Канада табиғатын зерттеген суретші және жазушы Катерина Парр Трейл

English Canadian author and botanical artist
the English Canadian author and naturalist

Catharine Parr Traill (born Strickland; 9 January 1802 – 29 August 1899) was an English Canadian author and naturalist who wrote about life in Canada, particularly what is now Ontario (then the colony of Upper Canada). In the 1830s, Canada covered an area considerably smaller than today. At the time, most of Upper Canada had not been explored by European settlers. Throughout her long life, Traill wrote to generate income in support of her family. Traill is considered an amateur botanist, because at the time, it was not possible for women to hold professional, paid positions.

Catharine Parr Strickland was born in the district of Rotherhithe in Southwark (then in Surrey, today part of Greater London) in 1802, fifth child out of eight, of Thomas Strickland and Elizabeth Homer. Catharine had four older sisters Elizabeth, Agnes, Sarah and Jane Margaret and a younger sister, Susanna, as well as two younger brothers, Samuel and Thomas. After Thomas Strickland died in 1818, Catharine and her sisters turned to writing and editorial work as the main source of family income. She began writing children's books in 1818 after the death of her father. Traill's first book The tell tale: an original collection of moral and amusing stories appeared anonymously in 1818; she was only 16. She wrote "Pearls and Pebbles" and "Cot and Cradle Stories". After suffering through the depression of 1836, her husband Thomas joined the militia in 1837 to fight against the Upper Canada Rebellion. In 1840, dissatisfied with life in "the backwoods," the Traills and the Moodies both moved to the city of Belleville. While Susanna was more concerned with the differences between rural and urban life, Catharine spent her years in Belleville writing about the natural environment. She often sketched the plant life of Upper Canada, publishing Canadian Wild Flowers (1868), Studies of Plant Life in Canada (1885) and "Rambles in the Canadian Forest". She received a grant c. 1899 from the Royal Bounty Fund, which was supplemented by a subscription from her friends in Canada, headed by Sir Sandford Fleming. She died at her residence, "Westove," in Lakefield, Ontario on 28 August 1899. Her many albums of plant collections are housed in the National Herbarium of Canada at the Canadian Museum of Nature.

Trent University, in Peterborough, Ontario, named their downtown campus after her. Catharine Parr Traill College is the university's main college for graduate studies.

On 8 September 2003, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the National Library of Canada, Canada Post released a special commemorative series, "The Writers of Canada", designed by Katalina Kovats and featuring two English Canadian and two French Canadian stamps. Three million stamps were issued. Traill and her sister Susanna Moodie were featured on one of the English Canadian stamps.