Casino Hotels · 4

Two pavilions built for Expo 67 hold the light on this island. They are lit from the outside, so what you read at night is the form of the architecture rather than anything inside it. Across the water the Montréal skyline supplies the second and much larger source.

The exterior lighting lands on the fronts themselves and on the surface of the water beside them, which doubles the shape. Further off, the city light sits along the far bank of the river. Between the two, the island itself takes very little of either source.

The parkland around the buildings is not lit for display. Paths carry only what they need, and the trees are not picked out. The gaming floor is outside the scope of these notes, and nothing about the inside of the building is described here.

The largest light near this resort is not the building. Niagara Falls is lit from the Canadian side, and the illumination is aimed at falling water rather than at any structure. From the resort above the gorge, that lit water is the thing held in view.

Light lands on the sheet of water, the spray standing above it and part of the rock face opposite. It does not travel a great deal further than that. The town behind keeps its own lit streets, and the resort reads as ordinary windows against a far stronger source.

The gorge below stays dark. Nothing is aimed down into it, and the river downstream is left alone. The casino floor is not part of these notes, and the interior of the resort is not described here in any respect.

Below this resort there is a marina, and its lamps are the light worth watching. Boats moored along the arm of the Fraser add small fittings of their own, so the water carries a line of points that shifts slightly with the current all evening long.

The marina light falls on the pontoons, the cleats and ropes, and on the few metres of water beside each hull. Above it the hotel windows contribute squares of their own. Together they light the edge of the river, and they light nothing at all beyond that edge.

The channel itself is unlit. Once past the moored boats the water gives nothing back, and the far bank is a low dark line. Nothing in these notes concerns the gaming floor, and the inside of the building is not described.

One building carries all of it. The resort stands on the lands of the Chippewas of Rama First Nation, in country made of forest and lake, and its own lighting is the only substantial source for some distance. Seen on the approach, it reads as a single lit mass.

The light falls on the entrance canopy, the parked cars and the first rank of trees behind them. After that it drops off quickly. The roads leading in carry ordinary lighting in places and none in others, so the resort appears and then goes again behind trees.

The forest and the lake around the site are not lit. There is no lighting along the shore and none aimed at the trees. The gaming floor is not described or judged here, and nothing in these notes covers the light inside it.