Blue Skies Today

Buffalo Wind

2009-02-12T22:23:00.001-05:00

Buffalo Wind is often considered the Holy Grail to Seton collectors. There were only 200 printed and bound in buffalo hide.

If you are looking for Buffalo Wind or know someone who is, please contact me as I have a lead on a very nice copy. Contact me by email.

Seton and Lobo on TV

2008-11-17T14:59:00.001-05:00

The Seton Legacy Project, a program of the Academy for the Love of Learning in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is working to make known the accomplishments of Ernest Thompson Seton to the broadest possible audience. One or our activities has included consulting on television productions. One of these, Lobo, The Wolf That Changed America, will air on the PBS program Nature on Sunday, November 23. It is a retelling of the "Lobo" story and how the wolf utterly transformed Seton. For more information about Seton and New Mexico, including an announcement about the major Seton exhibition at the New Mexico History Museum in 2010, go to www.aloveoflearning.org.

Another Pete Seeger Interview - He's 89 and still chopping wood!

2008-11-06T09:14:00.000-05:00

From Pitchfork Read it all here.

Pete Seeger: An internet magazine! So you don't have to cut down trees. I'll be damned. I'm living in the past. I tried to learn how to use a computer a year ago, but I gave up on it. I'm a read-aholic. I was an early reader. My older brothers were reading and I wanted to be like them. At age seven, a librarian saw that I could read fairly well and recommended me a book written for teenagers by a nature writer called Ernest Thompson Seton. He was quite a best selling author 100 years ago. He wrote books like Wild Animals I Have Known and Lives of the Hunted. The one I got into was Rolf in the Woods, about a teenager who runs away from his stepfather-- who's beating him-- and is adopted by a middle-aged Indian whose tribe was massacred, and whose wife was sold into slavery, and is living alone. So he takes this 13-year old and says, you know your books, but I know the book of nature. They flee up to the Upper Adirondacks, and every chapter is a short nature lesson.

Forests, Woodcraft and the Human Condition

2008-09-07T08:29:00.000-04:00

by Stephen Bigger Read it all here

Today we are interested again in conservation and outdoor pursuits, even adventures as an important part of a child's education. The "forest school" has returned to the fore. I am reading two related books currently, Leslie Paul's An Angry Young Man (1952) and Trail of an Artist-Naturalist, the autobiography of Ernest Thompson Seton (1951).

Leslie Paul's title gave rise to the phrase 'angry young men' being used of various writers and playwrights in the 1950s. Leslie Paul, a Londoner, founded "The Woodcraft Folk" in 1925 to introduce inner-city lads to the joys of the countryside, with an emphasis on building inner strengths and on conservation. Now under the wing of the cooperative societies, the movement is still thriving and has many local groups. Paul took many of his ideas from scouting, but without the militarism it had at the time of the first world war. Beyond that he drew on the work of Ernest Thompson Seton who began the Woodcraft Movement in America, and from it developed the American scout movement, of which he became chief scout. Readers are more likely to have heard of his daughter Ann, who wrote fiction as Anya Seton.

As a boy in Canada, Ernest set up his own Indian tribe in 1874 in order to enjoy outdoor activities. Before long it had been renamed as "The Robin Hood Band", and once outgrown the attraction of the outdoor life continued. He made studies of animals and plants, and published many stories based on the forest. He prized the wisdom of the "Indian" first nation tribes on bushcraft, which he called "woodcraft". In setting up an education programme for boys, Robin Hood became replaced with the last of the Mohicans, of Fenimore Cooper's story. The movement was named The Woodcraft Indians. He devised a range of "exploits", each of which had a badge, starting with physical activities, and developing to mental development towards the highest "spiritual" level of "service".

He described his strict Calvinist Christian upbringing which assumed "the total depravity of human nature" [p.291]. He was a rebel, and (happily) thought himself depraved. As a young cowpuncher, he notes that his very rough mates all loved their mothers, and went to church mainly so they could tell their mother that they had been. In one service in a schoolroom, the preacher said "in sin did our mothers conceive us", at which one jumped up saying his mother was a decent woman and if the preacher insult her he would fill him full of lead. Ernest came to the view: "all children come here direct from God and are pure as God can make them. We do not have to reform them, but rather to keep them from being deformed [p.292]. He bought a derelict farm to turn into a conservation area, complete with Indian village, but the local lads declared total war as their age-old haunts were now off bounds. They did nightly damage. Instead of bringing in the law, as advised, he invited them to an adventure weekend with free food and no rules. 42 came, and the Woodland Indians had begun. The area criminal was democratically elected the Chief, and, taking his responsibilities very seriously, this began his transformation. There were rules - mainly for safety and against vandalism. The cardinal virtues were chivalry, kindness, courage and honour. The motto was "The best things of the best Indians". Feathers were awarded for "exploits", 'can do' skills but not competitive. They all received the 'can swim' feather because they could all swim. Fifty years later, all 42 had made something significant of their lives.

Lina and Adelia Beard, promoting scouting for girls in America,produced An Outdoor Book for Girls in America in 1915, recently republished. There is a chapter on ‘woodcraft’ which begins with the importance of the balsam fir tree: like a Christmas tree, it has aromatic needles and makes the best outdoor bedding. These are the trees on the Woodcraft Folk logo. The book teaches girls about how to track, swim, take wildlife photos, camp, find food and cope with accidents.

There are lessons here for families and schools - such personal strengths are not built up in front of televisions or in the back of people-carriers. Skills for life cannot be taught. But they can be encouraged, facilitated, directed, respected and applauded.

From the Czech Republic

2008-09-07T08:12:00.000-04:00

Here's a link to an article about a Woodcraft Camp in the Czech Republic. It is Czech, but you can get something of a translation from Google. There are some nice photos

Our ursine persecution not a bear necessity

2008-09-07T08:05:00.000-04:00

by Trevor Lautens
Special To North Shore News
Friday, August 29, 2008

Bear with me. This is personal.

Try to forgive the opening play on words. The topic is bears.

We should be ashamed of our hype and hypocrisy. Such sentimental hype, such blatant hypocrisy.

Distant polar bears tug at our heartstrings. But bears in our North Shore gardens? For many, sentimentality ends at our rose bushes and fragrant barbecues. Shoot them, they say.

And if they are pushed close to the point of extinction? No contest. We'd shed crocodile tears . There'd be the charade of debate, open-line chatter, op-ed pieces and such. But human needs always trump nature's when our safety, food supply and species imperialism are involved. It's them or us, right?

Not so for me.

I admit to being a city boy who has never had to contend with the harsh realities of country life. And -- here the promised personal note -- my wildlife views were shaped early and indelibly by Ernest Thompson Seton's books, once very popular.

One was Monarch, the Big Bear of Tallac. This small blue book about a huge bear that ended up caged at Golden Gate Park was lent and never returned, but I as good as have it in my hands now.

My lifelong enthusiasm for the fresh phrase, sharp insight and concise aphorism began with Seton: "The life of a wild animal always has a tragic end." (And also, upliftingly: "Because I have known the torment of thirst I would dig a well where others may drink.")

Monarch's story, fully available on the web through the Project Gutenberg e-book, and other Seton stories stoked my childhood eagerness to live the life of a hunter and trapper. Until, with a distant lucky shot of a BB gun, I shot a sparrow from our attic window. My hunting career skidded to a stop.

In the last few years this sensitivity led at last to an unsteady, maybe 95-per-cent vegetarianism. I still guiltily fall off the vegetable wagon now and then.

Back to the black bears, of which about 650 are killed each year across the province: The nut of it is I feel for anything with a mouth, anything that's hungry. (I not only know the torment of thirst that Seton mentioned but I've been hungry in Italy, a poignant place to want food.) Embarrassing to say, I have trouble killing mosquitoes, and any spider or ant in our abode is tenderly transported to the outdoors.

The wild berry crop has been sparse on the North Shore. Shooting any animal is revolting. Shooting a hungry animal is revolting and barbaric. It should be a last resort.

Even some people who survive mauling by a bear aren't angry at the bear, even sympathizng with it. But the offending bear is usually tracked down and "executed" by the authorities, as if it were a criminal with moral sentience. Why is such nonsense -- anthropomorphism elevated to absurdity -- tolerated?

Passenger pigeons -- to be fair, birds of annoyingly messy toilet habits, if their pigeon cousins are typical -- were once so numerous that the great Audubon (1785-1851) once carefully estimated a single flock contained one billion birds.

In his entry for the passenger pigeon P.A. Taverner, whose 1937 book Birds of Canada in my view still overshadows its successors, tersely wrote: "Field marks: The species being extinct, field marks are unnecessary." The last one died in a Cincinnati zoo in 1914.

West Vancouverite Neil Thompson, whose property abuts a bear area, is a retired stockbroker -- an unlikely champion of wildlife, one might think. He recalls that Buffalo Bill Cody on a visit to Canada shot 500 buffalo "just for fun."

Thompson is scathing about the Liberals' lifting of the B.C. ban on trophy hunting of grizzlies, one of the earliest acts of the Gordon Campbell government. I share Thompson's disgust. The idea of hunting any animal for sport -- death as entertainment -- should sicken everyone.

Yes, I count myself an anguished hypocrite. If a bear were attacking one of my children, and if I had a gun, and if I could shoot straight, I'd kill it. There would be plenty of time later for sorrow.

But I'm a big sissy. The killing of bears breaks my heart. (And others' hearts, especially children's. The shooting of a bear chomping on cherries at the 2004 Kaslo Jazz Festival, witnessed by 1,700 shocked -- some weeping -- people, will be remembered longer than the music.)

In my neighbourhood there seems to be a tacit agreement: If you see a bear, don't call the authorities.

My proposal: Three or four bear food banks high on the Lower Mainland's remote slopes. God knows the appalling waste of food in restaurants, separated from hard garbage, would provide a cornucopia.

Crazy idea? Make the bears dependent? Mess up their diet? I don't care. Anything is better than the idiocy of luring them with the trap of food and other human-generated attractants and then shooting them.

And not to forget the polar bears. Canada is the only country in the world where hunting these beautiful, threatened animals is still legal. The allowed limit for the 2007-08 season in Nunavut was a stunning 468. The hunters are mostly stupid-rich and plain stupid Americans. Shame.

- - -

I asked West Vancouver's councillors three questions: Have you decided to run for re-election in November? Have you decided not to run? Have you not yet decided?

Running: Bill Soprovich. A "definite undecided": Mike Smith. No response at this writing: Jean Ferguson, John Clark, Rod Day.

Coun. Vivian Vaughan of course is running against Pam Goldsmith-Jones for mayor.

Rumours: Ferguson and Day aren't running. Clark is. And here's a speculation by a close council-watcher: Mike Smith will run for mayor. Verrry interesting.

And another sticky wicket for Goldsmith-Jones: Rod Hesp, treasurer of the West Vancouver Cricket Club, which feels betrayed by town hall over its Hugo Park facility (the club's very unofficial slogan: "Keep West Vancouver Green. Turf Pam") is mulling running for council.

- - -

Jim Kearney, who died last Friday after painful months in hospital, was an outstanding, much-respected Vancouver Sun sports columnist who ran against the jock stereotype: In person and on paper he was measured, literate, gentlemanly and an engaging raconteur with a million stories who didn't need formulaic locker-room yackety-yack or wise-guy prose to tell his stories.

Especially admirable, and not all that common, was that Jim often passed over the hyped, big-advertising professional sports for neglected amateur athletes and games. That gave depth and variety to his columns and for 17 years he flourished in the demanding days of five a week, as the Sun's Lyndon Little reported.

Not widely known is that Jim, long a resident of Horseshoe Bay and then Bowen Island, had to leave his Sun job largely because of the new technology, the computers that replaced the lovely music of the newsroom typewriters: He suffered from carpal tunnel syndrome. But he went on to other successes, including years as a CBC Radio regular.

Read it all here.

The Naturalist Guiding Light - Why we keep buying new field guides.

2008-09-07T07:53:00.000-04:00

The Smart Set from Drexel University
By Jesse Smith

The golden age of large-mammal discovery has long since passed. Maybe that’s why the recent news that a police offer and car salesman from Georgia had found the body of Bigfoot was met with both predictable skepticism and a bit of discreet excitement. Nobody’s ever identified a Bigfoot before, so nobody knew exactly how to prove that what the men had was one, but the California-based Searching for Bigfoot, Inc., was willing to take a crack at the problem.

The determination, it turns out, ended up being relatively simple. After buying the frozen “corpse,” the group initially observed that the fur “melted into a ball uncharacteristic of hair.” Further thawing revealed that the head was “unusually hollow in one small section.” An hour later, in the final and most conclusive test, an examiner touched the foot and discovered that, alas, it was made of rubber, and that what they had on their hands wasn’t a Bigfoot specimen, but a gorilla costume.

The newest version of Peterson's classic guide.

Fortunately not all species identification is as fruitless. In fact, while Searching for Bigfoot laments its false discovery (as well as, one assumes, the money it paid the Georgia con men), the nature-loving world is celebrating a milestone in the world of animal identification. This month sees the centennial of the man credited with creating the modern field guide, Roger Troy Peterson. The moment is marked with the release of the Peterson Field Guide to Birds of North America, combining for the first time the famed birder’s guides to eastern and western birds.

Aids for attaching names to species, to be fair, existed long before Peterson was born. The bird illustrations of Alexander Wilson and John James Audubon are well-known, but their tomes were multi-volume sets too bulky (and expensive) to be taken on outdoor journeys. At 800 pages, though, Thomas Nuttall’s Manual of the Ornithology of the United States and Canada, published in 1832 and 1834, was small enough to carry into the field — its text and woodcut illustrations together make up what’s considered the first field guide.

In a cruelly ironic twist, the identification of birds through the 19th century meant killing the very things being appreciated. It wasn’t until the conservation movement of the late 1800s (fueled by the rapid decline in birds at the hands of both collectors and ladies’ hats makers) that birders began identifying not with shotguns but with binoculars; Florence Merriam Bailey’s Birds Through an Opera-Glass in 1889 was the first guide to help them do so.

Such books proliferated, but they relied heavily on text and few images. It was actually the 24 duck illustrations that writer Ernest Thompson Seton included in 1903’s fictional Two Little Savages that inspired Peterson 31 years later to create a guide that for the first time used text in service of images, and not the other way around.

Read it all here.

After the Fire ; Center To Pay Tribute to Seton and His Iconic Castle

2008-08-28T20:18:00.000-04:00

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Raam Wong Journal Staff Writer

1174 words

4 August 2008

Albuquerque Journal

The burned-out ruins of the historic Seton Castle loom atop a hill southeast of Santa Fe, a melancholy reminder of the rambling 30- room structure that once was.

In November, it will be three years since flames and smoke engulfed the 70-year-old building off Old Las Vegas Highway, reducing its five uneven stories down to one.

Ernest Thompson Seton may have co-founded the Boy Scouts of America and earned fame as an early American naturalist, but even his admirers have acknowledged that he was a pretty terrible builder.

"I always imagined he had a hammer in his hand when he died," said Aaron Stern, founder of the nonprofit that owns the castle. The Academy for the Love of Learning was midway through a $2 million renovation of the 6,900-square-foot building when the fire broke out.

The Academy had considered rebuilding the castle, a national historic landmark, before determining the cost of bringing it up to code was too high. But this summer, a new building echoing Seton's spirit -- if not his building methods -- is rising in the castle's shadow.

Seton Village

In the early 1930s, Seton divorced his first wife, married his secretary and assistant, adopted a daughter and moved from the East Coast to 2,500 acres south of Santa Fe, where he went to work building an "academy of outdoor life." Seton was in his 70s, with a bushy white mustache that curled up at the ends.

He had spent his life drawing and writing about wildlife and the environment and establishing the Woodcraft League, an alternative version of the Boy Scouts that honors nature and wildlife and encourages people to protect and nurture the natural world.

A community eventually grew on Seton's sprawling compound, as he established a college, printing press and even a zoo, according to Stearn.

Many of the Seton Village homes today dotting the hills trace their lineage to tepees that Seton had installed for visitors to his summer camps. The tepees were later replaced by railroad boxcars, some of which still form the core of many of the high-priced homes in the area.

At the center of it all has sat Seton's ramshackle castle, whose oddly shaped rooms stuffed with all sorts of curiosities stirred the imaginations of generations of children peaking through the windows.

Since Seton's death in 1946 at the age of 96, followers and admirers from all over the world have made pilgrimages to the castle. His daughter, Dee Seton Barber, lived in the home through the late 1990s before opting to sell it.

The Academy for the Love of Learning purchased the structure in 2003. The castle had a million problems, with no foundation in some places and walls with no studs. The place reeked of mildew and was filled with numerous buckets meant to catch the rain water.

The academy embarked on a $2 million renovation. The bottom level where carriages once parked was to be used as office space for the 12-employee academy, while the rest was slated for leadership and ecological awareness programs for young people.

On Nov. 15, 2005, Stern was on a flight to New York when a problem with the airplane's hydraulic system forced an emergency landing, as numerous firetrucks were on standby on the runway. The frightening experience seemed to foretell the conversation he would have with his office after the plane safely landed.

Back in Seton Village, the fire had spread quickly through the castles' adobe and stone walls, wood floors and vigas, as construction workers involved in the restoration fled for safety. The cause of the blaze was never determined.

"It was a shock," Stern said. "It was horrible."

Academy, take two

Today, the castle appears frozen in time to that November afternoon. An open trench holds pipes where DSL lines were to carry high-speed internet into the castle, while a pile of vigas waiting to be installed sit roasting in the sun. Weeds grow amid the gutted castle walls and the bell above the entry gate hasn't been rung in years.

Rebuilding the castle would have meant widening the stairways and hallways and other costly steps to bring the building up to code, Stern said.

But new life is coming to Seton Village. Earlier this year, the academy broke ground nearby on a $10 million, stucco-and-glass building in which Seton's legacy will play a prominent role.

Part of the bottom floor will house Seton's voluminous collection of art and writings, his library and other artifacts that were safe in storage at another location when the fire hit. The collection includes a letter from Helen Keller and signed books by Theodore Roosevelt, along with pots made by Maria Martinez, American Indian blankets and serapes, and Seton's classical music records. A major showing of Seton's work is planned for 2010 at the Palace of the Governors.

Seton Gallery will open onto a trail leading up to the castle site. Of the remaining walls, the academy plans to preserve and strengthen the west and south facades that will be woven into meditative gardens, with markers showing the castle's former footprint.

Just as Seton Castle was a center for learning and living-room gatherings of more than a hundred people, the new 14,000-square- foot center will have rooms and gardens for intimate, contemplative discussions, central to the academy's work, as well as a Great Room for occasional group gatherings. On the second floor, a circular adobe meditation room is under construction.

The "green" center is being built into a hillside, keeping it cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Solar arrays and geothermal wells will also allow the academy to sell electricity back to the grid. Rooftop rainwater will be collected and stored in four, 10,000-gallon underground tanks.

While the castle was built from stone quarried on-site, the center's walls are being constructed out of recycled plastic that's been compressed and filled with concrete.

Standing just beyond the chain-link fence wrapped around Seton Castle recently, Stern mourned its destruction and looked towards the land's future. The academy should be completed by October 2009, he said.

"It was a great loss," Stern said as he looked at a ceramic mural of a peacock embedded in the charred castle wall. "And the new building is going to be fabulous. Both are true."

TermitePrevent: Woodcraft Environmental Renaissance

2008-08-14T06:02:00.000-04:00

TermitePrevent: Woodcraft Environmental Renaissance: "Sunday, August 10, 2008
Woodcraft Environmental Renaissance

Why is the rabbit unafraid? Because he's smarter than the panther. - The Edge (film)

Woodcraft is the art of carving or fashioning objects from wood. It is also defined as the dexterity and experience in matters relating to the woods, such as hunting, fishing, camping or simply surviving in the wild by staying one step ahead of the panther. For thousands of years, human beings have survived only because they were able to adapt and obtain their basic necessities from their surrounding habitat, usually employing little more technology than their own hands."

Dispatches from No. 3 Equity Court

2008-08-07T21:54:00.001-04:00

From Roger Curry's Blog... Here's a link to the full post and his full blog.

