Studio portraits usually involve the use of painted background showing architectural details of a grand home or pastoral woodland settings. Props such as chairs and tables also added visual interest to the scene. Sports teams proudly brought their equipment to extol their athletic abilities and passions. Here the curling team included their brooms and granite rocks (or stones) while the hockey team brought their sticks and team sweaters and the goalie wears his pads, which at that time were probably cricket pads. The Mi'kmaq of Nova Scotia carved hockey sticks from hornbeam trees from the early 18th century until approximately the 1930s.