The Activettes Food Bank received an extra $1,000 from CP Rail, thanks to an image captured by local photographer Leah Peterson during Holiday Train visit to Cochrane last month.

Leah Peterson's photograph was one of the six winning entries in the Capture the Spirit Photo Contest that is part of the 2018 CP Holiday Train campaign. The photo depicts her three-year-old daughter capturing the huge crowd gathered trackside on a smartphone while enjoying the music provided by CP during the train’s stop here, Dec. 13.

Peterson was thrilled to receive word of her win and was especially excited to hear it would help the food bank.

"I'm super excited," says Peterson. "It's pretty incredible and I'm really happy that Cochrane got the money for the food bank."

She hadn't looked into the prizes for submitting a winning entry after learning about the photo contest on the Holiday Train website.

"I didn't really look into what you could win. I thought it was a really cute shot of daughter and I sent it in to see how it went."

"It was cool to find out it was such a big amount. I think Cochrane can really use it. A thousand bucks is a big deal. I love this community, I love everything about this town. It's so amazing."

She hasn't received full details on when or where she will be travelling on the Holiday Train but she's hoping it will be on the one that rolls through Cochrane every other year. Her first train trip was from Banff to Fields, B.C. and she's looking forward to her next rail adventure.

CP received thousands of photo entries from across Canada and the States. In its 20th journey, the Holiday Train raised over $1.3 million and collected 200,000 pounds of food. As part of the celebration for the landmark year, CP also released a Spotify playlist of 20 Christmas songs by some of the top names who have entertained trackside.

Peterson is a local photographer and you can view more of her work at www.petersonpics.org.