I am a common sort of guy. I drink a little beer, but only when it is extremely, extremely cold. I drink wine to impress women. Otherwise, I consider it a shame that some idiot let bacteria screw up the grape juice. It’s been a long time since I’ve had a drink of wine, so perhaps my cynicism belies impressing women these days. The first thing I think of when the term “art” is used is the something-or-other-on-canvas painting. I like Norman Rockwell, particularly a painting called “The Scoutmaster.” It’s realistic (and I’m sure there’s a “Realist” view of painting) and it reminds me of stuff I’ve done. It brings a tear to the eye, and I can smell the “woodsmoke at twilight.” (Kipling) Other stuff, I’m not always so impressed. Let’s see: Monet should have stopped at WalMart and gotten some glasses, then his paintings might not have been so fuzzy. (Yeah, I know, “Impressionism,” but I Just Don’t Get It.) Ernest Thompson Seton, gruesome stuff, but again, realism. TR loved him, but he wasn’t a noted art enthusiast, either. Maxfield Parrish, too cute but, OK, it is a nice shade of blue. Jackson Pollock, if there’s something to understand there, damfino what it is. M. C. Escher, that guy must have been abused as a youth by a dysphoric architect. The stuff by amateurs who know how to draw & paint some looks fundamentally OK to me – I used to share an office with some guys, one of whom had this big (4 foot x 5 foot) acrylic painting of a sort of post-apocalyptic distant city skyline in browns and oranges that just fascinated me. I’m sure someone who “knows art” would say that it’s totally prosaic. Who’s right? I like it. It gets me thinking a little. It’s a starting point for thoughts with misty edges that make me uneasy which feels like a stretching thing that I need to do mentally. Anyway, somehow that painting ended up over at the County Clerk’s Office, and I don’t know how others react to it these days. I keep seeing ads in various catalogs and magazines (Smithsonian, National Geographic, Sojourner, even Popular Mechanics) for prints of stuff by Thomas Kinkade. His paintings are either quasi-religioius (images of the Little Church in the Valley) or the equivalent (small town scenes from the 1960's or before) and he does something that seems to play with light in a pleasant way. I’m betting that most Artistic Folks think he’s a commercial hack, but I could be wrong. I like his stuff, it prompts me to feel good. There’s a strange painter from around 1500 who fascinates me, Hieronymus Bosch - Not because of the color or shapes, this guy was so far into symbolism that even the culturally clueless such as this ignorant scribe have an even chance of thinking of some plausible explanation for his images – maybe the wrong one, but plausible, and Bosch isn’t around to give rebuttal testimony. I googled “modern art” and got a long list of artists (mostly painters) I’d never heard of or, if I’d heard of them, it wasn’t about their art. Matisse, there was an odd sci-fi story themed on his painting eyes on poker chips which also involved a beer tap in a prosthetic arm, and I doubt any of that comes from real life. Dali had a helluva moustache, that’s the sort of irrelevant things I remember.,,,

Lobo The Wolf Who Changed America to Air November 23 on PBS

2008-08-02T08:46:00.000-04:00

The Public Broadcasting Service's Nature series will air its version of the film Lobo, The Wolf Who Changed America on November 23. Check local listings as the time nears.

This film unleashed an enormous renewal of interest in Seton when it aired in the UK earlier this year and I would expect something similar, perhaps much greater, when it airs in the U.S.

From Nature Articles by Earl N Plato

2008-07-19T08:07:00.000-04:00

Ernest Thompson Seton in Canada from England - They made fun of him at nis new school in Toronto. It was such a big school that none of his brothers were in his class. “When I was four in England I was riding “horsey”on a high sofa. I fell on my head. I saw two two mothers and two clocks and two of everything!” My eyes became badly crossed and I had to squint. I was called “Squinty.” Despite his eyesight he still continued to love books. A favourite was his father’s Pictorial Book of Nature. He started sketching - flowers, birds and animals. Then he heard about Ross’s Birds of Canada. Ernest wanted a copy and saved his money until he had a dollar . He walked into the big book store and purchased his prized book. He was inspired to draw more. “At the age of 13 I built my own cabin in the Don Valley. It was my favourite place toget away. I did more art - mostly nature but also city buildings and people. All the time I wanted to be a naturalist. I talked with my mother about my anbitions. My father overheard and said, “NO! You will become an artist!” At Art school he won a gold medal at the Ontario School of Art and won a scholarship to study art in England. He went to England but his father gave him little help. He studied at the Royal Academy of Art but was very lonely and almost destitute. He learned more skills but after the scholarship was over he returned home as a 21 year old. He felt like a failure to his father who had kept a list of all the money and things he had given to Ernest. His father demanded to be paid back in full for his support. His mother welcomed him back and continued to believe in his dreams. Now back in Ontario he had no job. To him all wildlife was interesting - especially birds. “I will become a naturalist.” With his mother’s blessing he headed west to Manitoba. It was a happy time for Ernest. “I explored across the vast prairie - learning more and more. My poor health was over and for the next two years I was blessed with increasing strength. I had my books, my birds and animals, and my dreams.” Ernest was oficially appointed naturalist for the government of Manitoba. He drew more and more - sold sketches and drawings - did well. paid his father in full ion return visit to Toronto. He missed his mother very much but returned west to his job.
In defference to her he changed his surname to his mothers. Born Ernest Seton Thompson he now became ERNEST THOMPSON SETON. He was invited to New Mexico by the United States government to write four volumes - Life History of North American Animals. He was now writing short stories and novels about wildlife and was getting widespread fame. His most famous book, Wild Animals I Have Known, is still being reprinted in 2008.. Check it out, eh.

Read it here.

Why eat bugs when there's fresh citrus?

2008-07-19T08:01:00.000-04:00

(from New Hampshire.com)

A former Manchester resident admits, “My wife and I are not avid birdwatchers, although we enjoy having them around and keep the birdbath filled with fresh water for their enjoyment. We live in a small city on the west coast of Florida, just across the bay from Tampa.

“Several days ago we enjoyed your article about the red-bellied woodpecker. It was of particular interest to us because we were in the last days of observing a pair raising their brood of two. We were very fortunate to have a front-row seat ,with the nest in a hollow dead branch of a live oak that was about 20 feet from our screen porch. Their squawking would alert us to activity at the nest. We enjoyed watching them grow up and leave the nest.

“The most unusual activity we observed was the parents feeding citrus to the young while in the nest and later watching the teaching of the young to peck a hole in the orange, feed some to the young two or three times, then fly up to a branch and watch for several minutes coaxing them to eat on their own. This took several tries before the young would eat on their own...

In the 1901 book “Wild Animals I have Known,” Ernest Seton-Thompson narrates the true story of a partial albino crow named Silverspot.

Actually, Silverspot was not much of an albino as was illustrated by the author when he wrote, “His name was given because of a silvery white spot that was like a nickel, stuck on his right side, between the eye and the bill, and it was owing to this spot that I was able to know him from the other crows, and to put together the parts of history that came to my knowledge.”

Read it all.

The Red Lodge

2008-06-09T11:31:00.000-04:00

We often receive inquiries about The Red Lodge, a brief work published by Seton in 1912, which was a version of Woodcraft aimed at adults. I have just posted a scanned version of this very rare booklet on The Ernest Thompson Seton Pages at http://www.etsetoninstitute.org/digitized-works-by-seton
Enjoy!

Changeling Turkey: FINALLY!!!

2008-05-30T06:20:00.000-04:00

Changeling Turkey: FINALLY!!!

This blog is "podcasting" Biography of a Grizzly. They have done a really nice job with it.

Sit back and listen to Biography of a Grizzly as it is read to you.

Manly Palmer Hall

2008-05-22T15:59:00.000-04:00

I have lately been looking for people who know of the connection between Ernest Thompson Seton and Manly Palmer Hall. Hall was a philosopher and mystic of sorts, author of numerous books, including the classic Secret Teachings of All Ages. Seton dedicated Santa The Hero Dog of France to Hall. Dee Seton Barber told me that she rememberered Hall coming to visit Seton at the Castle in the 1940s.

There is a soon-to-be-published book on Hall's life entitled 'MASTER OF THE MYSTERIES: the life of Manly Palmer Hall’ by Louis Sahagun. Mr. Sahagun is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. I spoke with Mr. Sahagun today and learned that the book will be published in late June It already appears on amazon.com.

He says the book will contain information about the link between Hall and Seton. He told me that hall first met Seton when Seton lectured at the Author's Club in Hollywood. Hall wentup to Seton following the lecture, introcuced himself and told Seton, "Mr. Seton, I want to know you!." He also relates several trips to Seton Village.

I am looking forward to the book.

Lobo - The Wolf That Changed America (BBC Natural World)

2008-05-21T22:34:00.000-04:00

Here is the link you have all been waiting for. Watch the BBC Natural World video "Lobo - The Wolf That Changed America.' http://www.veoh.com/videos/v7973289q3qTgwHB

This is a FANTAstic film and has ignited a huge amount of Seton interest in the U.K.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Let's Have a Little Bird Music

2008-05-18T09:07:00.000-04:00

From the Winnipeg Free Press. Excerpts here. Click here to read it all.

BALMORAL -- It's the male birds that sing and it's mating that turns them into little Pavarottis.

But it was a threat to habitat that transformed birds here into recording artists.

Aluminum maker Alcan wanted to build a smelter near Balmoral, 30 kilometres north of Winnipeg, and one of the comments people kept making was "at least there's nothing up there."

"I thought, 'There's lots up here,' " said Catherine Thexton, who lived on a farm in the area with her late husband George. To prove it, Thexton would venture into the bush on their Interlake farm and record bird sounds.

The Alcan plan was scrapped but a recording industry was launched. Thexton's first vinyl record, In Praise of Spring (1981), sold more than 1,000 copies, followed by Meadowlark Music (1983), also on vinyl, which sold more than 7,000 copies.

...

Another of Thexton's recordings, Dusk to Dawn, sounds as if it's about all-nighters at a drive-in theatre. It came about after many nights when Thexton would lie in bed with the screen window open and wonder what bird and animal sounds she heard.

For example, she wondered if the "pahh" sound was an owl or a fox. (Naturalist writer Ernest Thompson Seton encountered the same dilemma. In his case, he determined it was an owl only after he killed the owl and found the noise stopped.) Dusk to Dawn includes the red fox and various species of toads, frogs and night owls.

With her parabolic microphone, shaped like a satellite dish, Thexton looks more like someone trying to intercept extraterrestrial signals. The apparatus amplifies sound 75 times for her recordings, but she has to pinpoint a bird's location. Even then, birds don't speak on cue.

...

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca

That Good Ol' Tipi Living

2008-05-11T22:54:00.000-04:00

From Mother Earth News

A few summers ago I had the opportunity to be involved in a mountain goat research project. Needless to say, I was excited by the prospect of spending half a year in the wilds of Montana ... but I did foresee one serious problem. My assistant and I planned to live—from summer through early winter—on top of an 8,660-foot peak ... but we weren't sure just what in blue blazes we were going to live in!

I studied the alternatives and rejected everything from "space age" tents (too cramped) to geodesic domes (not practical) to log cabins (too permanent ... suppose the goats moved?). No, we had to have something roomy, portable, inexpensive, easy to build, and able to adjust to a wide range of temperatures. In short, what we needed was a tipi!

THE "PLAINS" ADVANTAGES

Most folks will probably be surprised—as I was—to learn that the best movable shelter ever devised was perfected hundreds of years ago by the Plains Indians of the American Southwest. But the more I looked into the subject, the more convinced I became that—although they look like uncomplicated structures—tipis are actually more precisely designed than most of the "high technology" houses that are being built today!

As Caleb Clark, the old trapper in Ernest Thompson Seton's Two Little Savages, said: "Ye kin live in it forty below zero and fifty 'bove suffocation an' still be happy. It's the changeablest kind of a layout for livin' in." And Caleb wasn't talking majority, either. A tipi can be snugged down to endure subfreezing winters or—with its skirts lifted—will keep its residents cool in roasting summer weather. Its conical shape sheds rain ... and withstands hurricane winds that would dislodge any tent (and a good many stone or brick homes!). And the Indian dwelling will hold the heat-but not the smoke -of a toasty f ire.

I was also surprised to discover how spacious the cone-shaped homes are. My fellow -goater"' and I found we had plenty of room in our 16-foot-diameter shelter. In fact, on occasion we had five people bedded down 'round the fire ... without a single crowding problem. And these practical accommodations have another, more subtle, advantage: Living in a tipi provides a unique, at-one-with-nature experience. A cone dweller is in touch with—and yet shielded from—all the changing whims of weather. Tipi walls let the sun illuminate the interior by day ... and provide a curved screen for firelit shadow dances at night Chipmunks may perch on the shelter's poles , violets sprout from its floor, or moonlight stream through the smoke hole—mixing with the glow of a fading fire—and form a sight too beautiful for words. Little wonder the Indians (who revered nature) considered a tipi a temple as well as a home.

Read it all here

High Goals

2008-04-23T07:00:00.000-04:00

from Health Beyond Civilization Remedial health for the aspiring indigenous soul

Having established a certain degree of grounding in our experience of our own health, it’s worth it to start exploring goals.
I’d like to set the bar sky-high by looking at a few accounts of, for lack of a better term, superhuman feats.
Ernest Thompson Seton, in Gospel of the Redman, wrote,
The most famous runner of ancient Greece was Pheidippides, whose record run from Athens to Sparta was 140 miles in 36 hours. Among our Indians, such a feat would have been considered very second-rate. In 1882, at Fort Ellice, I saw a young Cree who, on foot, had just brought in despatches from Fort Qu’Appelle (125 miles away) in 25 hours. It created almost no comment. I heard little from the traders but cool remarks like, “A good boy”, “pretty good run”. It was obviously a very usual exploit, among Indians.
The two Indian runners, Thomas Zafiro and Leonicio San Miguel, ran 62 1/2 miles, i.e. from Pachuca to Mexico City, in 9 hours, 37 minutes, November 8, 1926, according to the El Paso Times, February 14, 1932. This was 9 1/4 minutes to the mile.
The Zunis have a race called, “Kicked Stick.” In this, the contestants each kick a stick before them as they run. Dr. F. W. Hodge tells me that there is a record of 20 miles covered in 2 hours by one of the kickers.
The Tarahumare mail carrier runs 70 miles a day, every day in the week, carrying a heavy mailbag, and he doesn’t know that he is doing an exploit. In addition, we are told: “The Tarahumare mail carrier from Chihuahua to Batopiles, Mexico, runs regularly more than 500 miles a week; a Hopi messenger has been known to run 120 miles in 15 hours.”
The Arizona Indians are known to run down deer by sheer endurance, and every student of Southwestern history will remember that Coronado’s mounted men were unable to overtake the natives when in the hill country, such was their speed and activity on foot.

Read it all

here's the chance to go to school on what master naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton called "the oldest of writing",tracks.

2008-04-21T05:17:00.000-04:00

A new approach to the art of tracking mammals.

Blest with a Magic Power is he,
Drinks deep where others sipped;
And Wild Things write their lives for him
In endless manuscript.

-Ernest Thompson Seton
("The Trailer")

YOU WAKE ON AN UNNATURALLY bright winter's morning and, squinting, peer out your bedroom window. As unexpected as enchantment, a half-foot of snow has fallen while you slept, and you're fairly pulled out of bed by the childish urge to be the first to mark the clean white sheet that's settled over your yard. Ignoring coffee for once, you dress quickly, fired by the adrenaline high of dramatic weather, and rush outside . . . only to find that smaller feet have written where you'd hoped to scratch your name. Put your petty disappointment aside; here's the chance to go to school on what master naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton called "the oldest of writing",tracks.

From Mother Earth News. Read it all here.

'Immersive' museum to showcase N.M. - SantaFeNewMexican.com

2008-04-15T06:14:00.000-04:00

'Immersive' museum to showcase N.M. - SantaFeNewMexican.com

This new museum, The New Mexican History Museum, opening next year adjacent to The Palace of the Governors, plans an exhibition featuring Ernest Thompson Seton in 2011.

Reading Copy » Blog Archive » Slow Food and Ernest Thompson Seton

2008-04-09T20:11:00.000-04:00

Slow Food and Ernest Thompson Seton

I cam across this blog entry from abe.books. So Wild Animals I Have Known is a best seller one hundred and ten years after it was first published. Incidentally, both Blue Skies Today and our sister site Blue Sky! - The Ernest Thompson Seton Pages (www.etsetoninstitute.org) had record-breaking numbers of visits over the past week too, presumably due to the BBC special. Unfortunately, we have not been able to view it in the U.S. because the website blocks viewing outside the U.K. Hopefully, it will be shown on PBSinthe future.

Slow Food and Ernest Thompson Seton

On the back of a BBC2 feature titled Lobo: The Wolf that Changed America, Ernest Thompson Seton’s 110-year-old classic Wild Animals I Have Known shot to No.1 on AbeBooks.co.uk’s bestseller list last week.

Seton was one of the key pioneers of the Boy Scout movement, which incidentally is celebrating its centennial this year. You can read about it on our Boy Scouts feature.

Also on the top 10 is W.M.W. Fowler’s Countryman’s Cooking. The book was first sold 40 years ago by Willie Fowler in his local pub and was forgotten until recently when it was rediscovered in a charity shop and republished. Featuring traditional English countryside recipes the book is a gift from the heavens for slow foodies.

Top 10 bestsellers for AbeBooks.co.uk for the week of March 31-April 6

1. Wild Animals I Have Known by Ernest Thompson Seton
2. Countryman’s Cooking by W.M.W. Fowler
3. The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh
4. Shamanic Journeying: A Beginner’s Guide by Sandra Ingerman
5. The New Strategic Selling by Stephen E. Heiman
6. Ulysses by James Joyce
7. Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping by Paco Underhill
8. Cancer Vixen: A True Story by Marisa Acocella Marchetto
9. Paul for Everyone: Romans by Tom Wright
10. Once Upon a Time in the North by Philip Pullman

Farm School

2008-04-02T06:35:00.000-04:00

Farm School

This is a fantastic website and blog which should appeal to Seton afficionados. Here is a link to a great comprehensive post about Seton on that site.

A man, a wolf and a whole new world - Telegraph

2008-04-01T06:32:00.000-04:00

Steve Gooder tells the tale of a British-born hunter and his mighty foe - and how their duel in the dying days of the Wild West led to the birth of America's conservation movement

It was the moment Ernest Thompson Seton had been waiting for. After months of frustration, the professional wolf hunter finally had his quarry in his sights.

He raised his Winchester rifle and prepared to put a
bullet between the eyes of "Old Lobo", a notorious wolf that had killed hundreds of cattle.

But, face to face with his adversary for the first time, something deep within the hunter changed. He slowly lowered his gun and decided to take Lobo back alive.

The year was 1894 and it was a moment that would prove a crucial turning point, not just for Seton, but also for the fate of America's wilderness and its wild creatures.

British-born Seton had grown up with wolves on the Canadian frontier and written the definitive manual on how to catch them. More than two centuries earlier, his Scottish ancestors had helped wipe out the last of Britain's wild wolves.

Yet there was another, less bloodthirsty, side to Seton. His backwoods childhood had left him with a real love and fascination for nature and he would eventually go on to become both a leading light in America's emerging conservation movement and a tireless advocate for the protection of wolves.

It all began in October 1893, when Seton travelled to a remote corner of New Mexico "to catch vermin". What had once been the land of the Apache and the buffalo had now become the domain of cattle ranchers, and the last remaining wolves were being picked off as fast as the bounty hunters could trap and shoot them. But a few "outlaw wolves" still eluded capture.

Among these elite survivors was a reputedly giant beast, known as Old Lobo, who had thwarted every attempt to kill him. Seton was merely the latest in a string of would-be assassins who had come and gone.

BBC - Science & Nature - Natural World

2008-04-01T05:55:00.000-04:00

BBC - Science & Nature - Natural World: "Lobo - The wolf that changed America
Wed 2 Apr 8.00pm (GMT) BBC Two

Ernest Thompson Seton's account of how he hunted a cattle-killing wolf became a pivotal part of American history, helping to change the way people see wolves and the wilderness. In his efforts to find, capture, and kill Lobo, Seton came to understand the animal's intelligence, loyalty and warmth. Although he finally succeeded in his task, he never killed a wolf again. A combination of wildlife and history, this film is based on the personal diaries of Ernest Thompson Seton himself."

From Michelle Styles in the U.K.

2008-04-01T05:38:00.000-04:00

Ernest Thompson Seton Read it all here

On Tuesday, BBC2 will broadcast a programme about Ernest Thompson Seton, one of America's early environmentalists. He was born in South Shields, Durham, grew up in Canada and spent the end of his life at Seton Castle near Santa Fe New Mexico. And as it happens someone my father knew as a boy when he lived in Santa Fe. Seton was an old man at the time, and my father always spoke of him with awe.
I can remember watching the Walt Disney movie about Lobo the wolf and my father getting out Wild Animals I Have Known and showing me Seton's signature. Seton had signed the book for my grandfather and had included a picture of a hangman's noose with the words -- hang Hitler. My grandfather was an officer in the US navy. My grandmother and father had moved to Santa Fe during WW2 because my father suffered from asthma. Seton lived a few miles from Santa Fe. My father as a boy was quite active in the boy scouts which may be why they knew him. Seton was one of the founding members of the Boy Scouts and wrote the first Boy Scout manual among other things. However, at that point, Santa Fe was not a large place...
My father was very impressed with him and had me read Wild Animals I Have Known after I watched the programme. Seton was a natural storyteller and brought the various animals to life, so it was a delight to read.
The book now sits proudly in the bookcase in the dining room. My children have all enjoyed the stories. And it is a book that should be read by anyone interested in natural history and conservation.
Seton's daughter Ann wrote historical romance novels under the pen name of Anya Seton. I did not realise this until yesterday, but thought it interesting.
Anyway, I shall look forward to watching the programme. Seton's book apparently had a profound influence on David Attenborough. And he deserves to remembered.

