The Ice Caves of Baffin Island

            The eastern Arctic Inuit town of Pond Inlet, on Baffin Island, in the Canadian territory of Nunavut, west of Greenland, at 72° north latitude, experienced the unusual temperature of 72°F during the third week of July 2009. This was about twenty-five degrees warmer than is typical in one of the world’s northernmost towns. Many residents, walking, or driving four-wheelers, nonetheless remained dressed in their usual summer attire of hoodies or heavy jackets. The hot weather in “Pond” made no sense to residents or visitors. But the change has come. Mosquitoes, once a lesser problem, are now present in hordes and enthusiastic at the presence of visitors. Permanent snowfields have shrunk or disappeared. Mountain glaciers on Bylot Island, a few miles north of Pond, across Eclipse Sound, still reached the water three years ago, but now have retreated. Small rivers emerging from the Baffin glaciers have become raging torrents.

 

 

                

 

Most surprising, however, is the presence of thunder – in two forms. The summer of 2009 became the first when thunderstorms became a regular feature; previously, such storms were uncommon due to the cold conditions. Even more alarming is thunder in a second and more ominous form. Located at the center of the island, the Barnes Ice Cap is the largest ice feature outside Greenland and Antarctica. From beneath its massive surface can be heard the thundering sound of the collapse of its internal ice caves. In the central highlands where the Barnes is located, nighttime temperatures (in what passes for night under the twenty-four hour sun) dropped by less than 10 °F, making midnight high above the Arctic Circle warmer than midnight in Taos, New Mexico (36° north latitude). The Arctic, one of the world’s two massive air conditioners, is, as we know, blowing out less frigid air now than in decades past. But it is one thing to read about the changes, another to be roasting because of not having brought warm weather clothes for an Arctic gone mild.

I made these observations during the summer 2009 as part of a plant ecology expedition titled Back to the Future (BTF). Funded by the National Science Foundation, BTF was part of the International Polar Year, research conducted by hundreds of scientists on changing conditions in the Polar Regions. Five researchers (four scientists plus me as photographer and contributing botanist) spent three weeks studying the flora of central Baffin. The group was led in the field by Dr. Craig Tweedie of the University of Texas (El Paso), and mentored by Dr. Patrick J. Webber, professor emeritus of plant biology at Michigan State University. Dr. Webber, now a resident of Taos, New Mexico, initiated the expedition. He first explored Baffin during the summers of 1963 and 1964 and over a long career has headed Arctic and alpine research organizations. Our expedition was a follow-up to his earlier ones, comparing current plant composition to that of forty-five years ago. I also took on “re-photography” taking pictures from the same perspective and at the same focal length as those taken in the 1960s.

 

 

The expedition studied two areas, a dry, Polar Desert plateau on the edge of the Barnes, and, near-by, one section of wetter, High Arctic habitat along the Isortoq River canyon (pronounced ee-sore-tok) which channels runoff from the western side of the ice cap to Foxe Basin, far to the west. The Barnes Ice Cap, at 2300 square miles (3700 square kilometers) is a super-glacier covering an area larger than Taos County where I live. At 70° north latitude, it is set in the middle of the world’s fifth largest island. Baffin Island covers an area larger than Kansas and New Mexico combined, supporting a mostly coastal population of fewer than 12,000. The treeless interior is a rock-strewn landscape of sparse vegetation, lichens with small patches of wildflowers, grasses, and sedges, similar in appearance to the more stark areas of the Rockies.

There are no roads or man-made structures of any kind for the entire 170-mile distance from Pond to the Barnes Ice Cap. Access over the dozens of deep canyons, glaciers, lakes, and flooding rivers is by air. We flew out from Pond aboard a Twin Otter – two strong engines attached to a stout body. Known as the workhorse of the North, the Twin Otter can carry a big load and, with balloon tires, can land in most unpromising locations. The airplane passed through several storms before emerging from clouds above the Isortoq. The pilots swept down low over the river several times, making sharp turns within the canyon walls as they searched for a place to land. After several brief touchdowns to determine surface conditions, they chose a long gravel-bar island along the main river channel, bumping down hard and stopping abruptly, seemingly in not much more space than a heavy truck would take to stop from similar speed.

 

 

Until the last century, much of central Baffin was heavily glaciated, making travel impossible. There are a few caribou, wolves, ermine, foxes, hares, and jaegers, but overall, not many animals. With limited hunting and fishing opportunities, human visitors have been scarce or absent. Elsewhere on the island are found stone tent rings and, Inuksuit, stone assemblages that serve as markers for hunting areas, overland routes and sacred sites. The only signs of human presence near the Isortoq are abandoned camping supplies and rock cairns left by the small number of recent explorers. I found no record of anyone having navigated the entire length of the Isortoq by raft or kayak. Its reputed stretches of class five rapids will no doubt someday attract the skilled and the foolhardy.

