Ah, Hope! what would life be, stripped of thy encouraging smiles, that teach us to look behind the dark clouds of today, for the golden beams that are to gild the morrow.

The family settled on a farm in Douro township near Lakefield north of Peterborough Upper Canada where her brother Samuel worked as a surveyor and where artifacts are housed in a museum. Additionally the central character of Shield's novel Small Ceremonies is working on a biography of Moodie. The inspiration for the memoir came from a suggestion by her editor that Susanna Moodie write an "emigrant's guide" for British people looking to move to Canada.

Susanna Moodie born Strickland (6 December 1803 – 8 April 1885) was an English-born Canadian author who wrote about her experiences as a settler in Canada which was a British colony at the time.