Labels: Ernest Thompson Seton

posted by Michelle Styles @ 11:07 AM

Scouting and Culture Wars

2008-03-18T08:48:00.000-04:00

Editor's note: I found this guest column by our friend and Scouting historian, Nelson Block, published in the Waco Tribune. It is definitely worth reading in its entirety.

Nelson Block, guest column: Scouting and 'culture wars'

Monday, March 17, 2008

HOUSTON — Rick Perry’s new book, On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For, is portrayed as a tribute. Actually, it’s the latest attack on a great American institution.

Perry praises the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) as a paragon of “traditional American values” then co-opts scouting to vilify those he and like-minded politicians and talk-show hosts consider political enemies.

This group invented the “culture war” and casts liberals as the religion-bashing, authority-hating, character-deficient bad guys in it who would create a world “where moral relativism reigns and individualism runs amok.”

If the governor understood scouting’s history, he would know it uses many concepts championed by liberal and progressive leaders among its founders.

Scouting and several other movements evolved to alleviate poor social, public health and educational conditions created by the Industrial Revolution in England and America, as young people left their rural homes for cities with low-paying factory jobs and dissolute pursuits far from moderating family relationships.

Victorian and Edwardian reformers responded by helping people improve their lives, promoting the idea that hard work brings rewards, among other principles. Although Perry suggests that industriousness and faith are not liberal values, Scouting’s liberal and progressive founders embraced them.

In 1902, liberal American naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton established the Woodcraft Movement, based on camping and American Indian life, to enrich modern leisure time.

He incorporated educational principles described by liberal educator John Dewey, who advocated children working together in social situations where the child would “emerge from his original narrowness of action and feeling to conceive of himself from the standpoint of the welfare of the group.” BSA later named Seton its first chief Scout.

In 1908, British general R.S.S. Baden-Powell published the book that popularized the Boy Scouts, Scouting for Boys. He incorporated concepts then considered liberal perfected during his army years: encouraging noncommissioned officers to exercise leadership, personally training soldiers in military scouting and providing them with wholesome entertainment.

The principle was the same for both soldiers and Scouts — make the individual responsible for a task, then give him the freedom to accomplish it.

When Scouting came to America, liberals and progressives immediately supported it, including Theodore Roosevelt and James E. West, BSA’s first chief Scout executive. West began his progressive activism as a teenager in a Washington, D.C., orphanage, fighting for the children to have a library and attend public school.

These leaders used liberal social principles to build the Boy Scouts. Unfortunately, Perry uses Scouting to build support for his particular social principles.

For example, Perry considers public prayer an important part of religion, and by extension, Scouting. However, Baden-Powell held that beyond a personal belief in God, religion was about helping people. When people asked if he prayed, he was tempted to reply, “Not often: I am far too busy giving thanks.”

Yes, the Boy Scouts’ values are worth fighting for, but Perry picks a fight with his fellow Americans and misrepresents this institution by claiming it is at odds with liberalism.

Liberalism then and now recognizes that people realize their greatest potential in exercising personal freedom, and that such freedom comes with responsibility to the society that supports it.

Nelson R. Block, a Houston Boy Scout leader for almost 30 years , co-chaired the Johns Hopkins University program “Scouting: A Centennial History Symposium.”

Here is the link to the Waco Tribune.

Paw prints could lead to a wildcat

2008-03-18T08:43:00.000-04:00

Follow the tracks

Yes! Follow the tracks. In the words of naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton, "Look ever for the track . . . it is the priceless, unimpeachable record of the creature's life and thought, in the oldest writing known on earth."

Follow the tracks. Leave the city. Climb into the chaparral. Walk among the scrub oak, watching for signs- claw marks low on a gnarled tree trunk, a trace of scat, scratch marks on the ground.

And at last, look there! A print, scalloped front and back. Four toes, no claw marks. Another, and another, some even made by a two-legged animal.

From The Thousand Oaks Acorn Read it all here.

In the wings

2008-03-10T17:19:00.000-04:00

From the Charlotte Observer:
"Another month will wind down by the end of this week, even with the leap day added to February every fourth year to realign our calendars.
February's full moon is often referred to as the Hunger Moon. Perhaps there's another, more appropriate name for the silvery globe, round as a medallion and bright as a silver dollar, rising late in a brittle eastern sky. The late artist-naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton suggested it be known as our Awakening Moon. Arriving without heat, it brings on the winds of change."

Read it all

Self-Sufficient Living » Blog Archive » How to Construct A Plains Indian Tipi (Part 1)

2008-02-11T06:55:00.000-05:00

Self-Sufficient Living » Blog Archive » How to Construct A Plains Indian Tipi (Part 1)

There were 50 tents made of tanned hides, very bright red and white in color and bell-shaped, with flaps and openings, and built as skillfully as those of Italy, and so large that in the most ordinary ones four different mattresses and beds were easily accommodated. The Indians . . . are as well sheltered in their tents as they could be in any house. ”
From Don Juan de Oñate’s account of a 1599 Great Plains expedition
“Tazhebute came to join us with a good Indian tent . . . Those tents have no equal for camping purposes. They shed the rain well, and in cold weather one can build afire right in the center of them, with the smoke rising cleanly up out of the top, where the flaps are set to suit the way of the wind.
“Thomas Henry Tibbles, describing an 1881 trip among the Ponca Indians in his book, BUCKSKIN AND BLANKET DAYS
“Ye kin live in it forty below zero and fifty ‘bove suffocation an’ still be happy. It’s the changeablest kind of a layout for livin’ in. ”Caleb Clark, The Old Trapper, in Ernest Thompson Seton’s TWO LITTLESAVAGES, 1903

100 Years of Illustration : Ernest Thompson Seton's The American Bison or Buffalo

2008-02-05T21:10:00.001-05:00

Main
Ernest Thompson Seton's The American Bison or Buffalo

Ernest Thompson Seton was a force to be reckoned with as author and illustrator of scores of books about nature and Indian lore. He was a Scot born Ernest Evan Thompson in England on 14 August 1860, who with his parents emigrated to Canada at the age of six. To avoid an abusive father he took to the woods as an escape, where he became fascinated by nature and drawing animal life. His work was good enough for him to win a scholarship at the Royal Academy in London.

Later, he changed his last name to Seton and began a career as an artist, writer and naturalist, eventually moving to New York City where he became successful enough to build a home in Cos Cob, Connecticut, a suburb of Greenwich.

He was also famous as a mover and shaper in the U.S.A. of the Boy Scout movement, founded by Lord Baden-Powell, who took Scouting world wide.

You can read more about this as well as biographical information at the following links:

Wikipedia,

here,

and here.

These are scans from his lead article in the October 1906 issue of Scribner's Magazine, The American Bison or Buffalo.

Click on images to enlarge them.

Ets_buffalo_1

A Buffalo Herd in Early Fall.

Ets_buffalo_1x

Detail of the illustration above.

Ets_bulls_eye

One of the studies Seton made while drawing buffalos.

Ets_bison_3

A large bull buffalo.

Ets_bison_4

A Catalo, or hybrid cow.

Ets_bison_5

A Catalo yearling.

Ets_bison_6

A very high-humped old bull buffalo.

Ets_bison_7

Seton titled this, The old bull's last fight.

Posted by PAUL GIAMBARBA on February 01, 2008 at 12:59 PM in Ernest Thompson Seton 1860-1946 | Permalink

Tragic Death for Most Wild Animals

2007-12-25T08:26:00.000-05:00

A Letter to the Editor From The Modesto Bee

Artist-naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton stated that every creature in the wild dies a tragic death. No wild animal dies peacefully in bed surrounded by its family and friends. They either starve to death, succumb to disease, or are killed and eaten by other animals. The small percentage that fall to a hunter's gun or bow suffer the least pain and misery. Deer that overpopulate suffer serious malnutrition, coyotes and foxes suffer hideous mange epidemics. Nature finds ways to control numbers, of which the human hunter is the most merciful method. I object to those who say that the other ways are better because they are natural.
I suppose if they came across a sick and dying animal they would refuse to put it out of its misery so as not to interfere with nature. And I cannot believe those who advocate control through contraception. They are promoting an attitude that it is better to not live at all than to ever experience any pain or fear. That attitude, taken to its logical conclusion, would claim that the best thing for all living things would be to eliminate them, including us, immediately.
CHAD ORTON
Delhi

Boyhood before the Xbox

2007-12-25T08:22:00.000-05:00

Virtual adventures didn't begin with 3D graphics and computer games. Neither did parental anxiety
December 23, 2007 Peter MartynTORONTO STAR
The absence of modern paraphernalia would make the boy's world of a century ago seem more alien than deep space to the youngsters on a 2007 Christmas list: no video games or miniature music players, no cellphones, no television, video or movies.
And certainly no political correctness. The post-colonial ethos had not been invented, not by a long shot.
But parents were concerned, then as now, that the seductions of modern life were spoiling the young, particularly those living in the booming cities at the turn of the 19th century. Literacy rates were rising; books were the Xbox of the day. Popular authors joined the movement to instill "traditional values" in the boys of the late Victorian era – stoicism, independence and self-reliance, and a sense of imperial history.
Two historical artifacts still worth putting under the tree for any young teen or 'tween boy today (you can decide if girls might also be interested), are Ernest Thompson Seton's Two Little Savages and Daniel Carter Beard's The American Boy's Handy Book. A third, modern title is The Dangerous Book for Boys by brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden. Published more than a century after the others, but written in a similar vein, the latter title has spent months on the New York Times bestseller list and was book of the year at the Galaxy British Book Awards.
My favourite remains Two Little Savages, inspired by Seton's own youthful adventures in Toronto's Don Valley. Today you can buy a photographically reproduced Dover edition with Seton's original illustrations.
Seton wrote Two Little Savages while a naturalist for the Manitoba government. He was already famous for Wild Animals I Have Known (1898), one in a wildly successful illustrated animal series.
From the illustrations reproduced here and the subtitle, Being The Adventures of Two Boys Who Lived as Indians and What They Learned, you'll realize this book is devoid of political correctness. It is a story of Victorian-era boys "playing Injun." Real Indians only appear in a couple of paragraphs near the end of the book. They are sketched respectfully but adhere to the stereotype of the aloof native. There is boyish "Indian talk" with "Ugh," "Heap good," and "wampum," etc. which some might find offensive – but the boys' frontier dialect is mimicked, as well.
The reader is transported to an imagined Canada in the mid-19th century. Shy, sickly Yan is fascinated by birds and pines for the woods; his home life is horrid – a lazy, abusive, domineering father dotes on introspective Yan's robust but unscrupulous brother; his mother is self-absorbed and unloving. After nearly succumbing to consumption (tuberculosis), 14-year-old Yan is sent to the fictional community of Sanger, "a settlement just emerging from the backwoods period."
Homesick, he makes friends with Sam Raften, the mischievous boy of the household where he boards, and they venture into the woods. Yan's "eddication" wins over Sam's hard but good-hearted father, who gives the boys three weeks off from farm chores – if they agree to really live like Indians.
They begin a blissful period learning woodcraft from Caleb Clark, who Sam says had been "a hunter and a trapper oncet.'' Two Little Savages is filled with lyrical descriptions of nature and drawings of birds and animals – a Seton trademark.
Read it all here.

Academy to resurrect mission at Seton Castle site

2007-12-25T08:16:00.000-05:00

Building's ruins from fire in November 2005 will be left as part of garden
By Julie Ann Grimm The New Mexican
12/23/2007 - 12/24/07The burned-out ruin of a historic home known as Seton Castle will become a contemplative garden, and an eco-friendly building downhill from the site is likely to be constructed early next year. The Academy for the Love of Learning is preparing to resume its work as an education think tank after more than two years of delay resulting from a fire Nov. 15, 2005. The nonprofit was midway through renovations on the nearly 80-year-old home in Arroyo Hondo when construction workers reported the fast-moving fire. Before two hours had passed, the roof of the building and much of its interior had been consumed. Today, several stone walls and other features remain from what was a 32-room home designed by conservationist Ernest Thompson Seton. Seton, who wrote more than 60 books and helped found the Boy Scouts of America, was also an artist who painted and drew images from the natural world. His family sold the estate and the nationally recognized home to the academy in 2003. The state fire marshal and a federal agency both ruled out arson, but no cause for the fire was ever determined. It took the insurance company about 20 months to settle the case, said academy founder Aaron Stern. In the meantime, efforts to rebuild the castle fell apart. "Our deepest desire was to rebuild the castle as it was," Stern said. But given the near destruction, any rebuilding would be considered new construction under Santa Fe County's development rules and therefore would need to comply with modern codes. One requirement, for example, was that the structure contain an elevator, he said.
Read the whole story here.

Ernest Thompson Seton's One and Only U.S. Patent

2007-12-24T10:15:00.000-05:00

To all whom it may concern:
Be it known that I, Ernest Thompson Seton, a subject of the King of Great Britain and a resident of Coscob, in the County of Fairfield, State of Connecticut, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Steelyards...

So begins the one and only US Patent known to have been granted to Seton in 1911.

See the whole patent here.

The Wolf That Talked Too Much

2007-12-24T09:59:00.000-05:00

We are pleased to present you with this audio track of Ernest Thompson Seton telling the story of "The Wolf That Talked Too Much."

Camera Trap Codger: Vile epithets and the dangers of learning foreign language

2007-10-27T06:18:00.000-04:00

Camera Trap Codger: Vile epithets and the dangers of learning foreign language: "Vile epithets and the dangers of learning foreign language 'The men of mixed blood jabbered in French, Cree, and Chipewyan mainly, but when they wanted to swear, they felt the inadequacy of these mellifluous or lisping tongues, and fell back on virile Saxon, whose tang, projectivity, and vile epithet evidently supplied a long felt want in the Great Lone Land of the Dog and Canoe.' The Arctic Prairies, 1911, Ernest Thompson Seton"

Are You a Seton Indian? Whoop!

2007-10-06T17:25:00.000-04:00

I believe that is ETS in the canoe...

2007-10-06T17:23:00.000-04:00

I like this blog...

2007-10-06T17:20:00.000-04:00

http://wisdomofhands.blogspot.com/2007/09/these-days-being-boy-isnt-quite-what-it.html

From the Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie

2007-09-17T20:08:00.000-04:00

Another yearly event that brings forth many choice spirits is our Literary Dinner, at home, our dear friend Mr. Richard Watson Gilder, editor of the "Century," being the manager. His devices and quotations from the writings of the guest of the year, placed upon the cards of the guests, are so appropriate, as to cause much hilarity. Then the speeches of the novitiates give zest to the occasion. John Morley was the guest of honor when with us in 1895 and a quotation from his works was upon the card at each plate.
One year Gilder appeared early in the evening of the dinner as he wished to seat the guests. This had been done, but he came to me saying it was well he had looked them over. He had found John Burroughs and Ernest Thompson Seton were side by side, and as they were then engaged in a heated controversy upon the habits of beasts and birds, in which both had gone too far in their criticisms, they were at daggers' points. Gilder said it would never do to seat them together. He had separated them. I said nothing, but slipped into the dining room unobserved and replaced the cards as before. Gilder's surprise was great when he saw the men next each other, but the result was just as I had expected. A reconciliation took place and they parted good friends. Moral: If you wish to play peace-maker, seat adversaries next each other where they must begin by being civil.
Burroughs and Seton both enjoyed the trap I set for them. True it is, we only hate those whom we do not know. It certainly is often the way to peace to invite your adversary to dinner and even beseech him to come, taking no refusal. Most quarrels become acute from the parties not seeing and communicating with each other and hearing too much of their disagreement from others. They do not fully understand the other's point of view and all that can be said for it. Wise is he who offers the hand of reconciliation should a difference with a friend arise. Unhappy he to the end of his days who refuses it. No possible gain atones for the loss of one who has been a friend even if that friend has become somewhat less dear to you than before. He is still one with whom you have been intimate, and as age comes on friends pass rapidly away and leave you.

A little More on the Wyndygoul Property

2007-09-15T10:43:00.000-04:00

Pair take in town's new property

By Hoa NguyenStaff WriterSeptember 11, 2007

Raindrops began falling yesterday as Eric Brower and Denise Savageau began walking the Tuchman property for the first time since the town officially closed on the sale of 31 acres.They made their way under the canopy of trees, passing the shag bark and through a maze of ground vegetation that included poison ivy vines. Overhead, a red-tailed hawk swooped toward distant trees. Nearby was a field of waist-high golden rods with their pretty blooms of yellow flowers. In the distance was a sloping hillside of more meadows and oaks."It's beautiful," said Brower, a land-use consultant and head of the town's property committee who began working on the land deal more then seven years ago.According to Brower's estimates, he and Savageau, the town's conservation director, have visited the property on 200 prior occasions but yesterday was the first time they could finally say they were walking on town property.On Thursday, Greenwich ended seven years of delay by signing a final contract with Lucy Eisenberg and Jessica Mathews, descendants of two-time Pulitizer Prize-winning author Barbara Tuchman, to buy their share of their late mother's land for $8.7 million."Rather than selling to a developer at the appraised value of $18 (million) to $20 million, we sold it to the town," Eisenberg said yesterday. "Essentially, we're gifting it to the town."A third sister, Alma Tuchman, had initially agreed to the land sale, but eventually pulled out because she wanted to have greater control of the land on which she still lives. The other two have long since moved away. In 2004, a judge ruled Tuchman would retain 12.5 acres.The town now owns 200 acres of contiguous open space, which is bounded in the north by the 91-acre Montgomery Pinetum, on the west by the 75-acre Pomerance property and now on the east by the 31-acre Tuchman parcel.Eisenberg said she believes that at some point, her sister may sell the rest of the land to the town so that it could be added to the inventory."That would be my hope," Eisenberg said.Tuchman could not be reached for comment.The Pomerance and Tuchman properties once belonged to Boy Scouts of America founder Ernest Thompson Seton, who later sold it to banker Maurice Wertheim. Ownership later reverted to Barbara Tuchman, his daughter, who lived on 43 acres, and noted architect Ralph Pomerance, who was married to another daughter, Josephine Alma Wertheim, and owned 75 acres.Through the decades, the land has been popular with town residents, said Eisenberg, who remembered ice skaters taking to the man-made pond Seton had built by damming the Strickland Brook."Back in those old days, everyone would come and skate in the winter," Eisenberg said. "Many, many people know about it. It's a beautiful piece of property."The open space also serves as a sanctuary for native habitat that makes the property ecologically important, officials said."We have a nice diverse habitat," said Brower, who also serves on the town's Conservation Commission. "You've got an open meadow. You've got a wet meadow. You've got the steep slope and within the forest, a bunch of significant white oaks."Though the land is now publicly owned, a few other things must happen before the public can use it. One will be to delineate where the town's property ends and Alma Tuchman's begins so that signs can be placed to inform the public, officials said.Eisenberg's and Mathews' Greenwich lawyer, Michael Jones, also said that an environmental cleanup of flyash from the land is still outstanding. Flyash, once a popular substance used to build horse riding rinks, is considered a toxin and requires an environmental remediation."We're hoping to get the work started in the next month or so," Jones said.
Copyright © 2007, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.

Another new book

2007-09-15T10:19:00.000-04:00

Seton: El joven Ernest

Read it all

Cuando comentamos el primer volumen de Seton, la magnífica serie de Yoshiharu Imaizumi y Jiro Taniguchi, ya adelantamos que la segunda entrega confirmaría a este manga como uno de los mejores de entre los que se publican actualmente en España. La aparición de este volumen, titulado "El joven y el lince", confirma nuestro vaticinio.

Continúan pues, de la mano de Ponent Mon, las aventuras de Ernest Thompson Seton, el caballero inglés de finales del siglo XIX y principios del XX, si bien a lo largo de este tomo se nos cuenta un crucial episodio de su formación como naturalista cuando contaba con tan solo quince años.

Seton included in Exhibition of Cos Cob Artists

2007-09-15T10:11:00.000-04:00

from the Greenwich Post

Sep 7, 2007
Historic site to feature Cos Cob artist illlustrations

This illustration is from 'Tora's Happy Day' by Florence Peltier Perry. It was illustrated by Genjiro Yeto in 1899

A new exhibition, "Once Upon a Page: Illustrations by Cos Cob Artists" will be on display at Bush-Holley Historic Site from Wednesday, Oct. 3 to Sunday, Jan. 6.

A public opening reception will take place on Thursday, October 4 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. Refreshments will be served.

