One of my favourite places is Waterton Lakes National Park. Even now, in 2011, the little town seems like Banff was back in the 1960s, before huge developments, resort hotels and endless shopping malls. Even at peak season the town is quiet and laid back.

It’s been a while since I had visited Waterton but was determined to this summer. A couple of days here yielded one clear night and a couple of 4-hour time-lapse sequences of stars turning over Waterton’s landmark, the Prince of Wales Hotel.

The hotel is a wood chalet-like structure built in 1927 by the Great Northern Railway as one in a chain of grand railway hotels. It sits on a bluff overlooking Waterton Lakes and remains the elegant place to stay or dine while in Waterton.

For this shot I set up at the end of the marina dock, looking north toward Polaris, the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia. This is a single 30-second exposure taken in deep twilight at the beginning of the night with the 10-22mm lens and Canon 7D camera. It’s one of 400+ frames taken for a time-lapse sequence. While lights from the hotel interior are somewhat picturesque and inviting it’s a pity that national parks still employ unshielded sodium vapour lights on roads. The streetlights are so bright and glaring they actually illuminate the mountainsides.

— Alan, July 22, 2011 / Image © 2011 Alan Dyer