In 1832, Susanna Strickland marries John Moodie, a junior officer. They emigrate to Canada. Middle class, and too proud to engage in physical labour, the Moodies rely on servants to clear the land and work the farm. Debts mount, and they suffer a steady decline into “the soul-ennobling school of poverty.” They are forced to come to terms with their class prejudices.

Susanna's first attempts to make bread and maple sugar fail; she does not know how to milk the cows; she is terrified of the wolves when left alone with her infant in their log cabin; the wheat crop turns out so poor that it can only be exchanged for whisky at the distillery. The “semi-barbarous Yankee squatters” rob and torment her.

Susanna has a keen eye for the comic and the ridiculous, and a dickensian feeling for the heroism, self-sacrifice, and courage of the poor, whose antics and crimes she records, allowing them to speak in their own American, Scots, or Irish brogue. There are sublime moments in the wilderness, as the Moodies explore the lakes and rivers with their toddlers, fishing, gathering raspberries, and visiting the natives: “We beheld the landscape, savage and grand in its primeval beauty.”

The Rebellion of 1837 hits the bush dwellers like a thunderbolt: “Buried in the obscurity of those woods, we knew nothing, heard nothing of the political state of the country, and were little aware of the revolution which was about to work a great change for us and for Canada.” John is called away to fight the rebels. To Susanna, it seems like the ultimate hardship...