The exhibit will feature more than 90 works, including illustrated books, original drawings and paintings. This is the first exhibition to bring together works by eight artist-illustrators who had an association with the Greenwich area and the Cos Cob art colony from 1890-1920: John Wolcott Adams, George Wharton Edwards, Childe Hassam, Rose Cecil O’Neill, Ernest Thompson Seton, E. Boyd Smith, Jean Webster and Genjiro Yeto.

The exhibition is guest curated by Marilyn Symmes, Director of the Morse Research Center for Graphic Arts, Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum in New Jersey.

American Impressionist John H. Twachtman settled in Greenwich in 1889 and by 1891 began teaching summer art classes at the Holley House, a boardinghouse in Cos Cob owned by Josephine and Edward Holley. Before long, a lively art colony developed around Mr. Twachtman. Known today as Bush-Holley House, the Holley House served as the artistic and intellectual hub for artists, journalists and authors who came to the area from New York and played a major role in the development of American Impressionist art. While this vibrant artist colony flourished, America was also enjoying a golden age of illustration. An unprecedented number of illustrated books and periodicals were produced. Advances in commercial printing and photography gave illustrators more options for replicating their images on the printed page.

The works of the authors and illustrators included in this exhibition cover a broad spectrum of topics from flights of fantasy to discovery of the real world and explorations into the past and present. They also provide insights into American society at the outset of the modern era.

"Once Upon a Page" features works from the William E. Finch Jr. Archives of The Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich as well as loans from Susan G. and James T. Larkin, Robert Russell, the Boston Public Library, the Brandywine River Museum, The Bruce Museum, the Florence Griswold Museum, The New York Public Library, the Wilton Historical Society and Heritage Museum and an anonymous private collector.

The exhibition and catalogue are generously underwritten by The Host Committee of the 75th Anniversary of The Historical Society of the Town of Greenwich and through additional underwriting gifts from Robert C. and Julie Graham, The Overbrook Foundation in honor of the 75th Anniversary and Charles M. and Deborah Royce.

The exhibition is open to the public Tuesday to Sunday, noon to 4. Admission to the gallery, visitor center and Bush-Holley House Museum is $6 adults, $4 seniors and students. Children under 6 are free. Admission is free every Tuesday. Call 869-6899, ext. 10, for more information or visit Hstg.org.

Seton's Wyndygoul Property Now Owned by the Town of Greenwich

2007-09-15T10:05:00.000-04:00

from Greenwich Time

Town takes control of Tuchman property

By Hoa Nguyen
Staff Writer

September 7, 2007

Boy Scouts of America founder Ernest Thompson Seton once owned it and so did two-time Pulitzer-Prize winning author Barbara Tuchman.

Yesterday, the land officially became property of the town of Greenwich for $8.7 million, ending a years-old effort to purchase the 31 acres of pristine meadows, wetlands and forested hillside in Cos Cob.

The town has been eyeing the former Tuchman estate for decades, finally getting past the legal troubles and negotiation that has plagued the sale.

"It's been a long road, but all good things are worth waiting for," Conservation Director Denise Savageau said.

The Tuchman estate dates to the early 20th century when Seton sold the land as part of a larger estate to Tuchman's father, banker Maurice Wertheim, also the former owner of The Nation magazine. Tuchman inherited the property, living there until her death in 1989.

Though her two daughters, Lucy Eisenberg and Jessica Mathews, were willing to sell the land to the town, a third daughter, Alma Tuchman, resisted efforts to relinquish total control of the original 43.5 acres.

About three years ago, a judge ruled that Alma Tuchman would retain 12.5 acres, with the rest going to her two sisters. The town then moved to negotiate with Eisenberg and Mathews for the remaining 31 acres, but more delays ensued after fly ash was discovered in the soil. Though fly ash once was a common material used in the construction of horse riding rinks, it is now considered a toxic pollutant that requires an environmental clean-up.

After more months of negotiation, the town and the two Tuchman sisters finalized the sales agreement and yesterday, the papers transferring ownership of the land were signed, officials said.

First Selectman Jim Lash, who helped negotiate the final deal, is the third first selectman to work on the land purchase, which began during Lolly Prince's administration in 2000. He said his successor will have the job of helping the town determine what the land will be used for.

"I'm trying to leave a little work for the new first selectman," Lash said. "That's the thing that will need to be worked out in the next administration."

While passive recreation, such as hiking, will be one of the primary activities allowed on the land, officials said the town will likely consider other uses, such as for the construction of some affordable housing.

"They're talking about a very limited development and basically limiting the bulk of its use as open space," Savageau said, adding that one of the reasons the town bought the land was so that most of it could be preserved as open space.

"If it was sold commercially, for real estate, it would have been developed very intensively," Savageau said. "That was one of the selling points, to avoid the cost of that intensive residential development."

The Tuchman property is adjacent to other town-owned open space parcels, such as the 75-acre Pomerance property and the 91-acre Montgomery Pinetum.

"This Tuchman property was always this linchpin between the other properties," Savageau said. "There's a whole host of things that we're going to be looking at with this parcel."
Copyright © 2007, Southern Connecticut Newspapers, Inc.

2007-09-02T12:27:00.000-04:00

Wyndygoul War Dance 1908

2007-07-15T10:24:00.000-04:00

Do not miss this photo! http://www.shorpy.com/node/1293

‘Day is done, gone the sun’

2007-05-04T16:12:00.000-04:00

Read it all:
"‘Day is done, gone the sun’
Marian Scott, Montreal Gazette
Published: Sunday, April 29, 2007
Calling all former Camp Oolahwan girls: Its time to brush up on your Boom-da-de-ah-da.
Smores and campfire songs like Land of the Silver Birch will be on tap May 12, when former campers and staff of the now-closed YWCA camp gather at the downtown Womens Y.
Founded in 1917 near Ste. Marguerite, 100 kilometres north of Montreal, Oolahwan was Quebecs first summer camp for girls. It closed in 2004, a victim of rising costs and changing times.

In 1964, Marian Scott, 9, waits for the Camp Oolahwan bus on Crescent St. outside the YWCA.
Marian Scott

In its final decade, Oolahwan accepted boys and offered English immersion for francophones.
In 2005, the Y sold the 345-acre property, including a private lake, for $1.47 million to developers, who have subdivided it into building lots.
Former camper Lesley Charters Cotton, 58, learned two years ago her beloved camp had been sold when she tried to donate photographs to the YWCAs archives. The holistic health teacher in Dorval decided to organize a reunion to keep Oolahwan memories alive."

Muddle House: The Preacher of Cedar Mountain

2007-05-04T16:05:00.000-04:00

Muddle House: The Preacher of Cedar Mountain: "The Preacher of Cedar Mountain
I paid two bucks for a single page of writing the other day. This page.

'A burnt, bare, seared, and wounded spot in the great pine forest of Ontario, some sixty miles northeast of Toronto, was the little town of Links. It lay among the pine ridges, the rich, level bottomlands, and the newborn townships, in a region of blue lakes and black loam that was destined to be a thriving community of prosperous farmer folk. The broad, unrotted stumps of trees that not so long ago possessed the ground, were thickly interstrewn among the houses of the town and in the little fields that began to show as angular invasions of the woodland, one by every settler's house of logs.

'Through the woods and through the town there ran the deep, brown flood of the little bog-born river, and streaking its current for the whole length were the huge, fragrant logs of the new-cut pines, in disorderly array, awaiting their turn to be shot through the mill and come forth as piles of lumber, broad waste slabs, and heaps of useless sawdust.'

I looked at the faded green volume in my hand, with an uncertain $2.00 written on the first page, as if the people running the tiny booksale weren't sure that anyone would pay that much for a worn hardback printed in 1920. That first page was enough to convince me. If you can read that, and not understand why, then I have no use for you. If you do, then you can pick up cheap copys of 'The Preacher of Cedar Mountain' by Ernest Thompson Seton at amazon.com.

Now, to read the entire book."

Woodcraft in Poland: Who's Who - Ernest Thomas Seton - The Woodcraft Movement

2007-05-04T16:02:00.000-04:00

Woodcraft in Poland: Who's Who - Ernest Thomas Seton - The Woodcraft Movement: "Woodcraft in Poland
Welcome to my blog about Woodcraft in Poland. It documents my activities out in the woods along with various ideas, reviews and pieces of research. If you are a like minded person check out the links below or leave a comment. It's great to meet more people interested in this kind of thing or just those who want to look at pictures of the Polish countryside! Currently this blog is only in English as I'm not really up to writing in coherent Polish yet. "

I discovered this blog from Poland...

Ernest Hemingway: Another Seton Fan

2007-03-25T20:43:00.000-04:00

The following essay, published in The Hemingway Review, documents Seton's influence n Hemingway. Read the whole essay at www.highbeam.com

INDIANS, WOODCRAFT, AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF WHITE MASCULINITY: THE BOYHOOD OF NICK ADAMS (1).(Critical Essay)
From: The Hemingway Review Date: September 22, 2000 Author: HELSTERN, LINDA LIZUT

Given Hemingway's personal interest in Ernest Thompson Seton's writing, and his familiarity with the tenets of Seton's hugely popular youth organization, the Woodcraft Indians, it is not surprising that the Nick Adams stories frame the discourse of boyhood in terms of the discourse of the Indian, or more specifically the Woodcraft Indian. Hemingway's stories showcase the progressive evolutionist philosophy of the Woodcraft Movement, echoing Seton's notions of the evils of assimilation for Indians and the import of "reverse assimilation" for whites.
INDIANS, TO USE THE COMMON BUT PROBLEMATIC TERM, captured Ernest Hemingway's imagination at a very early age. His first full sentence--"`I don't know Buffalo Bill'"--was duly recorded by his mother in 1901. He would soon assert, "`I not a Dutch dolly, I Pawnee Bill. Bang. I shoot Fweetee'" (cited in Baker 4-5). The little boy, who also acted out scenes from Longfellow's Hiawatha with his sister in the role of Minnehaha, had already seen his first wild west show--Pawnee Bill's Historical Wild West and Indian Exposition--by the time he was two (Baker 4-5). The fantasy of becoming "the White Chief of the Pawnees" was one the young Hemingway undoubtedly shared with many of his generation, for the number of Wild West shows touring as family entertainment reached its all-time high in the first years of the 20th century (Russell 11, 68). Here, in fictional re-creations of the Mountain Meadows Massacre and the massacre at Wounded Knee, Indians were both the savage enemy and, with their values but not their warrior instincts restructured, scouts who joined the cavalry to save civilization from the Indians (Russell 53).
Given their mass audience appeal, it is perhaps not surprising to find Indians at the heart of the decade's purported solution to the "boy problem": in prototypical American youth organizations, Indians were formally implicated in the construction of white masculinity. Hemingway follows the trend of American popular culture when in the Nick Adams stories he frames the discourse of boyhood in terms of the discourse of the Indian. Indians appear as major characters in four of Hemingway's canonical short stories--"Indian Camp," "The Doctor and the Doctor's Wife," "Ten Indians," and "Fathers and Sons"--all stories of the very young Nick Adams or his very young son. And in "The Light of the World," the only other story published during Hemingway's lifetime where Indians appear, the putative Nick admits to being just seventeen (SS 387).
The idea of turning American youth into American Indians, but only "the best Indians," was conceived by naturalist and writer Ernest Thompson Seton in 1901, the same year Hemingway saw Pawnee Bill, "the White Chief of the Pawnees." Determined to protect his estate in Cos Cob, Connecticut and its wildlife from marauding teenagers, Seton invited the local boys for a weekend of camping. They readily embraced Seton's offer to teach them Indian ways, and so began both the restructuring of their personal values and the Woodcraft League of America. In 1902, Seton began to refine his idea in a series of monthly columns for the Ladies Home Journal called "Ernest Thompson Seton's Boys," directed primarily at readers under the age of fourteen (Keller 163-65; Seton, July 1902, 17). By 1910, when the Boy Scouts of America was incorporated, the Woodcraft Indians enjoyed a nationwide membership of 100,000 and had already become the basis for Robert Baden Powell's British Boy Scouts, as well as several American boys' organizations (Keller 169-70).(1)
Seton originally targeted boys between twelve and twenty for the Woodcraft Indians. Tribes were run democratically with the assistance of older boys, who could become Guides at age eighteen, and adult advisors, known first as "Medicine Men" and later as "Head Guides" (Seton, Manual 10-11; Seton, Woodcraft 20). Seton formulated his original program of activities in consultation with Dr. Charles Eastman, a Lakota graduate of the Boston University Medical School (Keller 164). One of the most visible examples of the "civilized Indian" and a prime spokesmen for Indian assimilation into white culture, in 1902 Eastman published his first book, Indian Boyhood. A testament to Eastman's pride in his Lakota heritage, the book had already been serialized in St. Nicholas: An Illustrated Magazine for Young Folks (Wilson 131).(2)
Although no evidence suggests that Ernest Hemingway was a member of the Woodcraft Indians, his personal library did include the 1917 edition of Seton's organizational bible, The Woodcraft Manual for Boys,(3) and the 1918 British pamphlet, Woodcraft, in which Seton and unnamed editors delineated the progressive evolutionist philosophy of child development at the heart of the Woodcraft movement (Reynolds 180-81).(4) The date of the manual may be significant. In 1917, Hemingway could have qualified as a Guide, although ultimately, it was his sister Marcelline who, as a Camp Fire leader in the early 1920s, would follow her father and grandfather's footsteps in youth work (National Portrait Gallery).
Altogether, Hemingway owned six individual titles by Ernest Thompson Seton, published between 1909 and 1921, and a set of collected works published in 1927 as The Library of Pioneering and Woodcraft. The total ranks Seton among Hemingway's favorite writers, a company including Turgenev, Mark Twain, Ezra Pound, and naturalist William Henry Hudson. Hemingway's books by Seton span the range of his writing--children's fiction, animal lore, and practical woodcraft--and together provide important insight into the anti-nationalist and anti-materialist value structure that grounded the Woodcraft organization. Seton's philosophy, placing true civilization in the realm of the primitive, is most succinctly stated in his signed Preface to the 1915 edition of The Woodcraft Manual: "It was Woodcraft that originally constructed man out of brutish material, and Woodcraft may well save him from decay" (v).

Read it all at www.HighBeam.com

ETS in The Moscow Times

2007-03-25T20:29:00.000-04:00

References to Ernest Thompson Seton show up in the oddest places, such as this commentary in The Moscow Times:

The Moscow Times (Russia)02-24-2004URL: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/The naturalist and writer Ernest Thompson Seton ascribed humanthoughts to the mustang; James Fenimore Cooper portrayed his Leatherstockingas a fashionable gentleman; and today Western intellectuals attempt tojudge how far Russia has progressed down the path of democracy during VladimirPutin's first term as president. Of them all, Seton was closest to themark. The problem arises when stock phrases and concepts are applied out ofcontext. There is an old Soviet joke about a Chukchi man in the northerntundra who encounters a group of geologists. He asks them what an orangeis like. The geologists, unsure how to describe an orange to someone whohas never seen one, reply that oranges are like sex. The Chukchi is satisfiedwith the answer. But what does he really know about oranges? Probably noless than the credit ratings agency Moody's knows about Russia. In his four years at the helm, Putin has neither steered Russia towardor away from democracy -- he has been operating in another dimension altogether.In the Soviet era, there arose dynasties of "caretakers" who controlledthe property of the state but never owned it and could not pass it on totheir heirs. In the late 1980s, these caretakers began to seize ownershipof their factories and companies. They were joined by the so- called youngreformers, both those, like Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Vladimir Potanin andBoris Berezovsky, who had previously worked within the Soviet system, andthe kingpins of the semi-criminal Soviet black market. To Our ReadersHas something you've read here startled you? Are you angry, excited,puzzled or pleased? Do you have ideas to improve our coverage? Then pleasewrite to us. All we ask is that you include your full name, the name ofthe city from which you are writing and a contact telephone number in casewe need to get in touch. We look forward to hearing from you. Email the Opinion Page Editor The general public, fed on myths and theexpectation of miracles, remained mute and submissive spectators, especiallyafter 1993, when hundreds of people fed up with the catastrophic declineof their standard of living were gunned down by tanks and special forcestroops. When he assumed de facto power in August 1999, Putin set about tryingto bring order to the system that he had inherited, to make it more durableand manageable. But the system itself, in essence, remained the same: acentralized feudal state. The role of feudal lords is played by governors and big businessmen towhom the president grants the land and/or entire industries that they "feedoff" or build their business empires on. In exchange, the lords furnishthe Kremlin with their loyalty and with resources: financial (not onlyin the form of taxes), electoral and so on. On the governors' home turf and within the oligarchs' corporations,they wield absolute power. There is no independent judiciary, no representativedemocracy and there are no institutions of civil society whatsoever. Noindependent press or even an independent church can threaten them. Putin not only strengthened his hold over the feudal lords, he alsostrengthened their hold on power in the regions and in the economy. Thisprocess began under Boris Yeltsin, but in the 1990s rivalries between thelords created an impression of pluralism because of feudal fragmentation(you had oligarchs pitted against governors, governors against the mayorsof big cities, etc.). Putin "appointed" as the victors of the various conteststhose who would have triumphed in any case, but now they owe the presidenta debt of gratitude. The Putin regime's only innovation was to begin getting rid ofdisloyal lords. The arrest of Khodorkovsky is a case in point, and typicallyit has nothing to do with the market, democracy or anything along thoselines. Predictably, the power structure in Moscow is similar to that in thefiefs. Consolidation of the "federal" authorities is taking place, withdiscipline and order being bolstered. The courts, renowned for their dispensationof justice to all and sundry on a per-fee basis, increasingly deny accessto a whole range of cases, citing the oversight role played by the FSB.On the whole, the institution of corruption in Russia has becomeclearer and more straightforward during Putin's first term. The corruptiontax is a known quantity, no cause for alarm. Bribe-takers generally fulfilltheir obligations to the bribe-givers. This system doesn't really meritthe label of corruption, since in feudal society the practice of gettingfat off one's position and home territory is absolutely normal, prestigiousand patriarchal. It should provoke no outrage -- of the moral variety atany rate. State Duma deputies, who used to sell their votes on a retail basis,are now mobilized wholesale. The Federation Council, once a hotbed of rebelliouslords, was crushed early in Putin's reign and is now little more than acollection of mini-embassies whose task is to provide constant proof ofthe lords' loyalty (and to do a little lobbying on the side). Not long ago, the oligarchs used their financial clout to installministers in the cabinet. Now the presidential administration has the finalsay and money plays a secondary role. Until recently, the military top brass in Chechnya were lining theirpockets as and when they could, slowly turning into a business corporationof generals. But now the process is strictly supervised: Defense MinisterSergei Ivanov, a personal friend and trusted ally of the president, keepsan eye on the army. Putin, as in other spheres, is not looking for a majorbreakthrough here -- just control of the situation. For the army, which since tsarist times has despised "politicalgendarmes," having one at the helm is not great, of course; but on theother hand, Ivanov is not repressing the generals -- he's just keepinga beady eye on them and assessing their loyalty. The army just conducteda major military exercise to test its readiness to fight a third worldwar and in that scenario Russia promptly lost, but that's OK so long asthe army remains loyal to the sovereign. It used to be the case that the press would compete to get storiesfirst, and it covered everything, because if Berezovsky's television stationdidn't report something, Vladimir Gusinsky's would. In the kaleidoscopeworld of the feudal information wars, the situation changed so quicklythat even the journalists on the front line didn't fully understand whatwas happening. Now order has been imposed here as well. Putin answeredhis subjects' questions for hours during a recent live broadcast, and noone -- not a single person -- brought up the war in Chechnya. Everyoneseemed more interested in the president's new puppies. No one asked aboutKhodorkovsky, either -- but then again, he didn't whelp. And after therecent explosion in the Moscow metro, Rossia television channel kept quietabout the fact for several hours, apparently awaiting the green light fromabove. All these signs of the new feudal stability are cause for concern inthe West. But Russia's ruling elite dismisses all the talk about democracyin Washington and Strasbourg as a Western whim -- a peculiar rule of thegame that, like the rule against kicking and punching below the belt inboxing, merely reduces the effectiveness of potential cooperation. Moreover,such whims are seen as the manifestation of Western hypocrisy. And whilethe Russian elite is prepared to adopt Western political correctness aswindow-dressing, such hypocritical rituals (which, in the elite's view,merely conceal the universal drive for power and wealth) should not beallowed to obscure certain basic facts. 1) The West needs Russian resources; 2) it will be allowed to acquirethem only through Kremlin-appointed middlemen, such as Alfa Group PresidentMikhail Fridman, the middleman for BP; 3) these middlemen are Kremlin vassalsand can be replaced -- their relationship with the Kremlin is not somethingforeigners should stick their noses into; 4) no one will be allowed todo business in Russia based simply on the rules of the much- ballyhooed"free market"; 5) the methods used to achieve internal stability are theprerogative of Russia's rulers -- no outside interference will be tolerated.This system is easy to understand and actually very convenient. Justthink, you have arrived in a strange country and everything is new andconfusing; in fact, the country resembles a lunatic asylum. Calling onthe patients to stand up for their rights in this situation would be metwith incredulity. All you need to do is get to know the director of theasylum and he will assign someone to smooth the way for you. Once in awhile you may pity the patients, but don't overdo it: You came here tomake money, after all, didn't you? Yet even if you've come to Russia for no other reason than to make abuck, and even if your working relationship with the "director of the asylum"suits your purpose, you face very real dangers. These dangers arise from the huge disgruntled mass of Russians whoconsider themselves to be poor. They live inertly and almost without strongemotion. They are perfectly happy that Putin is whacking the "blacks" inthe Caucasus and the "Jewish oligarchs" in Moscow. These masses will notrise up on their own -- they will allow Putin to be their leader untilsuch time as new leaders take his place. And those new leaders very likelywill come from the ranks of the Russian middle class so beloved in theWest. They are just coming into being and their numbers are limited. Theyinhabit a semi-criminal world, paying backhanders to the local cops, firedepartment, bureaucrats et al. They keep their earnings off the books andlive without much hope of surviving to see another day. They hate the oligarchsand people from the Caucasus for entirely practical reasons. The oligarchsbuy off the government and don't even pay taxes, while the middle classespay both taxes and bribes, and are forced to register their companies underthe name of the local prefect's relative. People from the Caucasus, fortheir part, with their tight-knit ethno-corporate communities, have a hugeadvantage over the isolated and uncoordinated Russian small and medium-sizedbusinessmen. And Putin, consciously or unconsciously, is sending these people tacitsigns of approval by his policy in Chechnya, the incarceration of Gusinskyand then Khodorkovsky. Whatever the president may have had in mind, themiddle class interprets his actions as National Socialist and fascist innature. The middle class is the only section of the population capable ofbuilding the social institutions that Russia needs. Only the middle classis passionate enough in its desire to free itself from the yoke of thebureaucracy's feudal lords to mobilize the passive, abused masses. Butthe middle class is being led down a blind alley by a president who seemsconcerned with nothing but his own approval ratings. Sergei Dorenko contributed this comment to The Moscow Times.WORLDSOURCES ONLINE, INC.,

