Catharine Parr Traill

The Backwoods of Canada: Letters from the Wife of an Emigrant Officer Catharine Parr Traill

Originally published in 1836, this was one of the few books on frontier Canada to give details of the domestic economy of a settler's life. Her target audience was the upper-class English immigrant. "It is not only the poor husbandmen and artisans, that move in vast bodies to the west, but it is the enterprising English capitalist, and the once affluent landholder, alarmed at the difficulties of establishing numerous families in independence, in a country where every profession is overstocked, that join the bands that Great Britain is pouring forth into these colonies! Of what vital importance is it that the female members of these most valuable colonists should obtain proper information regarding the important duties they are undertaking; that they should learn before hand to brace their minds to the task, and thus avoid the repinings and discontent that is apt to follow unfounded expectations and fallacious hopes!"