Catharine Parr Traill's The Backwoods of Canada, first published in 1836, gives an intimate and vivid picture of life in the bush country of Upper Canada. The series of letters that make up the book cover a period of two and half years. Though most were originally written to her mother, the letters were later compiled and published for an intended audience of future female emigrants.

Traill's account of life in the New World is cheerful and buoyant despite the hardships she relays-from the three-month journey to Upper Canada by ship to settling in the bush near Peterborough, Ontario. The letters offer remarkable insight into the skills a well-suited woman might be expected to learn, but the lasting appeal of her work is due to her astute observations of changing notions of class and economy, which reached well beyond her stated audience.

Traill typified a new type of woman-the pioneer-and contributed much to an emerging understanding of Canada and Canadian identity.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY CAMILLA GIBB

Catharine Parr Traill's The Backwoods of Canada, first published in 1836, gives an intimate and vivid picture of life in the bush country of Upper Canada. The series of letters that make up the book cover a period of two and half years. Though most were originally written to her mother, the letters were later compiled and published for an intended audience of future female emigrants.

Traill's account of life in the New World is cheerful and buoyant despite the hardships she relays-from the three-month journey to Upper Canada by ship to settling in the bush near Peterborough, Ontario. The letters offer remarkable insight into the skills a well-suited woman might be expected to learn, but the lasting appeal of her work is due to her astute observations of changing notions of class and economy, which reached well beyond her stated audience.

Traill typified a new type of woman-the pioneer-and contributed much to an emerging understanding of Canada and Canadian identity.

Catharine Parr Traill was born in 1802 in Surrey, England. The older sister of Susanna Moodie, Traill began her writing career with children's books. In 1832 she married Thomas Traill, a retired officer of the Napoleonic Wars. Soon after their marriage they left for Canada, settling near Peterborough, Ontario. Traill is the author of a number of books, including Canadian Crusoes, The Female Emigrant's Guide, and The Canadian Settler's Guide, but is best known for The Backwoods of Canada: Being Letters from the Wife of an Emigrant Officer, an important source of information about early Canada. Traill died in 1899 in Lakefield, Ontario.

Camilla Gibb is the author of Sweetness in the Belly, nominated for the Giller Prize in 2005 and winner of the Trillium Book Award in 2006, The Petty Details of So-and-so's Life, and Mouthing the Words, winner of the City of Toronto Book Award. Gibb was named the Jack McClelland Writer-in-Residence at the University of Toronto for 2006, and serves as the vice-president of PEN Canada. Gibb lives in Toronto, Ontario.