Dreams that Open Doors - Pablita Velarde

2007-02-22T11:55:00.000-05:00

Elizabeth Cook-Romero I The New Mexican February 15, 2007

A young woman in two worlds Some biographies of Pablita Velarde (1918-2006) say she was only 19 when a stranger knocked on her door, offering her a job creating paintings of Pueblo life for a visitor center that was under construction at Bandelier National Monument. A few biographies say Velarde was 20. Either way, she had already packed a lot of experiences into her short life. A New Deal for Tse Tsan: Pablita Velarde at Bandelier opens at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture on Sunday, Feb. 18. The exhibit features almost 70 of the more than 84 paintings Velarde made for the park through the Works Projects Administration (the successor to the Works Progress Administration) between 1939 and 1945.Velarde was born in Santa Clara Pueblo in 1918. Her grandmother acted as midwife and named the infant Tse Tsan, but that name would change when she left the pueblo. Tsan’s mother died when Tsan was about 5 years old, and her father brought his four daughters to St. Catherine Indian School in Santa Fe. That’s where Tsan’s name changed to Pablita Velarde.

At the end of each school year the girls’ father would return to Santa Fe and bring them home for the summer, so Velarde learned to live within two starkly different cultures as she grew into a woman. In the sixth grade she transferred to Santa Fe Indian School, where Dorothy Dunn taught painting to Native American boys. Girls were taught crafts like basket weaving and embroidery, but Velarde wanted to paint. In a Living Treasures of Santa Fe interview in 1988, Velarde recalled asking Dunn if she could join the painting class. “It seemed like maybe if one girl started, other girls will come in too. ... Oh, those boys were so mean! Honestly, I thought that first month I was gonna quit, you know, ’cause they teased me, they made fun of what I was doing, and — you know? — and poked fun at me because I wanted to be an artist and all that kind of stuff. They said, ‘You do better washing dishes or washing clothes or scrubbing floors.’”Velarde’s father held the same view as the boys, and for a year and a half he took her out of the Indian School and enrolled her in a school in Española where he hoped she would learn more useful skills. “I walked the two miles every day to school, you know, from Santa Clara to Española. And I did take bookkeeping and shorthand and typing, but somehow I just never applied too good at that. ... I wanted to go back to the Indian School, you know, and take up my painting again.”Velarde did return to the Indian School and Dunn’s painting classes. By the time she graduated in 1936, Velarde had spent more than 10 years at boarding schools. There was no market for Native American painting, so Velarde took a job cleaning tourist cabins in Pecos. She moved to Dulce and worked awhile scrubbing hospital floors and emptying bedpans. She returned to Santa Clara to work as an assistant teacher at a Bureau of Indian Affairs day school. She painted at night and occasionally sold her paintings under the portal at the Palace of the Governors for a dollar each.The teaching job ended, and Velarde was hired as a live-in nanny by Ernest Thompson Seton, one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America, and his wife, Julia Moses Buttree Seton, author of The Rhythm of the Redman. With the Setons, Velarde traveled to Colorado, Nebraska, New York, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. “Then I thought, well, I think I had enough of travel and the baby, so I thinkI’ll go back home,” Velarde said during the 1988 interview. She was only back in Santa Clara for three to five weeks when Dale King from the National Park Service knocked on her door. “There stood this nice-looking man, just smiling at me, and he said, ‘Are you Pablita Velarde?’ And I said, ‘Un huh.’ And he looked at me, ’cause, you know, I looked like The Grapes of Wrath — dusty and everything. And he said, ‘Are you an artist?’ And I said, ‘I don’t know.’”The next day King returned to the pueblo and drove Velarde to Bandelier. She stayed for six months; at night she slept in a garage. Then the National Park Service’s art funding ran out, and she returned to Santa Clara. Over the next five years she returned to Bandelier whenever King had money to hire her. King cut and primed the panels Velarde painted on, sometimes cutting the figures she had designed out of masonite. In 1988, Velarde told her interviewers,“It’s sad now, because the backgroundpaint that Dale used is now so dry after 40-something years, you know, it’s so dry now that it’s peeling off the masonite, and it’s flaking off my paintings as it goes off. So they took most of the paintings and put them in storage.”The Bandelier commission was a big break, but it didn’t mean the young artist could make a living from painting. When the WPA money ran out, Velarde moved to Albuquerque and worked as a switchboard operator. Years later she would begin to win major awards for her painting, and she would write and illustrate the children’s book Old Father Story-Teller, which would make her art known around the world. But in 1945, Velarde was just a woman working in an Albuquerque federal building. When Velarde’s paintings were installed in the 1940s, they were tacked or screwed to the visitor-center walls, said Gary Roybal, museum technician and archivist at Bandelier. Velarde created them to support the main exhibits, which were taken down in the late 1970s and early ’80s. At that time many of her paintings were matted and framed behind glass and put into storage. Only four or five paintings, including Governor Greets the Tourists, needed extensive restoration, and during recent years the Friends of Bandelier paid for that work. Paintings of everyday experiencesMost of the paintings Velarde made for the visitor center at Bandelier are included in the exhibit, but the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture has an Indian Advisory Panel that found a few of Velarde’s subjects too sensitive. “Times change and politics change; during the 1960s Native Americans started to get involved in movements to protect their sovereignty and culture,” said Shelby Tisdale, the museum’s director and curator of A New Deal for Tse Tsan. “Since the 1980s we have been working with tribal members to make sure art is presented in a respectful way.” The main reason works were not included, Tisdale continued, was for lack of space, but the museum declined to borrow at least four paintings because they might violate religious sensitivities. A three-story Pueblo home with one missing wall fills the left side of Velarde’s Pueblo Home Life. A kiva, a woman baking bread in a traditional outdoor oven, a tree-lined irrigation canal, another multistory building with its walls intact, and a structure under construction fill the rest of the painting. The National Park Service hoped that Velarde’s paintings of ceremonies and everyday life in a contemporary pueblo would help tourists understand the civilization that once existed at Bandelier, Tisdale said. Velarde carefully recorded differences in the outfits worn by members of different pueblos; crafts like drum-making, basket weaving, and silverwork; a rabbit hunt; corn grinding; and the drying of meat. Governor Greets the Tourists, the image the museum has used on much of the publicity for the exhibit, shows the pueblo’s governor holding one hand up near a car with Anglo passengers. Indians stand on rooftops facing into the pueblo’s plaza — a common sight during ceremonial dances. The painting used to be interpreted as an Indian governor telling tourists the pueblo was closed because of a ceremony. But now the painting has been reinterpreted, leaving the impression that the governor is welcomingthe tourists.Velarde painted a horse roundup in a desert landscape with stepped mesas silhouetted against a clear-blue sky. Scrubby plants and rocks recede into the distance, creating an austere Southwestern version of the flower-strewn landscapes depicted in Persian miniatures. One horse has his head pressed to a tough-looking scrub; another appears to be munching on the pointy leaves of a yucca.Some of the smallest paintings in A New Deal are extraordinary; Velarde made tiny casein studies of New Mexican fauna and flora. Her paintings of bears, mountain lions, and bald eagles show a familiarity with the living animals. Velarde’s creatures are not always anatomically correct, yet they embody the power of living beings. A geometric border frames each piece.Her plant studies are masterpieces of composition; an ear of brilliant-blue corn is perfectly balanced by an elaborate yellow tassel and a second ear of corn still in its husk. The colors in some plant portraits have faded, and because the paint was thickest where Velarde’s brush first touched the masonite, those places have faded less, and we can now see the calligraphy of each stroke. A New Deal is saturated with evidence of Velarde’s sensitive attention to detail. She painted the Corn Dance, the Buffalo Dance, and the Taos Pueblo feast-day pole-climbing ceremony from memory. “I read that oftentimes she dreamed these paintings,” Tisdale said. “This commission had to be a life-changing experience for her. The door opened and she walked through it. And it changed her life.”

Animals That Are Also Verbs

2007-01-22T14:20:00.000-05:00

I love this stuff. Seton is quoted in the full article.

This is just for fun — a bit like the puzzles I regularly post, but more open-ended.
I was walking over the bridge over the river Cam one day when it hit me: the verb ‘duck’ is related to the noun ‘duck’! Ducks hunt for food by ducking under the water! It shocked me that I’d never noticed the relation between these two words before. I wondered which came first: the animal or the verb. Did people call these birds ‘ducks’ because they duck under the water, or did they invent the verb ‘duck’ after watching what ducks do?
More generally: which other names of animals are also verbs?

Find it all here.

http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/category/2007/01/animals_that_are_also_verbs.html

Woodland Walk

2007-01-06T14:22:00.000-05:00

This essay contains the following memory of reading Wild Animals I Have Known as a child... (from nj.com)

Moving along the woodland path, I see a rotted tree stump. It is in the final stages of decay, provid ing a winter home for a hibernating ground hog and countless insect residents. That old stump once supported a huge Norway Maple. I recall Joyce Kilmer's classic poem as I pass by:

A tree that may in summer wear, a nest of robins in her hair ...

And indeed it did. I remember the boy who climbed up to its farthest limits, and in his curiosity, caused the limb to spill out four blue eggs. I remember how pangs of conscience pained him for his terrible deed; albeit an accident.

That old stump once supported the tree I used to sit under as I read "Wild Animals I Have Known" and many of the other wonderful wildlife stories of Ernest Thompson Seton.

Read it all at http://www.nj.com/living/times/community/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1168060142299560.xml&coll=5

TheStar.com - The land serves as writer's muse

2006-12-07T02:22:00.000-05:00

TheStar.com - The land serves as writer's muse: "

The land serves as writer's muse
Like the Canadian explorers and diarists before him, Seán Virgo lets his surroundings shape his writing
Dec. 4, 2006. 06:30 AM
SUSAN WALKER

Sitting in the stone-tiled kitchen of his publisher's Rosedale home, relaxing in customary jeans and pullover, Seán Virgo does not look out of place. But this is a man whose natural habitat is the natural habitat.
You can see him in his element, walking over the ridges near his home in Eastend, Sask., striding up a prairie highway, or wandering through tall grasslands in a recent 13-part series, Middle of Somewhere, for the Saskatchewan Communications Network. Virgo both wrote and hosted the series, an exploration of his adopted province.
You can also find the landscapes that make up his life on the pages of Begging Questions (Exile Editions), Virgo's new book of short stories. Or, should you be so fortunate as to spend a bit of time with him, you can hear about them in his conversation.
Behind this author of a dozen books of poetry and fiction you can imagine a line of Canadian writers devoted to the land — from the early explorers, like Jacques Cartier and David Thompson who captured it in their journals, to the settler sisters Susanna Moodie and Catherine Parr Traill, Charles G.D. Roberts, Ernest Thompson Seton, Grey Owl and, in our own age, Roderick Haig-Brown and Farley Mowat.
In fact, a book Virgo edited, The Eye in the Thicket, is an anthology of co"

Rock Piles: Hunter's Signs - an illustration by Ernest Seton Thompson

2006-12-07T02:01:00.000-05:00

Rock Piles: Hunter's Signs - an illustration by Ernest Seton Thompson: "Hunter's Signs - an illustration by Ernest Seton Thompson
A favorite childhood author had this page (reprinted in the 'Big Book of Country Living' p.162) illustrating what he called 'Hunter's Signs'. Although he was writing mostly about plains Indians, I think it is clear that this is one type of rock-on-rock usage.
posted by pwax at 1:22 PM "

Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson Papers, 1903-1940 : Biographical/Historical Note

2006-12-04T21:46:00.000-05:00

Grace Gallatin Seton-Thompson Papers, 1903-1940 : Biographical/Historical Note: "Grace Gallatin was born in Sacramento, California on January 28, 1872. In 1888 she began writing articles for San Francisco newspapers under the pen name of Dorothy Dodge, and in 1892 graduated from Packer Collegiate Institute, in Brooklyn, NY. She married Ernest Thompson Seton in 1896, a founder of the Boy Scouts of America. Their daughter Ann (known as 'Anya') was born in 1904. Active for women's rights, Grace Seton served as vice president and president of the Connecticut Woman's Suffrage Association (1910-20), was president of Pen and Brush (1898-1939), and with her husband, helped to organize the Girl Pioneers (later the Camp Fire Girls) in 1910. During World War I, she organized and directed a women's motor unit to aid soldiers in France. She was President of the National League of Pen Women from 1926 to 1928 and from 1930 to 1932. She helped organize an international conference of women writers at the Century of Progress Exposition in 1933 and arranged an exhibit of 3,000 books by women, which later became the core of the Biblioteca Femina at Northwestern University. In the 1920s and 1930s Seton visited Japan, China, Indochina, Hawaii, Egypt and Latin American and later wrote books about her travels, including A Woman Tenderfoot (1900) and A Woman Tenderfoot in Egypt (1923), Chinese Lanterns (1924), Yes, Lady Saheb (1925). Seton divorced in 1935. In the 1940s she followed Yogananda, traveling to his ashrams. She died in Palm Beach, Florida, March 19, 1959."

Life Traces: Raitt

2006-12-04T21:38:00.000-05:00

The Setons at Home: Organizing a Family Biography
Lucinda H. MacKethanDepartment of EnglishNorth Carolina State University
Houses are some of America's greatest storytellers and function in any culture as powerful social symbols. The double meaning of "House," which Edgar Allan Poe understood so well when he wrote his classic story "The Fall of the House of Usher," demonstrates how the house-as-structure in its physical design can become a telling statement of identity, taste, class, place, training, and heritage. In terms of semiotics, the study of sign systems and the conventions governing their interactions, the house as "form" signals the symbolic as well as genealogical ligatures of family. Poe was able with great economy in his story to expose and explore one man's full life through intertwining descriptions of Usher's family lineage and the residence in which he dwelled. The linguistic association of House with Nation-State is another significant nineteenth century usage to consider, as when Abraham Lincoln, in 1858, presented in simple domestic terms his nation's terrible dilemma: "A house divided against itself cannot stand." Across the Atlantic, in 1860, the year that saw the United States reach the last stage of its unalterable dividedness before the cataclysm of war, Ernest Thompson Seton was born in the rugged Northumberland region of England. Forty years later he was well on his way to becoming a standard bearer of a new American century at its supremely confident beginning. To frame the story of the Seton family in America -- father Ernest, mother Grace, and daughter Anya -- through the houses that they themselves built between 1900 and 1951, is to have a way to contain, to "house" so to speak, their lives -- geographically, psychologically, and socially - as successful writers, as prominent American personalities, and as a complex and ultimately failed family.
Life Traces: Raitt

The Quest for Buffalo Wind

2006-11-28T23:31:00.000-05:00

Collectors of Seton memorabilia are an interesting group.. It isn’t really clear how big the universe of Seton collectors really is. Of course, there are lots of people who collect Scout memorabilia and as one of the founders of the Boy Scouts of America and one who greatly influenced the development of Scouting worldwide, for some, Seton material stands alongside Baden-Powell and Dan Beard material as some of Scouting’s most sought-after memorabilia. And some of Scouting’s most avid collectors are members of the Order of the Arrow. Since Seton’s ideas clearly influenced the founders of the Order, many Arrowmen have a special interest in Seton.

Still, it isn’t very clear how many hard-core Seton collectors there are. (One person who is one of the very elite group who generate their income from matters related to Seton calls them “Setonistas.” We sort of know each other. Many have bid against each other. We may know each other better by our eBay handles than by our real names. Among others, we know that Seton remains enormously popular in Japan.

For me, Buffalo Wind was the Holy Grail of Seton collecting. Buffalo Wind was published in 1938. It was a small booklet, a pamphlet really, printed by the Seton Village Press, set by Maurice Taylor in the Press’s characteristic Lydian type. It was bund in buffalo hide, probably by Marceil Taylor, Maurice’s wife and partner in operating the Seton Village Press.

What made Buffalo Wind special was two things. One is its very small quantity – 200 signed and numbered copies. The other is its spiritually autobiographical content.

I have been something of a Seton collector for a long, long time. To one degree or another, over 30 years, and pretty seriously for the past 15 years. And I have chase Buffalo Wind all over the country. I have traveled regularly on business for years and have made a hobby of spending idle time on the road looking through used and antiquarian bookstores.

The internet has, of course, radically changed the business of collecting anything. I like to tell people that one thing the internet, both Google and eBay, has clarified is rarity., Things that I once thought very rare and that I was therefore willing to spend heavily for are now readily available on eBay auctions or on such websites as ABE Books. Others that I might not have thought of as particularly rare seldom ever com available.

For example, one book I thought was pretty rare was one of Serton’s last published works, Santana Hero Dog of France. It was, at least theoretically, an edition of 500 with 300 signed by Seton. Today, it shows up on eBay with regularity and several copies are usually available through ABE Books. Dee Seton Barber later told me that she had had boxes of Santana and had given them away over the years.

Buffalo Wind, on the other hand was rare before the internet and still rare today.

My family knew of my quest for Buffalo Wind and all sorts of people,. Most with only the most casual interest in Seton, have helped me in the search.

In the pre-eBay, “bulletin boiard world of the internet, I found it for sale once, but was too late.

I have seen it on eBay approximately four times.

I have a strong memory of being in Denver on a business trip in days long before ubiquitous broad band in hotels, trying to bid on a copy of Buffalo Wind. I wasn’t exactly outbid, I just couldn’t bid very fast and the auction closed. My trail had taken me close to Buffalo Wind, but the trail became cold again.

One day, I again found it on eBay, this time being sold by a Tulsa book dealer. At this particular point in time, I felt financially stable enough to bid aggressively and, thankfully, broad band internet had found its way to our casa. It was an exciting auction close and I was successful. I quickly sent payment, although I felt guilty about how much I’d spent. (My wife has been very supportive in this quest.. She owns a Seton rarity in its own right – a hand-colored copy of the Indian Costume Book. That is also one of the most collectible Seton items.)

It is a funny feeling when a 10 + year pursuit comes to a close. All of my family was excited. When the package arrived, we made an event of it. The family gathered around and I sat in “Dad’s Chair” in the living room.

To set the stage, I read the description of Buffalo Wind from Bulletin in Bold Letters, Maurice Taylor’s book about the Seton Village Press.

Then I opened the package and carefully examined the contents. I quickly became concerned. This copy of Buffalo Wind was not bound in buffalo hide. And it was neither signed by Ernest Thompson Seton nor numbered.

I felt sick. Not only was it clear that the quest for Buffalo Wind was not over as I had thought, but I had spent a lot of money on the wrong thing. Lots of questions crossed my mind, including, at least briefly, “Have I been defrauded?”

Then I picked back up my copy of Bulletin Bold Letters and read Taylor’s account of the proofs he had made of Buffalo Wind. He says there no more than 25.

