Denise Kitagawa – Vermilion Lakes

Despite the need for extra layers, hand warmers and a thermos of hot chocolate, winter is my favourite time to photograph sunrises and one of Banff National Park’s most-recognized locations – Vermilion Lakes looking across to Mount Rundle. This location is popular with photographers – so much so that it seems they team up quietly behind the scenes to maintain a couple of small area of open water to enhance their images via reflections and foreground interest. While I’m willing to take advantage of the photographic benefits, I don’t have enough information to conclude whether this is a positive, a negative or neutral for the local ecosystem.