Journey from Peterborough

Memoirs

The Backwoods of Canada

by Catharine Parr TRAILL (1802 - 1899)

The writer is as earnest in recommending ladies who belong to the higher class of settlers to cultivate all the mental resources of a superior education, as she is to induce them to discard all irrational and artificial wants and mere useless pursuits. She would willingly direct their attention to the natural history and botany of this new country, in which they will find a never-failing source of amusement and instruction, at once enlightening and elevating the mind, and serving to fill up the void left by the absence of those lighter feminine accomplishments, the practice of which are necessarily superseded by imperative domestic duties. To the person who is capable of looking abroad into the beauties of nature, and adoring the Creator through his glorious works, are opened stores of unmixed pleasure, which will not permit her to be dull or unhappy in the loneliest part of our Western Wilderness. The writer of these pages speaks from experience, and would be pleased to find that the simple sources from which she has herself drawn pleasure, have cheered the solitude of future female sojourners in the backwoods of Canada. Summary from book introduction

Listen next episodes of The Backwoods of Canada:
"A Logging Bee" , Ague , APPENDIX , Busy Spring , Emigrants suitable for Canada , Health enjoyed in the rigour of Winter , Inconveniences of first Settlement , Indian Hunters , Loss of a yoke of Oxen , Recapitulation of various Topics , Utility of Botanical Knowledge , Variations in the Temperature of the Weather