and 2013 sadly killed a number of animals- but a large majority of the animals are under the species survival plans, an international conservation group. Currently 29 species at the zoo at are near extinction, and the biologists at the zoo are their damndest to make sure that didn’t happen. It focuses mostly on eight endangered species from western Canada, from the whooping crane to the northern leopard frogs.
I went to the Calgary Zoo many a year ago, so there have been some changes. Of course, some things never change, and the biggest example is of course, dinosaurs. If I can’t have Jurassic Park (and honestly, multiple movies and books have told me that it’s a very bad idea), I’ll take full sized dinosaur statues in Prehistorical Park instead. I’ve been to plenty of places with dinosaur statues, that is true. What is always true is I will always squeal with joy. I will forever be ten years old when it comes to dinosaurs. Prehistoric Park is where we entered the park, and it was a perfect first impression. The whole gang is there, from a triceratops peaking out from the bushes to a Pteranodon taking flight from the top of a man-made cliff. I love how this part of the zoo is set up, because they do a good job of making it seem like you are just stumbling onto these ancient creatures in the wild. They’re in the woods, sometimes so covered in foliage that you don’t even realize they’re there until you’re right across from them. There’s a few ‘action scenes’ set up, like the aquatic dinosaur popping out of the water, lunging up at a smaller dinosaur on the rocks above, like a crocodile going after a gazelle drinking at the watering hole.
These dinosaur statues can’t ne called realistic, not with everything we’ve learned about dinosaurs over the past decade (no feathers in sight), but they do fit the image we all have in a post- Jurassic Park world. Yes, it’s nothing new. I’ve seen it before, but there’s one thing the Calgary Zoo has going for it when it comes to dinosaurs. That is that it has a full-sized brontosaurus. It towers over everything, so tall it won’t fit in a horizontal picture. I look like a small Minifig beside it. That’s plain awesome and gives a bit of a glimpse into just how it would feel if dinosaurs still roamed the world, a mirage it may be.
The dinosaurs are near, but that’s not what you come to a zoo for. You come for the animals, so here they are. We’ll start where I did- the Eurasia section. Smooshing Europe and Asia together has been funny in a way, given how different and varied the environment can range between those two landmasses. For the most part, this section generally focused on the more northern, colder regions. That was fine because I love those colder region critters. The first highlight for me, no matter how many times I see them in zoos, was the snow leopards. There were two of them, these fluffy white and black cats sleeping the day away, bunk bed style. For me, these are the cats that fit the big cat stereotype- slender, powerful, and even asleep, graceful. They’re just beautiful…and man do I want to cuddle them, even though they’d be more likely to eat my face than snuggle. The power of fluffy, I guess.
That brings me to another bit of fluff, and this time it was one I was seeing for the first time. That was the red panda, or two red pandas, to be precise. When it comes to these guys, you’re not going to confuse these with a regular one, and not only because of the burnt orange-red colour. They’re small, way slimer, with long bodies and a fluffy tail that reminds me of feather dusters. I loved them then (and love them even more after seeing Disney’s Turning Red) and I was so giddy when we came across them. It turned into a perfect photo moment: both walking towards me, chill as can be, with one walking on a fallen tree branch above the other. It’s low quality, but it’s still a cute picture where you can see their adorable little faces.
The last animal I’m going to bring up from Eurasia is the (sort of) herd of Bactrian camels. Those are the two humped camels from the central Asian steppes. There are the ones who made sure the Silk Road could thrive, and God are they ugly. I’ve seen (and rode!) a one hump camel before, and they’ve never been pretty, but man does the second hump not help. What gets me about those humps it they’re well…kind of floppy, or at least titled to the side in an unflattering way. They do not look particularly comfortable at all, but they were neat to see, ugly or not.
