RTR Blog: Andrew's Away Mission to Visit a 37

    Back in late August of 1995, Star Trek: Voyager was early into it's second season and still finding it's footing in both the Delta quadrant and in the hearts of fans, as the true heir to the Next Generation's episodic throne. One of the more bizarre episodes in Voyager's catalog, is the second season premier The 37s. Choosing to not go with a cliff hanger finale to season one, the writers chose to start season two off with a wild mystery plot rooted in conspiracy and Earths history. Floating through space, tens of thousands of light years from Earth and humanity, the crew finds a Ford pickup truck from 1936!

If that wasn't enough to make you start scratching your head, they soon discover an S.O.S signal emanating from a nearby L-class planet, and the source of the signal is coming from a Lockheed Model 10 airplane, also popular in Earth's 1930's. Now for those of you that are fans of aviation, conspiracy theories or perhaps the dirty thirties in general, you'll know that this was the plane that Amelia Earhart went missing in, back in 1937. There are numerous theories that exist about the disappearance of Amelia Earhart; running out of fuel and crashing, landing on Gardiner island, being captured by the Japanese, she was a spy, or my favourite that she assumed a new identity and lived out her life in New Jersey. For as wild as some of these theories may be, I think that the writing staff of Voyager takes the cake for the craziest conspiracy theory of them all. In the episode they find Amelia and others were abducted by an alien species called the Biori and put into stasis for 400 years. I seriously doubt that the History channel or even the wildest of conspiracy theorist would give this episode the time of day, but its hard to argue that it doesn't make for a great hour of television even if it is a bit far fetched. 

Now if you're wondering how one would take a trip to visit a 37? Well you need to use your imagination and welcome the fact that Star Trek is something that you can find all around us, sp long as you open your eyes to it. On a recent vacation to the east coast of Canada, I happened to find myself in the very tiny town of Harbour Grace, Newfoundland. A place where I would have assumed that there would be nothing remotely Star Trek related. That was until I found out that this tiny town, used to have an airport runway that was one of the most easterly airports in North America.    For this reason, Amelia Earhart, 

among others chose to use it as a start or end point for trans-Atlantic flights in the early days of Aviation. 

     This was the spot that Amelia and her crew departed from on June 17th, 1928, becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic Ocean.

   

     In her honour the town of Harbour Grace erected a statue in front of a 1935 DC-3 to celebrate the rich aviation history in the region. Of course being a huge Star Trek nerd, and remembering the Voyager episode, The 37's, I had to go down and check it out, not only to see one of the most inspirational women of our time, but also to see the star of one of Star Trek's most zany episodes.