I examined my copy of Buffalo Wind and quickly discovered that my copy was one of those proofs. And while Maurice Taylor said there may have been 25, I am unaware of any in the hands of a collector of even a museum, including Philmont. I felt a little funny still that I really didn’t have the Buffalo Wind that I had been seeking, but I did have something that was very rare. After we all calmed down, we were happy with the addition to our library’s Seton collection, but we All knew that the quest would continue.

That was six or seven years ago. I did not catch the scent of Buffalo Wind again until a couple of weeks ago. A copy showed up on eBay. The buffalo hide cover was very worn and a binding string was broken. Nevertheless, I chose to bid. And I won. I got it for a lot less than my other copy, but at least I will have a “real” copy of Buffalo Wind.

Is my quest over? I won’t know until I actually see what I’ve got. But, if this copy is in really bad shape, I will keep looking.

Isn’t that what collectors do?

Reckonings: a journal of justice, hope and history: Annie Dillard on Silence

2006-11-26T12:03:00.000-05:00

Reckonings: a journal of justice, hope and history: Annie Dillard on Silence

The New Mexican, In brief, 11/14/2006

2006-11-26T11:59:00.000-05:00

In brief, 11/14/2006: "By THE NEW MEXICAN
November 14, 2006
Seton Castle plans still in limbo

A year after a fire destroyed Seton Castle, its owner doesn't know what will be rebuilt on the site south of Santa Fe.

Ernest Thompson Seton, a naturalist who founded the Boy Scouts of America and the Woodcraft League, built the 32-room, 6,900-square-foot house between 1934 and 1946.

In 2003, a nonprofit called the Academy for the Love of Learning bought the Seton Village house from Seton's daughter, put its artworks, books and other materials in storage and began a renovation. On Nov. 15, 2005, a fire left only a few walls of the dwelling standing.

The academy's education resource coordinator, Donato Jaggers, said Monday that he continues to work with the insurance company over the settlement.

'Something will be built out there,' he said. 'We don't know exactly what it is at this point, and we can't exactly say when we're going to start because we don't know when this insurance process is going to be finished.'"

KOBTV.com - Plans for Santa Fe’s Seton Castle undetermined

2006-11-26T11:56:00.000-05:00

KOBTV.com - Plans for Santa Fe’s Seton Castle undetermined

NEWS RELEASE/NOVEMBER 8, 2006 ACADEMY FOR THE LOVE OF LEARNING

2006-11-08T14:40:00.000-05:00

NEWS RELEASE/NOVEMBER 8, 2006
ACADEMY FOR THE LOVE OF LEARNING

The Academy for the Love of Learning in Santa Fe is pleased to announce the opening of an on-line exhibition of images by Ernest Thompson Seton. You can visit it at:

www.aloveoflearning.org/setonart.php

From our collection of hundreds of Seton’s artworks, curator and scholar David L. Witt has selected forty-five works on paper and three paintings. Seton’s remarkable career as a writer, social innovator, and naturalist is beautifully illustrated by the work in this collection which includes his first Canadian drawings, student work, and animal characters, as well as birds, mammals, and woodcraft design illustrations from the 1870s to the 1930s.

We are seeking support in restoring and framing this art. Please consider joining with us in preparing this beautiful collection for its showing on the walls of the gallery the Academy is planning to build at Seton Village.

Another Article about Pete Seeger mentioning Seton: Time to stand up for what you believe: An Article from The New Yorker

2006-10-31T18:26:00.000-05:00

Time to stand up for what you believe: An Article from The New Yorker: "Wednesday, July 26, 2006
An Article from The New Yorker
I can't help but share this article about Pete Seeger...

The New Yorker
April 17, 2006

THE PROTEST SINGER

Pete Seeger and American folk music.

BY ALEC WILKINSON

It was the ambition of the singer and songwriter Pete Seeger, as a child, in the nineteen-twenties, to be an Indian, a farmer, a forest ranger, or possibly an artist, because he liked to draw. He went to Harvard, joined the tenor-banjo society, and studied sociology in the hope of becoming a journalist, but near the end of his second year he left, before taking his exams, and rode a bicycle north from New York through New England. He was tall and thin and earnest and polite. He would make a watercolor sketch of a farm from the fields, then knock on the farmhouse door and ask if he could trade the drawing for a meal.

In the nineteen-forties, Seeger was a member of a group called the Almanac Singers, which included Woody Guthrie. The name derived from their belief that many farming homes had two books: a Bible and an almanac. The Almanac Singers appeared mainly at strikes and at rallies held to support the rights of laborers. Seeger says that they were 'famous to readers of the Daily Worker,' the newspaper of the Communist Party. When the Almanac Singers broke up, Seeger played on his own for a while, then became a member of the Weavers, whose version of 'Goodnight Irene,' by Leadbelly, was, for thirteen weeks in 1950, the best-selling record in America. The Weavers quit playing in 1952, after an informant told the House Un-American Activities Committee that three of the four Weavers, including Seeger, were Communists. (See"

House-Holmes: The Pacing Detective of House MD - Guide

2006-10-31T18:23:00.000-05:00

House-Holmes: The Pacing Detective of House MD - Guide: "The Pacing Detective
During the summer hiatus there hasn't been much to write home about but my tiny mind has been pacing much the same way Holmes paces when thinking about a case.

When I was a kid, I read everything written by a man named Ernest Thompson Seton. He wrote pretty up front and honest animal stories. They weren't all happy and cute. Some of them were downright cruel. But it taught a little girl about the vagaries of Nature. How She can be truly wonderful and then suddenly downright evil. I recommend them.

The subject heading of this post is a play on Seton's 'The Pacing Mustang' and I use it because I did my homework. While there are far too many stories to quote in which Holmes paces during a case......well, that's my point exactly.

Both House and Holmes pace when concentrating.

That might be an apt comparison but, as with everything in House, it's not cut and dried. Holmes paced to think and to burn nervous energy. House does 8,000,000 other things to get the same effect....the pacing isn't quite the focus that Doyle made of Holmes'.

Also, of note, House paces when he's in pain. Holmes did not. House uses it more to work through the agony of his 'bum leg' than to think. For thinking he has the BOUO (Ball of Unknown Origin) and his cane. (Among other things.)

(Shallow shameless request, Shore & Co., when we get Citizen Cane to make a return appearance could we puhlease go back to the Derby Cane? I know that it's fun to watch House play jai alai against the wall with the shepherd's crook but it's just lost a certain j'en c'est qua.)

Whining is so unattractive. LOL

Interestingly enough, over on www.televisionwithoutpity.com, there is a discussio"

Seton Art Exhibit Premiers on Academy Website

2006-10-31T17:05:00.000-05:00

The Academy for the Love of Learning has launched a virtual exhibit of Seton's work on its website at http://www.aloveoflearning.org/setonart.php . This exhibit gives interested people the opportunity to "adopt" the conservation and framing of these pieces, which will be on display when the Academy's facility at Seton Village is completed. This is a great exhibit and a great opportunity to support the preservation of these works.

Passions in Print

2006-10-13T20:12:00.000-04:00

I am in Santa Fe for my semiannual (or so) visit. Today, I visited the exhibit entitled "Lasting Impressions: The Private Presses of New Mexico" at the Palace of the Governors. It is a very interesting exhibit and there is a nice section on the Seton Village Press. There are several books on exhibit, including The Indian Costume Book by Julia Seton, which is bound in wood and includes hand-colored plates (in a limited number of copies). What a beautiful book it is. A hand-colored copy is a prize part of our collection (it actually belongs to my wife).

The exhibit's guest curator is Pamela Smith, the former director of The Press of the palace of the Governors. She has also written a book entitled Passions in Print: Private Press Artistry in New Mexco 1834-Present. It has a chapter on the Seton Village Press. It is available from Amazon.com and the usual sources.

Another interesting book is Bulletin in Bold Letters A Bibliography of The Seton Village Press by Maurice Taylor The Press of the Palace of the Governors(1990). Taylor operated the Seton Village Press along with his wife, Marceil.

LASTING IMPRESSIONS : The Private Presses of New Mexico: Seton Village Press

2006-10-12T20:14:00.000-04:00

LASTING IMPRESSIONS : The Private Presses of New Mexico: Seton Village Press

The Red Lodge by ETS?

2006-10-06T11:45:00.000-04:00

Hi Gang,

I am trying to do some Woodcraft League related research, and I keep coming across references to “the Red Lodge”, by Ernest Thompson Seton, and I am now trying to find a way to view its contents. The published bibliographies seem to indicate that only 100 copies were printed of “The Red Lodge”, but beyond that I haven’t really been able to find out much if anything about the book itself. Things like, how long it is, the physical dimensions, is it illustrated, its own bibliography/works sited pages, and that sort of thing.

If you possess a copy of this, and can share anything about it, please contact me!

If I can be of any assistance, please let me know,

Blue Skies!
-Joel

Ps. I was first exposed to the Woodcraft league via my Grandmother, Gertrude Goodkind and Fay Welch, the founder of Tanager Lodge (http://www.tanagerlodge.com/), a summer camp that is still running and largely based on the Birch Bark Scroll, and Book of Woodcraft. Tanager Lodge is in the Northern Adirondacks of New York State.

Response to Pete from David Witt

2006-10-05T22:25:00.000-04:00

I was delighted to read Pete Seeger's comments about ETS, especially "Seton was my guru" in regard to community sharing and working together based on a Native American model. I am sure ETS would be most pleased to have such a famous and important student. I hope that more such quotes from well known artists will show up over time.

David L. Witt

Seton Legacy Project, Academy for the Love of Learning

An Interview with Pete Seeger

2006-09-20T22:06:00.000-04:00

An Interview with Pete Seeger

Hudson Mohawk IMC: Pete Seeger - We Shall Overcome (mention's Seton's influence)

2006-09-20T22:03:00.000-04:00

Hudson Mohawk IMC: Pete Seeger - We Shall Overcome: "Pete Seeger - We Shall OvercomeAuthor
anonymous
Date Created
10 Apr 2006
More details...
Date Edited
02 May 2006
Rating
Current rating: 0
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Bruce Springsteen has just released a new album featuring songs popularized by Pete Seeger. Pete, from Beacon NY, is an activist as well as a musician, helping to start the environmental group Clearwater. Before the Byrds or Joan Baez or Peter, Paul and Mary, there was Pete Seeger. With his five-string banjo in hand, Seeger helped to lay the foundation for American protest music, singing out about the plight of everyday working folks and urging listeners to political and social activism.
When Will They Ever Learn?()
An Interview with Pete Seeger
By John W. Whitehead
01/04/06

“Any darn fool can make something complex;
it takes a genius to make something simple.”—Pete Seeger

Before the Byrds or Joan Baez or Peter, Paul and Mary, there was Pete Seeger. With his five-string banjo in hand, Seeger helped to lay the foundation for American protest music, singing out about the plight of everyday working folks and urging listeners to political and social activism.

Born in New York City on May 3, 1919, Seeger, whose father was a pacifist musicologist, was plunged into the world of music and politics from an early age. He studied sociology at Harvard University until 1938, when he dropped out and spent the summer bicycling through New England and New York, painting watercolors of farmers’ houses in return for food. Looking for but failing to get a jo"

2006-05-16T08:27:00.000-04:00

Here are links to Woodcraft-related sites in Poland:

http://woodcraft.pl or http://puszczanstwo.pl , http://4zywioly.pl/index.php?do=products&navi=03,04&id=999
Blue Sky!

Photos from International Woodcraft Gathering

2006-03-12T18:01:00.000-05:00

Here is a link to a large number of photos from last summer's international Woodcraft gathering in the U.K. http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/ollieswebspace/4th%20woodcraft%20gathering.htm

Memories of Dee

2006-03-06T15:50:00.000-05:00

Editor's Note: I thought I would share a personal recollection of Dee Seton Barber. I hope some other poeople will share their's as well.

I thought I would share my story of meeting Dee Seton Barber. I have been very interested in all things Seton for well over 30 years.I have also always been attracted to New Mexico, having travelled there many times as a boy and as an adult. On many trips to Santa Fe, I wondered about just where Seton Castle and Seton Village were, but I never actually tried to find them. I was married in 1992 and took my wife to Santa Fe and Taos on ourhoneymoon. She indulged me by letting me spend some time trolling through the used book stores of Santa Fe. (Alas there are not nearly as many today as there were then.) Two different dealers encouraged us that day to visit Seton Village and one gave the directions. We drove out for a look. We drove around the village trying to figure out where we were. We got a peek at the Kiva and the Hogan. We stopped at a curious house that I now know was converted from a boxcar for use originally by the College of Indian Wisdom. The occupant of that house, an artist as I recall, told us how to get to the Castle. Somehow, I was expecting it to be obvious where to go, but fro where we were, it really wasn’t. I was more than a little hesitant, not being too used to knocking on doors uninvited. None the less, my wife Kathryn encouraged me and we walked up to the house and were greeted by Dale Barber. He told me that Dee Seton Barber was away for a minute but invited us in to wait. We spent several hours that day with Dee hearing her stories and dreams. She gave us a tour of the Castle, the memory of which has stayed crystal clear to me to this day. We were greeted very warmly and Dee opened herself and her home to us that day. I recall Dee’s stories of all the people who had come to Seton Castle over the years and the remarkable stories that came from Eastern Europe of surviving Woodcraft groups that had stayed active underground during the era of Communist domination and I recall the stories behind various artifacts in the house. I remember her very large library, some of which she had inherited and much of which she had collected in her own right. I also remember how open she was and how important it was for her to share the Seton legacy. For example, she told us of a neighbor asking to borrow a book by Theodore Roosevelt. She pulled the book from the shelf and showed the inscription to Ernest Thompson Seton from Theodore Roosevelt. Neveretheless, the encouraged the neighbor to borrow the book. Dee Seton Barber will be remembered by people from all over the world with whom she maintained an active correspondence.

Dee Seton Barber

2006-02-27T11:13:00.000-05:00

I have just learned of the passing last Friday of Dee Seton Barber, daughter of Ernest Thompson Seton and Julia Seton.

Dee had suffered a long and serious illness. She and her husband Dale, who lived for much of their marriage in Seton Castle near Santa Fe, relocated to Bristol, Tennessee several years ago for health reasons.

Dee entertained thousands of guests at Seton Castle and was known world-wide as a proponent of her father's legacy and of Woodcraft.

We will all miss her very much and our thoughts and prayers are with her family.

The following obituary appeared in the Bristol Herald-Courier:

Barber, Dee

BRISTOL, Tenn. – Dee Seton Barber, 67, died Friday, Feb. 24, 2006, at her residence. She was born in Santa Fe, N.M., a daughter of the late Ernest Thompson and Julia Moses Seton. After extensive traveling, she moved to Bristol in 2000. She was a skilled needle worker and made Torah covers, was a life member of the community theater, was active in county elections and co-founder of the Hondo Volunteer Fire Department. She was an active in many crafts, a mandolin player and bookkeeper for the Jewish Temple in Santa Fe.She was preceded in death by her sister, Anya Seton. She is survived by her husband, Dale Barber; daughters, Julie Seton of Las Cruces, N.M., and Sherry Barber of Denver; sons, Daniel Seton Barber of Lihue, Kauai, Hawaii, and Micah Edward Barber of Bellingham, Wash.; four grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.Services will be private. Condolences and memories may be sent to the family by visiting www.oakley-blevins.com.Mrs. Barber and her family are in the care of Oakley-Blevins Funeral Home, 417 Lee St., Bristol, Va.; (276) 669-6141.
Published in the Bristol Herald Courier on 2/25/2006.

PABLITA VELARDE, 1918-2006

2006-01-19T16:09:00.000-05:00

EDITOR'S NOTE: I just learned of the passing of Pablita Velarde, noted Pueblo artist with a definite Seton connection. This is her obituary from the New Mexican.

PABLITA VELARDE, 1918-2006
DARING LIFE
Painter ‘blazed a trail’ for Indian, female artists
By Soledad Santiago The New Mexican
The woman who honored her own Tewa birth name Tse Tsa — Golden Dawn — by creating bright and captivating paintings died in Albuquerque at 87 on Tuesday. Known to the world as Pablita Velarde, the Santa Clara Pueblo artist achieved international acclaim as an acutely observant traditionalist painter who managed to tell her cultural history in a variety of media even as she bent tradition to achieve her personal artistic goals. “She really blazed a trail both for Native American and women artists by following her dream from the time she was a young girl,” said Shelby Tisdale, director of Santa Fe’s Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. “The museum has been planning an exhibition of her work for the spring featuring all her paintings from Bandelier National Monument. Now it seems more important than ever to honor her lifetime of work.” Replete with exacting detail of native daily life, dress and ceremonies, Velarde’s work is also considered of immense ethnographic importance. Just last spring, Velarde was honored by the state Legislature when it declared Native American New Deal Art Day. At that time, she and Navajo artist Harrison Begay were the only living artists who had been part of New Mexico’s version of an important Depression Era program known as the Works Progress Administration (1933-1943). The federal agency paid artists to help them survive the Depression while documenting culture in its myriad forms. Velarde, who began by recording native hairstyles, ended up the first woman in the modern era to paint murals at Bandelier. Her works, which articulate Pueblo history, were recently restored when the state celebrated Bandelier’s 90th anniversary. During her tenure with the program, Velarde created more than 85 pieces. At the Roundhouse ceremony, Velarde said that she had not known how important the arts program would turn out to be. “Today, I feel like I’ve accomplished a lot with my life,” she said. In 1933, she was asked to contribute a painting to the World’s Fair in Chicago. Critical acclaim followed. In 1938, Velarde and her work toured with writerartist Ernest Thompson Seton, who built Seton Castle outside Santa Fe. Teaching briefly at Santa Clara Day School, she is reputed to have been the first woman artist to build her own studio in New Mexico’s pueblos. Working in casein, tempera, oil and acrylic, she drew on an enormous well of inner strength in documenting pueblo life as she knew it. Sometimes she received unwanted attention for daring to paint in an era when most Indian women artists were still potters. In a 1979 interview with Las Cruces public television she said, “Painting was not considered women’s work in my time. A woman was supposed to be just a woman, like a housewife and a mother and chief cook. Those were things I wasn’t interested in.” By the 1950s, Velarde’s singleminded dedication to her art had made her the best-known woman artist in New Mexico’s pueblos. Her acclaim was international. She received the Palmes d’Académiques in 1954, The Waite Phillips Trophy in 1968 and the New Mexico Governor’s Award in 1977. Today Velarde’s work is found in private and public collections including the Museum of New Mexico, the Avery Collection at the Arizona State Museum, the Ruth and Charles Elkus Collection of Native American Art, and in the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. “Her work is a defining element in the aesthetic of the Southwest,” said Stuart Ashman, secretary of the Department of Cultural Affairs. “Pablita Velarde’s work gave the world a kind of sensitive glimpse into Native American life and sensibilities. Her almost musical depictions of animals and keenly observed moments in daily life made her extraordinary vision appear simple and accessible.” Velarde, was born in Santa Clara Pueblo in 1918 and lived much of the last 50 years in Albuquerque. Her body will be returned to her pueblo for burial according to native custom in a private ceremony. A celebration of her life will take place at Ventana Fine Art at 400 Canyon Road from 1 to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 21. The gallery, which represents Velarde’s granddaughter, noted painter Margarete Bagshaw-Tindel, is in the process of gathering samples of Velarde’s work as well as a portrait of the artist. Velarde is survived by her son, Herbert Oliver Hardin II; half-sister, Teresita Guiterrez; half-brother, Alfred Velarde of Ogden, Utah; as well as several grandchildren and three greatgrandchildren.

Missing Photographs: Ernest Thompson Seton

2006-01-17T11:39:00.000-05:00

I am currently doing research on a turn-of-the-twentieth-century photographer named Zaida Ben-Yusuf who created at least two portraits of Ernest Thompson Seton in the fall of 1899. I have attached to this e-mail halftone reproductions of the two images that appeared in popular periodicals at this time. I am trying to track down vintage prints of these two platinum photographs. If anyone knows about the whereabouts of these prints, please call or write me. Many thanks for your assistance with this query.

Sincerely,
Frank H. Goodyear
Assistant Curator of Photographs
National Portrait Gallery
Smithsonian Institution
P.O. Box 37012
Victor Building, Suite 8300 -- MRC 973
Washington, DC 20013-7012
Phone: 202 275-1855

Academy Comments on Press Reports regarding Seton Castle

2006-01-03T19:18:00.000-05:00

January 3, 2006

In recent new bulletins in both newspapers and on the radio, it has been reported that Seton Castle, which was destroyed by fire on November 15th, 2005 probably won’t be rebuilt, but that we at the Academy for the Love of Learning plan to continue to use the land.

We are grateful that the public is being kept informed of our progress, but would like to take this opportunity to clarify our position. We truly do not yet know whether we will rebuild the Castle. Our intent is to take more time to reflect before deciding. We are still exploring the option of rebuilding, as well as other options, including, for example, retaining the remaining stone walls and incorporating them into something new that will reference the Castle.

