Its salubrious climate, its fertile soil, commercial advantages, great water privileges, its proximity to the mother country, and last, not least, its almost total exemption from taxation—that bugbear which keeps honest John Bull in a state of constant ferment—were the theme of every tongue, and lauded beyond all praise.
Between 1832 and 1834, Susanna and Catherine's families settled on adjacent bush farms along the eastern shore of Lake Katchewanooka, immediately north of present-day Lakefield near Peterborough, Ontario.
The other works that complete the trilogy are Flora Lyndsay (1854), a prequel that describes the initial preparations for immigration, and an exploration of Canadian towns and institutions in Life in the Clearings (1853).
Moodie's tone is frank, and her style is vividly descriptive: The conduct of many of the settlers, who considered themselves gentlemen, and would have been very much affronted to have been called otherwise, was often more reprehensible than that of the poor Irish emigrants, to whom they should have set an example of order and sobriety.
To see a bad man in the very worst point of view, follow him to a bee: be he profane, licentious, quarrelsome, or a rogue, all his native wickedness will be fully developed there.
(Chapter 7, Our Logging Bee)Disorientation in a new environment, the dirty and exhausting physical demands of land-clearing and house raising, and the gossip and friction amongst the new settlers are explored in detail.
She was subject to some criticism, such as charges of anti-Canadian and anti-Irish bias, which she felt obliged to address in Life in the Clearings, where she asserts her love for the country resulting from the years of "comfort and peace" she had enjoyed since leaving the bush".