Those are my big picks for Eurasia (at the time I was able to see Asian elephants there -including an adorable baby one!- but they’ve since moved to another part of the zoo), but that wasn’t the last part of the zoo. Next up is Destination Africa. The main thing we went for (the whole zoo trip, to be honest) was something we didn’t actually get to see. There were gorllias that we all wanted to see (especially Mom), and sadly on that particular day the gorillas decided they’d rather chill inside. It was super disappointing -like stomach dropping unhappiness- but it was what it was. It’s the price of a zoo, you know? You can’t force the animals to come out (and if a zoo does that means it’s not a good place). Sadly, I was still yet to see gorillas in real life.
What I did get to see was one of the African staples- the awkward and majestic giraffe. I get what you might be thinking: doesn’t any half decent zoo usually have giraffes. Well, yes, but do they have babies? At the time I visited, Calgary did. Okay, I don’t know how much of a baby it was, but it was at least a kid one. It’s all about the cuteness. Is there a baby there to aww at now? I’m not sure. It’s something you’ll have to research for yourself when your trip is coming up.
There were also a few of those ‘who the hell designed these animals?’ The first was a dikdik, or as I like to call it, the hybrid of a deer and a mouse. It’s actually an antelope, but I swear, while it’s not actually the size of a mouse, it is small. It has this fat oval body on these long, thin legs that don’t look like they should be able to hold up that body. It’s a deer face, though the muzzle does scream mouse to me. I don’t know why. It’s also really hard to do it justice. The same goes for the next animal, the bongo. To me, it manages to be the red-ish brown body of a horse, roughly the size of a donkey, with stripes like a zebra, and with the slightly wavy straight back horns of mountain sheep. It truly is the platypus of the antelope family, and I love everything about them. They look so cool in the weirdest way, right up my alley.
The largest section of the zoo, fittingly enough, is the Canadian wilds. It’s a funny thing- I’ve been in the ‘Canadian wilds’- AKA rural and forested Canada for most of my life, yet I’m lucky that, out on the east coast, we’re less likely to run into the wildlife that’s going to kill you. It’s not a sure thing (I still maintain that moose are the devil’s stead). At the zoo though, that’s a perfectly fine place to run into an apex predator. After seeing the sheer size of a grizzly, I can honestly say I thank God I never saw one when it the Rockies. I might have died of a heart attack if I stumbled across a sleeping one. Seeing a sleeping grizzly in the zoo was amazing. The one wolf I could see was sleeping, too far into the enclosure for me to get a feel for the true size, but the point still comes across. It helped that it was the absolute stereotype of when I think of wolves: stocky with pure white fur. It was the exact picture of the character White Fang from an old cartoon I watched as a kid. For a moment, it was nice to pretend.
The last animal in the Wilds isn’t a predator, but the humble rocky mountain goat. They always make me smile, for all they lack the awe inspiring-ness of the other animals I saw that day. Why? Once upon a time, back when I was but a wee two-year-old, my family went out to the BC part of the Rockies. We were driving and came across mountain goats coming towards me. Of course, we pulled aside to take some pictures. My first memory is a hazy thing, a faded impression more than anything, but it’s of those goats coming towards me. It’s a fun thing to half remember, both during that moment at the zoo and as I write this now.
A lot of things have changed since my dad at the zoo: pandas have come and gone, the South American and Creatures of the Night exhibit have closed, replaced by the Penguin Plunge and Land of Lemurs. There are many more animals you’ll wander by, from flamingos (just as pink as the pictures show) to tree kangaroos (hopefully sitting on a tree as they were for me) and even elk (with their antlers molting, at least for me, making it look like a creature from a horror movie). You can spend a day there, family fun all around. I can only imagine it’s gotten better with time.
Between Vulcan and the zoo, it’s a fun little slice of southern Alberta. They’re nothing serious, impactful, or majestic, but that’s the fun of it. Sometimes you just need a day where you can geek out to something, no deep introspection required. Vulcan and the Calgary Zoo are both perfect for that, and I mean that in the best way.