Clearly the decision to rebuild or not is not one that affects only us. Many people in this community and beyond feel a deep connection to Seton Castle, the land there, and the work and legacy of Ernest Thompson Seton himself, and we have been deeply touched by the messages of support that we have received from so many since the fire. As you can imagine, this is not a decision we can take lightly and we wish to give ourselves the necessary time to assess fully the situation at the Castle in order to ensure that we take the right path forward.

Sincerely,

Aaron Stern,
President, Academy for the Love of Learning.
1012 Marquez Place, Suite 308A,
Santa Fe, NM 87505.

Tel: 505 995 1860.

Report from 2005 Woodcraft International Gathering

2005-12-29T22:53:00.000-05:00

A look back at the 4th BlueSky!!!WorldWoodcraft international gathering that took place July 31st through August 13th, 2005. Preparations filled the week beforehand, getting in mountains of supplies and setting up camp at the Gordon Brown Outdoor Environmental Educational Centre in Hampshire, southern England. Since the 2002 gathering in the Czech Republic, Mick Tutt (Pelican), Gathering Convenor (and now International Liaison person) of the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry (OWC), had been planning the campsite accommodations and program. (Full details are posted on this site elsewhere.) I arrived for the set-up, and was delighted to find friends from previous camps, both from the Czech Republic and the UK, already in residence.

The camp-ground housed several permanent teepees soon added to by tents large and small. Being one of the ‘elders’ I had the luxury of a real bed and private bath inside the main building. During the pre-camp we had use of the inside kitchen, but this was swiftly replaced by the camp kitchen set up outside with wood cook-stoves and griddles. One of the major activities at camp is always providing enough wood for the huge meals; outdoor life makes for large appetites and there were at least 75 of us on site. Each group took part as Clan in charge of meals for a particular day; from the eldest to the youngest there was a job for all.

After breakfast at Rally we got our orders for the day; wood cutting (from a nearby brush pile), Clan, and activities ranging from sports (I learned how to correctly hit a volleyball from the Czech girls), running games, beadwork, tie dying, finger braiding and knotting (Rosanna, a Czech girl, was very talented at this), making corn dollies, bags, mocassins and wood carving (to name but a few). Any talent anyone wanted to share was welcomed. Always popular was learning to make fire by rubbing sticks. We set up marquees to protect the arts and crafts, but were lucky with the weather after one bout of heavy rain. On two days we practiced handbell ringing. Tim Willetts even led us around the camp playing his precious bells. Some of the bigger lads helped Clive Bowen, the Gathering Craftsman, carve a totem pole to be left at the GB Centre as thanks for having us. It was completed after I left, but a photo shows a spread-winged eagle atop the pole with the Seton insignia of a shield with buffalo horns and other carvings below.

The formal opening of the camp was, as always, around the ceremonial fire, lit by one of the Czechs with a flint lighter. It is always amazing to see how fast they can get a blaze going without matches or butane! (The Czechs are real campers, as are the inimitable Westlake/Bowen families!) Everyone gathers around the Ceremonial Circle, surrounded by the regalia and symbols of all groups present, the OWC leaders wearing their impressive robes of office. I was honored once again to be the Representative of the West, to drop my ashes from a previous fire into “the same fire and always new” and say: “Behold I come with Greetings from your brethren of the West – bringing the Gift of Life, fulfilled, mature and rich in experience and wealth of wisdom, love and peace.” Czechs from the East, Forest Campers from the North, and OWC from the South completed the ceremony. This coming together is always one of the highlights of the camp and my only regret is that I am usually the lone representative of North America, the home of the first Seton Woodcrafters. I also read a letter of welcome, simultaneously translated by one of the Czech teachers, from the Academy for the Love of Learning, the new owners of Seton Castle and grounds outside Santa Fe.

During the week we learned each other’s songs and games, and exchanged crafts and stories, renewed old friendships and made new ones. One ‘tribe’ from the Czech Republic used Sioux Indian puppets to tell a legend (holding up English translation cards as they went along). Their drum played for a lively dance evening; the Czech groups favor 19th Century Sioux dress, crafts and dances, learned assiduously from careful research. During the week another bevy of Indians arrived – schoolchildren from Inner London, of Asian descent. They were welcomed into the activities of the Woodcrafters, and again, new friends were made, new dances shared, and Seton’s teachings upheld. I left a copy of Two Little Savages with Dave Twig of the GB Centre who was intrigued by Ernest Thompson Seton’s ideals and ethics.

Much effort goes into this tri-annual camp, next to be held in 2008 probably in the Czech Republic. We were sad that former Czech leader, Martin Kupka (Logan) and family were unable to attend, but Klara and Tomas and Czech Liga Lensi Moudrosti (Woodcraft League) chieftain, Ales Sedelak, worked with Mick Tutt and other OWC leaders on discussions about the future hopes and prospects of BlueSky!!!WorldWoodcraft. I for one hope it continues from strength to strength; these gatherings are not only enjoyable, but inspiring as well. My postcards would have said: “Having a wonderful time, wish you were here.”

Barbara Witemeyer
December 29, 2005

Preservation Online: Today's News Archives: Fire Destroys New Mexico Castle

2005-12-26T11:24:00.000-05:00

Preservation Online: Today's News Archives: Fire Destroys New Mexico Castle: "Fire Destroys New Mexico Castle

Story by Margaret Foster / Nov. 17, 2005

Fire Destroys New Mexico Castle

Story by Margaret Foster / Nov. 17, 2005

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Seton Castle was less than a year into a $2 million restoration. (The Academy for the Love of Learning)
A 70-year-old castle burned down on Tuesday while undergoing a $2 million restoration.

No one was hurt in the blaze, which left little but the stone walls of Seton Castle, located south of Santa Fe, N.M.

"It was totally destroyed," says Judd Dean, Hondo Volunteer Fire Department's fire chief. "[The fire] was very, very fast. Three of the workers had to jump off the roof to escape. The building had been around for decades, and the fire just roared through the whole thing."

Seton Castle was the home of artist and naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton (1860-1946), who helped found the Boy Scouts of America. Seton designed the 32-room castle himself in 1933, situating it on a hilltop on his 100-acre estate. Two years ago, his daughter sold the building—a National Historic Landmark—to the Santa Fe-based Academy for the Love of Learning, which won a $330,000 federal grant to repair water and vandalism damage.

The academy and its contractor, Wolf Corp., began restoring the building as an educational center early this year. At a groundbreaking ceremony in January, academy employees, along with many of Seton's ancestors, started a fire that "symbolically cleared our way of the potential obstacles ahead through the purification of fire," according to the academy's Web site.

The project was going well until the blaze, whose cause state investigators have not yet determined. So far, workers had cleaned and repaired the castle's exterior stonework, repaired windows and doors, created a new access road to the castle, and laid the foundations for a new caretaker's cottage and an art studio nearby. The academy was restoring more than 50 of Seton's works of art, including drawings and sketches.

The castle was scheduled to open to the public next fall.

Seton Castle Unlikely to be Rebuilt

2005-12-25T08:31:00.000-05:00

Seton Castle unlikely to be rebuilt
Group that owns historic building plans to still use land for education
By Julie Ann Grimm The New Mexican
The historic Seton Castle — destroyed by fire this fall — probably won’t be rebuilt, but the nonprofit educational group that owns it plans to continue to use the land. State fire investigators have yet to determine what caused the Nov. 15 blaze that left the 32-room home in ruins and blanketed Seton Village south of Santa Fe in thick smoke for most of the midday. The Academy for the Love of Learning was two-thirds finished with a $2 million restoration project when the fire left standing only the building’s original stone walls. The castle was to be a space for children and teachers and to hold conferences on environmental and cultural issues. Embedded artwork and original woodwork had been cleaned and refinished, replacement windows were removed and restored to look more like the originals and a new radiant-heat system and floors had been installed — all of which perished in the fire. A work crew that was inside when the smoke appeared escaped without injury. “While the fire wrought changes in the plans and timing for the academy’s center on the land at Seton Castle, our vision for affecting culture change in education is very much alive,” academy founder Aaron Stern wrote in a letter to supporters earlier this month. The castle, built and named by naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton about 70 years ago, was a private home until 1998. In 2003, Seton’s family sold the property to the academy. Fortunately, at the time of the fire, hundreds of writings, artwork and other historic artifacts that belonged to Seton had been removed from the home. The academy plans a public showing of the work next fall in Santa Fe. It also plans to hold a series of public meetings to explore how it can best meet the “needs and longings that we share for a right education for children” Stern wrote. “Woven into this process will be an exploration of the next steps in creating on the Seton land a new Academy center to support our work.” The building was insured for fire, and the academy is working to recover some of its investment from its insurance company. One of the foundation’s major donors made a quiet commitment to match any donations received before March 31, the letter says. To reach the academy, call 995-1860 or log on to www .alo veoflearning .org.

Bibliography of Seton short stories/articles?

2005-12-20T11:37:00.000-05:00

Hello,
I am a librarian seeking a bibliography of Seton's short stories and articles. What I am specifically looking for is a reference to a story about wild dogs of New York City -- or possibly pets who have gone wild in New York City. It was supposedly published in a journal called "The American" in the 1910s or 1920s. Unfortunately I do not have a title.

My goal is to get a copy of the story, so if anyone knows another place where the story can be located (a collection?), that would also be great.

Thank you,
Anne Killheffer
Reference Librarian
Stratford Library Association
2203 Main St., Stratford, CT 06615

203-385-4164
anne@stratford.lib.ct.us

Seton Paintings

2005-12-20T11:36:00.000-05:00

I have enjoyed reading your Blue Skies blog, which I discovered today. I also learned today about the fire at the Seton Castle, and am greatly saddened by the news. I visited the Castle in 2001 and was much impressed by it. Thanks for posting additional information about the fire, along with your and others' reactions to this terrible event.

I read the first posting on your blog (from January 2005) and noticed a comment to that post by a person named Ira who said he owns three original Seton works of art. Ira invited readers to contact him if they wished to see photos of the artwork. The link to Ira's email address is no longer working, and I am wondering if you have an up-to-date email address for him that you could provide to me.

Thanks,

Stefan Herpel
Michigan

Arson ruled out in Seton Castle fire

2005-12-07T07:54:00.000-05:00

State and federal investigators have yet to determine the cause of a fire that nearly destroyed the Seton Castle last month. James Maxon, an investigator with the state Fire Marshal’s Office, said Monday he’s still testing a hypothesis about what started the fire at the historic home built by Boy Scouts of America co-founder Ernest Thompson Seton. An agent from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is helping the state, but at this point in the investigation, arson has been ruled out, Maxon said. “We did not feel that this fire was intentionally set.” The investigation could take several more weeks or months depending on what is uncovered, he said. Maxon said no one is being held culpable in the fire, but that could change with more evidence. A construction crew was working on a renovation inside the 32-room building when the fire broke out Nov. 15, however no one was hurt in the blaze. The Academy for the Love of Learning, which has owned the structure since 2003, has not determined whether it will rebuild. eNew Mexican

The Academy Reports on the Fire

2005-12-04T23:05:00.000-05:00

http://www.aloveoflearning.org/pages/40_seton08_fire1.html

Notes on the Fire by David Witt, Seton Collection Curator for the Academy for the Love of Learning

2005-12-01T10:48:00.000-05:00

Seton Castle Fire November 15, 2005
The Academy for the Love of Learning, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is a non-profit educational and research organization, whose mission is to awaken, enliven, nurture and sustain the natural love of learning in people of all ages. The Academy acquired Seton Castle in 2003 and earlier this year began a historically accurate renovation. The project was about three-quarters completed when the fire occurred. Information on the Academy and its programs is available on our website. More news about the fire and how you can help will also soon be posted.
http://www.aloveoflearning.org/>

Notes on the fire are by David L. Witt, Seton Collection Curator for the Academy.

The first reaction to the death of a building is disorientation as the mind refuses to comprehend: billowing black smoke rises as if thrown up from a volcanic explosion on the hilltop. Residents of Seton Village rush outside of their homes only to stand as if frozen until cries of “the Castle!” from several present state the unthinkably obvious. Then the other senses come into play as the acrid scent of burned material, the taste of blowing dust, and the touch of fire heat overtake everyone.
Then sound creates yet another level of lasting impression. The first measures of barely audible crackling begin the movement in an ominous fashion. As we approach, a building noise crescendo comes from the roaring of burning wood and the play of winds, some atmospheric and others self-generated. Additional sounds are layered in – the generators and engines of fire trucks, the rush of liquid streams aimed at the conflagration, and finally passages of vocal accompaniment as firefighters give commands and helpless civilian onlookers tell stories of their escape or speculate on what is happening before us. After a couple hours of dramatic conflagration, the fire quiets to the low sizzle of flame, the popping of cooling masonry, the expanding and contracting of metal like little shrieks of percussion events.
With original construction begun around seventy-four years ago, and renovation started in the early part of this year, we witness the end of this phase of the Castle restoration. But even in the midst of the destruction, several persons dare to suggest that this transformation gives rise to hope for new creation, a rebuilding which will honor the Castle’s past and forward its legacy into the future. Historical layers (physical and memory) are fractal-like in complexity, a continuation of old patterns in ever renewing variations. That is, every moment past also leads to a new beginning, even from tragedy.
Seton states in Book of Woodcraft and The Gospel of the Redman the importance of overcoming the fear of death. The death of a building is not exactly what he had in mind, but his Woodcraft principles provide guidance (and maybe consolation) as we move on to create the next phase of Seton Castle history. Two traits he valued were courage and perseverance, demonstrated in the Four Lamps (or laws) of Woodcraft – Beauty, Truth, Fortitude, and Love. Taking just one example from each: The Lamp of Beauty: “Conserve the woods and flowers and especially be ready to fight wild fire in forest or in town.” In the event, fire fighters and wind conditions kept the fire from spreading into the piñon woodland or neighboring houses. The Lamp of Truth: “Be reverent.” The majesty of unstoppable fire forces at least a kind of respect, but also a sincere thankfulness that all the construction workers and firefighters escaped injury. The Lamp of Fortitude: “Be brave. Courage is the noblest of all attainments.” We need this as we face the rebuilding. The Lamp of Love: “Be joyful. Seek the joy of being alive.”
The staff of the Academy for the Love of Learning, residents of Seton Village, and a large number of concerned persons (via email, phone contact, etc.) have come together for mutual support. A gathering took place there on November 30th for those most directly affected. Paying homage to our beloved Castle is the kind of “tribal” gathering Seton would have approved.

Editor's Comment

I received this submission from David Witt this morning. I met with David in early October in Taos and had planned to write about our visit in this venue when news of the fire reached me a few weeks later. I instantly felt comfortably with David as he shared his story about working at Philmont in his college days, including a stint at the Seton Library. He was drawn by the magic of New Mexico as many others, myself included, have been and has lived in the area now for many years. We specifically discussed ways in which interested people can help in the restoration of Seton works and other possible collaborative efforts. I expect you will hear more on the those topics soon.

Ron

Feds comb through historic home’s ruins

2005-11-18T07:39:00.000-05:00

The New Mexican November 17, 2005
As the community mourned the loss of a historic landmark, federal agents were called to an investigation at the remains of Seton Castle on Wednesday. The building south of Santa Fe was left in ruins by a fire that began around lunchtime Tuesday while construction crews worked on a restoration project. The fire’s cause might be determined as early as today, said James Maxon, an investigator with the state Fire Marshal’s Office. Maxon said he called in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to help conduct a joint investigation because his department doesn’t have the kind of manpower needed. Statements from about 20 people who were either working inside or near the home Tuesday indicate the fire began on the north end, in the music room, Maxon said. “To be honest, we don’t really know one way or the other (who or what started the fire),” he said. “We usually don’t take a guess until we go in there and see what we are dealing with.” ATF helps local fire investigators determine the cause and provides expertise in arson, according to agent Kent Masters, who said the agency has not ruled on whether the fire was accidental. Construction workers were midway through a renovation project on the 70-year-old structure designed by Ernest Thompson Seton. The building’s owner, the Academy for the Love of Learning, had planned to use it as an educational center and had a $300,000 federal grant for the work. Seton, a famed naturalist, artist and author, helped establish the Boy Scouts of America and lived in the 32-room home from 1934 until his death in 1946. He left behind hundreds of paintings, rare books and artifacts. The expansive, multilevel home occupied about 6,900 square feet. “Castle was a little bit of a misnomer ,” said Donato Jaggers, education-resources coordinator for the academy. “Seton was English by birth with Scottish ancestry, and we understand that Seton Castle was a name that he and his wife gave to the house as sort of a grand title.” Seton’s collection had been removed from the castle prior to the construction project. Jaggers said the paintings will be restored and made available for public exhibition. The academy is still reeling from the fire, he said. The building, listed as a National Historic Landmark, was insured for construction risks. The Santa Fe County assessor last valued the property at $763,000 in 2000. Asked what he suspected was behind the fire or if he blamed the construction crew, Jaggers said, “We’re not worried about that at this point. Our main feeling is absolute gratitude and relief that they all got out safely.” Long-time local Lew Thompson has fond memories of time spent in Seton Castle. Thompson lives on land he bought from Seton’s wife, Julia Seton, and had visited the home on many occasions. He recalls sitting for hours in a stairwell that led to the castle’s “second or third basement” with Julia reminiscing about her husband. Thompson was heartbroken over the fire. “I felt like crying, and I couldn’t look,” he said, “but I couldn’t help looking. I saw the plume of smoke from my house, and I went right over knowing all the time I was getting there that it, indeed, was the castle burning. ... It’s a great loss of a Santa Fe institution.” Seton biographer Jack Samson called the building’s demise tragic. “It was a shame, a real shame,” he said Wednesday during a phone interview from his Santa Fe home. “It was a lovely building and a real nostalgic place.” Samson, who was editor of Field and Stream magazine for 15 years, wrote The Worlds of Ernest Thompson Seton. He said the naturalist was influential across the globe and received many foreign visitors. Jason Auslander contributed to this report. Contact Julie Ann Grimm at 986-3017 or jgrimm@sfnewmexican .com

TheNewMexicoChannel.com - News - Cause Unknown In Seton Castle Blaze

2005-11-16T21:35:00.000-05:00

TheNewMexicoChannel.com - News - Cause Unknown In Seton Castle Blaze: "Cause Unknown In Seton Castle Blaze
POSTED: 7:57 am MST November 16, 2005
UPDATED: 8:06 am MST November 16, 2005
SANTA FE, N.M. -- Firefighters said they do not yet know what caused a fire that destroyed the historic Seton Castle southeast of Santa Fe.
A construction crew was midway through a $2 million renovation of the stately 70-year-old building south of Santa Fe when the fire started Tueday.
Hondo Volunteer Fire Chief Judd Dean says that when the first firefighters arrived, flames had already breached the building's roof.
The 32-room, 6,900-square-foot castle near Arroyo Hondo is a National Historic Landmark and New Mexico State Cultural Property.
In 2003, the family of naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton sold the castle to the Arizona-based Academy for the Love of Learning."

Seton Castle: A Personal Reflection

2005-11-16T09:43:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was a long day. I spent the morning on a variety of business matters, attended a funeral and hopped on a plane for a business trip, expecting to meet a friend for dinner in Dallas before turning in for the night. When the plane landed and I turned on my Blackberry, it was filled with messages about yesterday’s events in Santa Fe.

We travel to Santa Fe regularly, most recently in October, when I had the chance to check on the progress of the Castle restoration and have a very good meeting with the curator of the Seton collection for the Academy for the Love of Learning.

The Castle has been something of great interest to me since I first visited it over thirteen years ago.

I had been aware of the Castle for many years, since I have been a Seton enthusiast for a very long time. Although I have spent a lot of time in and around Santa Fe, I had never been to Seton Village or Seton Castle. One particular day, as I was perusing collectible books in antique book stores in Santa Fe (regrettably there aren’t nearly as many as there used to be), two different dealers suggested that we drive out to the Village and gave us directions. We took that a sign that this was the right day for such a visit.

We drove out to the Village and wandered around a bit and were finally directed to the Castle by a neighbor. I very rarely have knocked on the door of someone I do not know, so it was with great trepidation that, with my wife’s encouragement, I knocked on the door of Seton Castle. We were greeted by Dale Barber, Seton’s son-in-law, and husband of Dee Seton Barber. He invited us and told us that Dee was away for a few minutes but would soon be returning.

When she returned, Dee greeted us warmly and we talked. She gave us a tour of the Castle. I remember nearly every detail, including my first look at The Sleeping Wolf. Dee told us of the many pilgrims who made their way to the Castle and to her astonishment at their letters she was receiving from all over the world, especially from former Soviet bloc countries, including the Czech Republic, which told of Woodcraft groups that had remained active through the years on an underground basis. She told many more stories.

