Sisters in the wilderness: The lives of Susanna Moodie and Catharine Parr Traill

Using correspondence and personal papers as well as their published works, this biography tells the tale of two nineteenth century women who travelled to Canada expecting to make their fortunes and join the cream of colonial society only to face desperate privation: forest fires, wild animals, frostbite and starvation. Their fortitude and hard-won success as writers and the first chroniclers of the native flora made them icons of early Canadian literature.