The toils, troubles, and satisfactions of pioneer life are recorded with charm and vivacity on *The Backwoods of Canada*, by Catherine Parr Traill, who, like her sister Susanna Moodie, left the comforts of genteel English society for the rigours of a new, young land. Traill offers a vivid and honest account of her trip to North America and of her first two and a helf years living in the bush country near Peterborough, Ontario. Treasured by its nineteenth-century readers as an important source of practical information, *The Backwoods of Canada* is an extraordinary portrayal of pioneer life by one of early Canada's most remarkable women. The New Canadian Library edition is an unabridged reprint of the complete original text and all its illustrations.