Lake Maligne is in Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada and is a popular destination in the summer. My wife and I travelled here in October of 2021 on a three-week trip through the Canadian Rockies to photograph Spirit Island.
According to the Park Rangers, no one knows where the island got its name, only that it is still considered by the First Nations of Canada to be sacred. There are only two ways to get there. One is by canoe or kayak, which involves five to eight hours of paddling one way, then camping, and another five to eight hours back the next day.
Since our camping days are most likely behind us, we opted for the second way, the cruise! We were there on the last day that the cruises operated as they were shutting down for the season, and we were booked on the last cruise of the day and the year. It had snowed the day before, and all cruises that day were cancelled. So, we were feeling pretty lucky. The late afternoon cruise left us with a high potential for great light. The photos at Spirit Island were great!
We returned just as the sun set, and the view down the lake was spectacular! Everyone else had pretty much left, and we were all alone in this beautiful place. We used long exposures on Spirit Island, so I decided to shoot some here using the Lake Maligne Boat House as an anchor for the photo (pun intended).
I tried various exposures but was running out of good light. This was a 178-second exposure which allowed the clouds to streak into leading lines into the boat house and snow-covered mountains in the background.
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Dimitri Vasileiou • Editor