We stayed far longer than we had planned and the sun was setting when it came time to leave. I will always remember the sight of sunset from the porch of Seton Castle. At that point, it was perfectly clear to me why Ernest Thompson Seton and his wife Julia chose that particular site for their final home.

More to come

I hope other will choose to share their personal stories too.

Link to New Mexican Report

2005-11-16T08:02:00.000-05:00

http://208.42.237.12/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=14LzIwMDUvMTEvMTYjUGMwMDExMQ=Mode=ML&Locale=glish-skin-custom

Historic Castle Burns Tuesday

2005-11-15T23:46:00.000-05:00

Curator: Extent Of Damage Too Early To Tell
POSTED: 7:39 pm MST November 15, 2005
UPDATED: 7:43 pm MST November 15, 2005
SANTA FE, N.M. -- A national historic landmark in Santa Fe has been reduced to stone and ash.
On Tuesday, fire tore through the Seton Castle, which is very well known to some and virtually unknown to others.
The sprawling building was home to Ernest Thompson Seton, who was a noted naturalist and co-founder of the Boy Scouts Of America.
It was under renovation, and crews had just broken for lunch Tuesday afternoon when fire decimated the building.
By most accounts, the fire moved very quickly, collapsing parts of the third story onto the rest of the building with minutes.
The castle was designed by Seton and built around 1930. It rambled along according to his design, which made for a unique place 45 rooms large.
The Academy For The Love Of Learning bought the castle three years ago and was renovating it to become their base of operations and a learning center.
"We'll spend some time assessing. I'm sure we'll be talking with engineers to find out what's happened to the building. The wooden parts of it are gone," said David Witt, Seton Castle curator. "As (for) the rest of it, I don't know. They've done a lot of stabilization on it in the last eight months and so maybe that saved it. It's too early to tell."
Fire crews on the scene this afternoon weren't sure where or how it started, though some of the workers believe it began in the west end of the building.
Seton Castle is being restored using a grant from the federal government.
That grant is more than $300,000.

Seton Castle destroyed by fire (The New Mexican)

2005-11-15T23:44:00.000-05:00

The New Mexican November 15, 2005
A wind-swept fire in an area with little water destroyed the historic Seton Castle Tuesday. The fire began shortly after noon and was still burning two hours later. The cause is unknown at this time.The castle was likely a total loss, spectators at the scene said, but the historic documents and artifacts from the home had been removed before a renovation project started earlier this year."All of our vision was built around what we were going to do here. I'm sure the work will go on, but it's a shock", said Sage Magdalene, administrative assistant for the Academy for the Love of Learning Center, which aquired the property.Construction crews were midway through a year-long construction project and were working inside the castle when the fire started. All escaped without injury.The 32-room, 6,900-square-foot stone-and-mortar castle on 80 acres is a National Historic Landmark and New Mexico State Cultural Property but was in dilapidated condition. Naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton built the castle 70 years ago.Aaron Stern, whose Academy for the Love of Learning Center bought the property in 2003, wanted to restore Seton's legacy and use the space for teaching children and teachers and holding conferences on environmental and cultural issues.Stern planned to make the castle and surrounding property a place where children can learn about nature and the ideas espoused by Seton, who founded Boys Scouts of America. Seton authored more than 60 books on nature and other subjects, and left behind thousands of his own paintings and drawings. Seton lived at the castle from 1934 until his death in 1946 at age 86. His wife, Julia, founder of Campfire Girls, died in 1968, and daughter Dee Seton Barber lived in the castle until 1998.While famous for starting the Boy Scouts, Seton abandoned the group because he believed it had become too militaristic.Even in serious disrepair, the castle has received numerous visitors over the years.Researchers have also used Seton's work at the Seton Institute in Manitoba, Canada, the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institute. Look for additional details in tomorrow's The New Mexican.

Seton Castle Fire

2005-11-15T23:41:00.000-05:00

I have just learned that Seton Castle burned to the ground today. The Castle was in the midst of a year-long restoration. The cause of the fire was not immediately known.

The contents of the Castle, including Seton's classic painting The Sleeping Wolf were in storage during the restoration and were not damaged.

I will post news reports and updates as they become available.

She Taught Seton to Read & Write ...

2005-10-31T15:18:00.000-05:00

One of our readers sent in the following interesting tidbit:

My great, great, grandmother, Agnes O'Leary O'Brien, taught Ernest Thompson
Seton to read and write while he was living in Lindsay, Ontario. In the
early part of the 20th century (I can check the date) he gave her an copy of
"Two Little Savages" inscribed to her who…"taught me to read and write in a
little log cabin in Lindsay, Ont." My great, great, grandmother was the daughter
of a school master and was herself only 16 or 17 when she taught Seton.
She later married and moved to Rochester, NY.

2005-05-07T16:40:00.000-04:00

Aldo Leopold

2005-05-02T12:01:00.000-04:00

I received the following inquiry recently and wnated to pass it along in case anyone knows of such a link.

I am curious to know if Ernest T. Seton knew Aldo Leopold. Did they ever meet? Both of these men spent some part of their lives in New Mexico, a state I recently visited. While there, I toured the Philmont Museum and Seton Memorial Library. The people there did not know of any connection between these two men.

For those who may not be familiar with Leopold, he is considered by many to be the father of wildlife management. His classic work is Sand County Almanac, which is defintiely worth reading.

He lived in New Mexico in the earrly part of the 20th Century, marrying a woman from Santa Fe. He relocated to Wisconsin in the early 1920s, probably before Ernest Thompson permanently relocated to the Santa Fe area,

“HOW” IS NOT A QUESTION

2005-03-12T07:16:00.000-05:00

Editor's note: This paper was submitted by our good friend Barbara Ellen Witemeyer of Albuquerque after reading the post on "Hau, Kola". Thanks again, Barbara.

Thanks to Hollywood films, everyone knows that one Indian greets another by holding up his right hand, palm forward, and asking “How?” To which, according to a popular joke from my childhood, the answer was: “scrambled.” But “How” is not a question.
In fact, in the Lakota language, the greeting is “Hau” or “Hau Kola” which translates as “Hello friend.” In a John Ford movie, regardless of tribal affiliation, the greeting is usually “Yatahay,” a distortion of the Navajo “Ya’ah’tee,” roughly, “It is good.”
However much they may aspire to accuracy and authenticity when making films with Indians in them, directors (and their producers, in particular) are making films for profit. This obliges them to use the most economical resources at their command, and to cater to the expectations of their paying customers. After getting Frank Nugent, the scriptwriter for Fort Apache (1948), to do intensive research, director John Ford then allegedly told him to “forget everything you’ve just read, and we’ll start writing a movie” (Nolley, 76). Often filming in Monument Valley, Ford used local Indians to play whatever tribe was specified in the storyline. Hence the Sioux warrior who greets John Wayne with the Navajo phrase “Yatahay.”

But that was in the 1940s, and within the last decade steps have been made towards giving the Indian actors their own voices, and not just what Ted Jojola calls “the stereotypical ‘hows,’ ‘ughs,’ and ‘kemosabes’ of tinsel moviedom” (Jojola, 12). European films with multi-language characters have for some time used different languages, with sub-titles where appropriate. With films like The Last of the Mohicans (1992) and Dances With Wolves (1990) there is a lot of “real” Indian language spoken, although it is not yet entirely accurate. In The Last of the Mohicans, for instance, a Navajo friend revealed that there was some Navajo spoken, although the tribes portrayed were the Huron and Delaware from the far Northeastern states. Most of the Indian dialog was in Delaware (rather than Mohican), and sub-titles were used. Interestingly enough, when Duncan was bargaining with the Delaware chief, the language used by both was French, and since this was supposedly being translated from Nathaniel’s English, no subtitles were used. The story required the duplicity of mistranslation in this case so that Duncan be allowed to sacrifice himself to gain freedom for the others.
This evolution towards dual-language dialog in films with multi-cultural story lines has not happened overnight. The history of moving pictures spans more than one hundred years, and Indians have featured in them from the early, silent days. Many changes in these characters’ spoken dialog have taken place over time. Of course, the Indian did not get even an English voice until the advent of sound in 1926.
Until that time, silent film title-card panels were for the most part descriptive rather than detailing actual quoted speech. And most titles were written, not surprisingly, in standard English. To give an Indian flavor however, the viewer/reader was occasionally introduced to “um-speak.” You-um know-um what that-um means! Another favorite was the expression “heap,” for example, “heap big.” This made-up language was only one of the techniques used to convince the audience that the actors were “real” Indians, although, in fact, those with speaking parts seldom were.
In the early films, all major “Indian” characters were played by non-Indians. Non-Indians wrote the dialog, however, to be spoken by actors whose first language was, more often than not, English. Many of the film Indians were played by actors of Italian or Mexican descent, such as Ricardo Montalban and Gilbert Roland, and later, Sal Mineo. They all spoke in English and were cast because of their darker eyes and skin color, which naturally meant they looked authentically “Indian.”
Non-Indian leading men, such as Richard Dix (in Redskin (1929), and as Nophaie in The Vanishing American (1925)) and Jeff Chandler (as the Apache chief, Cochise in Broken Arrow (1950)) had to be heavily made-up to even approximate their Indian character. Once talking pictures arrived, in order to portray an intelligent Indian, to meet his white counterpart on equal ground, it was necessary for him to speak good English. Richard Dix—a silent actor— didn’t even speak in his non-Indian roles.
The Vanishing American was made in 1925, the year before sound and a couple of years before speech was added to movies. Therefore, only the occasional title card butted into the visual action. Actors relied heavily upon body language and facial grimaces, especially those expressive eyes, to convey their feelings. So when a young Navajo boy sees his horse taken by whites, he cannot protest. The moviegoer reads: “Even in his short life, Nasja had learned that the white man must have his own way—that the Indian can only watch and endure, and dumbly wonder” (Riley, 61). Even in a silent film the Indian was denied his voice.
In 1930 a “semi-documentary” about the Ojibways called The Silent Enemy came out. It was a silent film, “released without sound”. However, the leading actor, Chauncy Yellow Robe, was given some say when he “appeared in the talkie short which preceded the feature….[describing] how The Silent Enemy was made” (Friar, 177).
Once sound became a regular technical feature of films, Westerns suffered. No longer could horsemen of any color dash across vast open spaces shouting (in captions) “They went that’a’way” or “Me shoot ‘um soldier.” The sound equipment was too cumbersome and bulky, and studio pictures were the norm.
With sound, however, the movie-going public could actually hear the “DUM-dum-dum-dum” drumming, the “warhoops and the ‘Ugh, me want ‘um firewater. Ugh, me take ‘um scalp’” dialog of silent card panels (Friar, 178). Ugh-speech was to become the standard Indian film language, even for non-Indian actors. In the 1947 film Black Gold, supposedly based on a true story, “Anthony Quinn ‘ugs’ his way through as the Indian hero” (Friar, 178).
Jay Silverheels, one of the first featured actors who could truthfully claim to be a real Indian, was a Canadian award-winning athlete before breaking into films in 1938. At first in the traditional Indian role as an extra, falling off horses in Westerns, he advanced to feature films as the main Indian actor, and eventually, to world-wide recognition as the Lone Ranger’s sidekick, Tonto. Faithful, resourceful, and intelligent, Tonto was still forced to communicate with the Lone Ranger in Ugh-speech. In fact, it sounded even more ridiculous in view of the actual words spoken that, in contrast, were extremely cogent and intelligent. I suppose one could say that it is to the Lone Ranger’s credit that he did not undertake to teach his loyal companion to speak “correctly,” and in fact did not seem to find any fault with the stereotypical “Indian” speech of his co-hero. Poor Tonto never got a chance to speak his own tribal language, since the pair rarely met other Indians. We never learned to which tribe he belonged either.
In the situations where Hollywood Indians appear in a tribal group situation, it is often the case that the actors come from different tribes. At the very least, the language spoken by the film Indians may not be their mother tongue. There are worse case scenarios, too. In The Only Good Indian, Friar quotes a 1939 New York Times article by Cullison Cady relating how a director decided
[the] sound track of Indian dialogue on a certain strip of film…didn’t sound “Indian enough.” To solve the problem, he had the Indians speak English in a retake, and then ran the sound track backward. The verdict on the resultant gibberish was thoroughly acceptable.
(Friar, 179)
Lots of Indians who wanted film work came to Hollywood from Canada as well as from many different tribes across the United States. One only has to look at the actors who are familiar names today to get some idea of the variety of language groups represented: Gary Farmer, Six Nations (Canada); Wes Studi, Cherokee; Russell Means, Ogalala Sioux; Graham Greene, Oneida; Rodney S. Grant, Omaha; Chief Dan George, Canadian Squamish; Floyd Red Crow Westerman, Dakota; Tantoo Cardinal, Cree/Metis; Irene Bedard, Cree-Metis/Inupiat; to name but a few.
And, career actors that they are, they turn up in all kinds of guises. For instance, Wes Studi and Rodney S. Grant played Apaches in Geronimo: An American Legend (1994); Studi was a Huron in The Last of the Mohicans (1992) and Grant, a Sioux in Dances With Wolves; in Maverick (1994), Graham Greene plays an Indian, hired by a rich Russian to play a savage Indian, complete with warbonnet and warhoops, but decidedly aculturated when “off duty,” and he is a Sioux in Thunderheart (1992); Chief Dan George was a Cheyenne in Little Big Man (1970); and in Tony Hillerman’s Dark Wind (1991), Gary Farmer becomes a Hopi. For the most part, in these roles they seldom had to speak anything but English.
The 1990 film Dances With Wolves includes Graham Greene, Rodney S. Grant, Floyd Red Crow Westerman, and Tantoo Cardinal in the Lakota Sioux tribe; Graham Greene was even nominated for an Academy Award, though probably not for speaking Lakota.
The dialog coach for Kevin Costner’s film was a Lakota actress, Dorris Leader Charge. She had to teach the Indian actors from other tribes to speak Lakota. The “authentic” conversations in the Indian camp were then given English subtitles. Since there are gender differences in the Lakota language, one wonders how the film’s “authentic” dialog learned from a woman sounded to male Lakota-speakers.
Lou Diamond Phillips is a case in point. Of Filipino and Hawaiian origins, he was cast as the lead, a Navajo policeman, in the film Dark Wind shot on Navajo and Hopi land. Because it was felt that an Indian actor should have been chosen, there was much criticism of his being given the part. It is said he claimed some Cherokee blood, but this was not widely accepted. In any case, he was far from being a Navajo and would have had to learn whatever phrases in that difficult language his character had to speak in the film. His co-star Gary Farmer (himself not Navajo) allowed that “Lou did a commendable job with the language.” For Farmer, “the most poignant thing about The Dark Wind is that it will be the first time American audiences will hear Navajo and Hopi spoken in a movie theater.” Not, perhaps, entirely true, but most of the earlier attempts were minimal at best, and often led to misunderstandings or even incomprehension. This was the case in many movie romances between different races.
Throughout the history of movies with white-Indian contact, there have been romantic interludes. Most are with white men marrying (in one form or another) the beautiful Indian maiden. This almost always led to her demise, since the general public was not prepared to accept miscegenation; in any case, the poor child of nature would have perished in city surroundings so what use to take her back East. But this mix-matching led to some swapping of languages as the couple learned about each other. In Across the Wide Missouri (1951) trapper and mountain man, Clark Gable, marries an “Indian” girl and lives with her people. He plays a Jews harp and sings “Skip to My Lou.” His young wife, played by Mexican actress Maria Elena Marques, attempts to win his approval by imitating him, but her efforts to sing “Can’t get a red bird/a blue bird will do” result in a silly babble. She obviously has no idea of the actual words or their meaning, but being Indian she is allowed to be a bit childish and it just makes her rather endearing. The fact that she has adapted to life without comprehensible language seems rather to emphasize her intelligence.
This same quality of acceptance in a silent, mixed marriage is portrayed in John Ford’s 1956 film The Searchers. The unfortunate Look (played by Beulah Archuletta) becomes wife to young Martin (Jeffrey Hunter), a mixed-blood, through a misunderstanding due to his ignorance of her Plains Indian language. John Wayne, as Ethan Edwards, understands and speaks the language, but he does nothing to help out the situation. He only translates the information that her name is “Wild Goose Flying in the Night Sky” and not “Look” which Marty is always saying. She thinks that is what he wants to call her, and is willing to answer to it. Because of the lack of common language, Look is considered dumb, in all its senses, and treated as a joke. The inference regarding Ethan Edwards, however, is that he is clever because he speaks the Indian language. As usual, the whiteman is portrayed as more intelligent than the Indian.
An evenly matched, but mixed couple swapping mother-tongues forms a significant portion of Dances With Wolves. Language coach, Dorris Leader Charge also taught Costner and his (white) leading lady, Mary McDonnell, the Lakota language. In the film, though, the woman, Stands-with-a-Fist, who was taken by the Lakota as a child and therefore still understands and speaks a little English, has the task of teaching John Dunbar. Reluctantly and with bowed head, Stands-with-a-Fist obeys her adoptive father, and the learning of language from each other also becomes a language of love. As they become more adept at understanding the spoken words, their unspoken words become equally clear. No subtitles are used here.
Subtitles play no part in the bulk of TV commercials, but even here there is occasionally a play on language. Take for example the appearance of renowned Jemez Pueblo artist, Jose Rey Toledo, in a pizza commercial some years back. Jose Rey had appeared in several movies including Flap (1970) starring Anthony Quinn as the drunken Indian, Flapping Eagle, and a vampire movie, Nightwing (1979). According to Joe Sando, the Pizza Hut commercial was
[o]riginally intended to be shown only in California, [but] it was so funny and appealing that it was aired in many other regions as well [including Albuquerque]. The scene showed him dressed in his pueblo costume eating a pizza, walking away, saying, “I am going back to my native country, Italy.”
Jose Rey was grinning broadly as he made his exit, no doubt pleased at getting his own back on the many Italian actors that were given roles as Indians in the past.
With the advent of Diana Reyna’s Surviving Columbus, an all-Pueblo documentary, shown first in 1992 as a half-hour PBS pilot for the Columbian Quinticentennial, and then released as a full length television feature film to great acclaim, the Indian voice was at last heard across the land. Reyna, a Taos artist and alumna of the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, directed this documentary which told the other side of the conquest story. It used both English and the native Pueblo languages. Joe Sando, Jemez Pueblo historian, spoke English, as did the late Alfonso Ortiz of San Juan and Ed Ladd from Zuni. But the venerable, 100 year old, Zuni Religious Leader who talked about the first contact with Estefanico spoke in his native Zuni language. We listened to the music of the words, not the meaning. Acoma journalist and broadcaster, Conroy Chino, featured prominently in Surviving Columbus as the narrator; he also shared domestic scenes with his family at dinner. It was interesting to hear the variations of language use between members of the family: the mother spoke in Acoma with English words here and there; the grandmother spoke exclusively in Acoma; Conroy himself spoke a somewhat hesitant Acoma. I asked him about this and he explained that his mother was very conscious of the non-Acoma speaking camera crew, and therefore added some English words so as not to exclude them. His own tentative speech, Conroy told me, was the result of having been away in California for some years where he spoke English all the time, and had gotten out of the habit of thinking in Acoma.
And now, we are having an upsurge of movies where English is spoken all the time, but by Indians. However the difference is this. These are their own movies, and they are telling it like it is. In Harold of Orange (1984), Charlie Hill (Oneida) uses Harold’s extensive command of the English language to run rings around and get the better of the “Anglos”; he uses not only the right words, but intersperses them with tongue-tripping mysticism that the gullible Anglos expect from “real” Indians. The road buddy movies, Powwow Highway (1988) and Smoke Signals (1998) were made a decade apart. The former paired a genial, reservation Indian, Philbert Bono (played by Gary Farmer in an early starring role), and a savvy Vietnam vet activist, Buddy Big Toe (A. Martinez). They were “real” Indians, in a real time, Indian-off-the-Rez movie, but the film was written and directed by non-Indians. While Smoke Signals was a similar road adventure shared by two Rez Indians, and the characters were similarly mismatched—the traditionalist, dreamer and the angry, alienated one—the difference here is that the writer (Sherman Alexie, Spokane/Coer d’Alaine) and director (Chris Eyre) are both Indians. They put together and produced an Indian movie, about Indians, for Indians, that is almost entirely in English, but at the same time shows Indians as they are, today. Real movie Indians, not “Hollywierds.”
A relic of the Lone Ranger days, the debate about just what “Tonto” and “Kemosabe” mean may not be over, but ugh-speech has gone with the wind, and the hero and his sidekick—now both Indians—can speak their minds, in their own words, in whatever language they choose to use. With luck this will mean better understanding by today’s moviegoers, whatever the language they use. So, if an Indian asks you if you like eggs for breakfast, and the next time you meet he says “How” – don’t answer “scrambled,” but say, “Hello friend.”