Seton emigrated with his family to Canada when he was six years old. He had a natural talent for art and subsequently returned to London to study at the Royal Academy School of Painting and Sculpture. He also studied art in Paris before returning to Canada in 1881 where he began a job as Naturalist for the government of the province of Manitoba. That year he published his first article, Key to Birds of Canada. In 1885, he contributed over 1000 animal drawings for the Century Dictionary and also provided illustrations for various books on Manitoba wildlife. After hunting the famous Lobo wolf in New Mexico, Seton published the Story of Lobo (1894), in Scribner's Magazine. His first book, Studies in the Art of Animals, was published in 1896. In 1898, he published his most popular and enduring work, Wild Animals I Have Known, which was hugely successful. In 1900, Seton moved to America, where for the most part he spent the rest of his life. In 1902, he founded the Woodcraft Indians, a forerunner of the Boy Scouts, and in 1906 met with Baden-Powell in London to help develop the Boy Scout movement. In 1909 he published Life Histories of Northern Animals, a two-volume work which firmly established his reputation in the naturalist arena. He was chairman of the Founding Committee of the Boy Scouts of America from 1910. From his many years of research and travel among the Native tribes, he derived Sign Talk (1918), a study of Native linguistics. In 1928, he founded the Cub Scouts of America. In 1930, he moved to New Mexico and became a U.S. citizen. Seton was a firm proponent of Native rights and their cultural heritage and founded the Seton Institute of Indian Lore. During his life, Seton travelled extensively throughout Europe, lecturing on nature, the scout movements and Native heritage. He was awarded the Silver Buffalo Award in 1926, the John Burroughs Medal and the Daniel Giraud Eliot Medal for pre-eminence in zoology, both in 1928. Seton's many fine works included The Book of Woodcraft (1912), Wild Animal Ways (1916), The Lives of Game Animals (1918-25), Woodland Tales (1921), Gospel of the Redman (1927), Animals Worth Knowing (1934), The Buffalo Wind (1939) and his autobiography, Trail of An Artist (1940). |
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