"William Edward Traill, better known as Willie, was the son of Catharine Parr Traill, The Backwoods of Canada (1836), and nephew of Susanna Moodie, Roughing It in the Bush (1852), and he too was a natural writer." "Traill left Upper Canada to join the Hudson's Bay Company in what was to become the Canadian West. For some thirty years, he worked his way up from clerk to Chief Trader. He also met and married Harriet McKay and together they had twelve children." "His letters home between 1864 and 1893 convey a rich and detailed portrait of domestic life in the service of the fur trade of the Northwest. At turns gritty, then deeply touching, the Willie Traill letters are a fascinating and unguarded portrait of the joys and heartbreaking challenges of raising a family in the fur trade."--BOOK JACKET.