Naturalist, artist, writer.
Born in South Shields, England on 14 August 1860, son of Joseph Thompson and Alice Snowdon, he moved with his family to Canada in 1866, settling on a farm near Lindsay, Ontario. He then studied at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in London as a scholarship student, all the while pursuing his interest in natural history. Upon his return from England in 1882, in ill health, he joined his brother on a homestead in Manitoba just east of Carberry. He always regarded the next five years as his “golden days,” as he walked around the Carberry countryside taking notes and making sketches.
At Carberry he also began to write. In 1891 he published The Birds of Manitoba, which in 1892 led to his appointment as Provincial Naturalist by the Manitoba government. In the early 1890s he made several trips to Paris to study art, discovering upon his return to Manitoba that settlement had disrupted much of the natural habitat. Wild Animals I Have Known (1898) was the publication that made Seton famous. It was the first successful attempt to present animals realistically in story form.
In 1902 he organized the Woodcraft Indians, a boy’s organization, and wrote a manual, The Birch Bark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians. This organization later merged with the Boy Scouts, as Thompson was one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America in 1910 and helped to write its first manual. He was expelled from the organization in 1915, after constantly criticising its militarism, officially because he was not an American citizen. However, he continued to publish books about woodcraft throughout his life.
In 1908 he published The Life Histories of Northern Animals: An Account of the Mammals of Manitoba (2 volumes) in the midst of a continued outpouring of animal stories. In his later life he was often accused of anthropomorphism in his animal stories, but no one disputed his naturalist work, such as Lives of Game Animals (4 volumes, 1925-1927). In 1930 he moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico and, in 1931, he became an American citizen. Here he admired the Indians, producing Gospel of the Redman (1936). His autobiography was Trail of an Artist-Naturalist (1940).
He was married twocei, first on 1 June 1896 to Grace Gallatin (1872-1959) of San Francisco, California. They had a daughter, Anya Seton (1904-1990) before separating in the late 1920s and divorcing in 1935. His second wife was Julia Moss Buttree (?-?) with whom he adopted daughter Beulah “Dee” Seton (?-2006).
He died at his home near Sante Fe, New Mexico on 23 October 1946. There are papers at Library and Archives Canada. He is commemorated by a plaque in Seton Provincial Park.
His articles for the Manitoba Historical Society:
The Prairie Chicken. Scientific Description of the Bird and its Habits. Hints on Rearing and Domestication
MHS Transactions, Series 1, Number 14, 1884Prairie Fires
MHS Transactions, Series 1, Number 16, 1885A List of the Mammals of Manitoba: A Paper Read before the Society on the Evening of May 27th, 1886
MHS Transactions, Series 1, Number 23, 1886
See also:
Historic Sites of Manitoba: Ernest Thompson Seton Bridge (RM of South Cypress)
Historic Sites of Manitoba: Ernest Thompson Seton Plaque (RM of North Cypress)
Historic Sites of Manitoba: A. E. Gardiner Building / Seton Centre (116 Main Street, Carberry)
Ernest Thompson Seton, Academy for the Love of Learning.
Ernest Thompson Seton: Man in Nature and the Progressive Era, 1880-1915 by John Henry Wadland (1979).
Ernest Thompson Seton, The Life and Legacy of an Artist and Conservationist by David L. Witt. Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith Publisher, 2010.
Pioneers and Prominent People of Manitoba, Winnipeg: Canadian Publicity Company, 1925.
“Noted author of animal stories dies,” Winnipeg Free Press, 23 October 1946, page 9.
Dictionary of Manitoba Biography by John M. “Jack” Bumsted, Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1999.
We thank Charles Bird and David Witt for providing additional information used here.
This page was prepared by Gordon Goldsborough.
Page revised: 7 April 2023
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