The gateway to Winnipeg and the Canadian West for tens of thousands of immigrants was the Canadian Pacific Railway station seen in the background of this photograph. Families of Slavic immigrants like this one, waiting at the roadside in front of the station, arrived with very few possessions to begin their new life. A few clothes, a treasured icon, some practical items such as those shown were all that could be transported, and they often represented a family's total wealth. On the left a mother nurses her baby as the other children, somewhat apprehensively, get their first view of Winnipeg.
