These farm workers are at Corwar station, a large sheep run on the Rakaia River in Canterbury, in 1904. They are an exclusively male group who perhaps had just had a game of cricket (judging by the prominence of the bat). All-male groupings were not unusual in country districts in colonial New Zealand, especially in sheep-farming areas. There were over twice as many adult men as women in such districts, so many men found companionship and recreation with their mates rather than in the family with women and children.