 

We twice crossed the wide Isortoq by raft, examining both sides of the river, hiking its barren shores, then climbing above its banks to grassy valleys spotted with glacial ponds. Higher still are endless felsenmeer (rock fields) crossed by swift streams too large to wade, too small to raft or kayak. Along the way we found swaths of large-blossomed purple Epilobium near drifts of cotton-grass looking like left-over snow. Narrow canyons, whose bottoms were entirely covered by blood red and bright green mosses, survive beneath unstable rocky moraines as high as five story buildings. Our goal was to relocate, re-photograph, and re-sample eighty-one plots, established in the sixties, and not visited again until this past summer. Each plot measured 1 x 30 meters. The scientists noted the species found in each to compare current plant composition with what was found in decades earlier. Species composition had clearly changed. (The analysis is still ongoing.) To do this kind of work, botanists spend a good deal of time looking at the ground. But from many places, when we looked up, we saw the ice cap.

 

 

Both its floodwaters and its sheer mass make the Barnes Ice Cap a looming presence. The Pleistocene-era ice at the base of the Barnes may go back 100,000 years, and, in places, it is more than two thousand feet thick. The ice cap is a remnant of the Laurentide ice sheet, which at its greatest, extended from Baffin to central Kansas. The ghostly ice mass constantly changes color under the twenty-four hour sun. Under clear sky, it can appear as an expected undifferentiated white, but it can also seem yellow and textured like a desert hillside. At other times, it exhibits what only can be described as an electric blue that to all appearances seems to be glowing from within. As the Laurentide, the ice mass was a controlling factor of global weather. As the Barnes, it gives gusty reminders of its past glory by hurling forth katabatic winds, short strong bursts of down-slope refrigerated air. Its coming death matters even to those who will never know its winds. As melt the glaciers of Baffin, so also will melt the gigantic ice sheet covering Greenland. The realm of ice – the cryosphere – at least on Baffin, is in a major transition of energy loss. In any system, the end point of energy loss is death.

           

 

            The cryosphere should not look as if it is alive. But the inescapable impression from thirty thousand feet above (as well as on the ground) is that the ice realm of our planet demonstrates life-like characteristics. Individual glaciers wrap over high ridges like thrown drapery, then crowd through deep canyons, dirty white striped ribbons whose motion is evident – like a fast stream caught in the millisecond image of a photograph. Glaciers plunge over cliffs into the sea fog covered fiords. On the horizon white capped mountains and hovering grayish clouds blend to obscure the line between the ice cryosphere and the icy atmosphere.

This was nowhere more evident than from the drained basin of Flitaway Lake where stranded, dirt-covered ice burgs form hundred-foot pyramids, contrasting dramatically with the ice cap that rises mountain-like behind. In 1963, Flitaway was a glacial lake covering a thousand acres and reaching more than two hundred feet deep. Its dam was the ice cap itself until one day within the last couple of decades (no one seems to know just when) instability in the ice or ground caused most of the water to drain away. Scores of rivulets run down the ice cap, splashing into what is left of the lake. The continual sound of waterfalls is punctuated by the loud collapse of the invisible ice caverns, giving the impression that the Barnes is rotting from within.

A few hours south (by foot), the ice cap pushes outward as the Lewis and Triangle glaciers. Once the two were connected, flowing all the way to the Isortoq. By 2009, the Triangle had retreated far back towards the ice cap. Melt water drops so fast and violently through its steep, twin canyons that the resulting turbulence roars at a frequency similar to that of a Twin Otter. Lewis Glacier descends a canyon of lesser slope. Its terminus shoves downward into the earth on the south and forms tall ice walls on its north. Over time those walls melt and collapse, sometimes exposing ice caves. Dr. Webber photographed the revealed caves in 1964. One photo shows a smiling scientist standing against a white wall of unknown height, apparently unconcerned that a section of the cryosphere might well give way to gravity at any second. Another photo bears the caption: “Large enough to park a double-decker English bus.”

Those ice structures melted long ago, victim of the glacier’s one-mile retreat. I crossed the now ice free spot where they stood forty-five years ago. The melted glacier left behind a boulder-strewn flood plain. Nearing its current end point, the land below the glacier is unsettled into huge piles of churned-up rock rubble where even the ever-present Baffin lichens have not yet found a foothold. The crumbling moraines are undermined by permafrost in decay, creating the kind of trap that wooly mammoths used to stumble into.

The ice walls of 2009 look much like those of 1964, even though they are in a different place. But there was a difference: Part of the Lewis River, which used to emerge from beneath the glacier, now floods along its side. In one spot, the river has carved a tunnel through the ice wall where it quickly disappears into complete darkness. Although entry into the cave was not more than fifty yards away, the furious downward slide of the river made it impossible to cross.  It looked alive and very dangerous, the dynamic nature of the scene increased still further by the arrival of a thunderstorm with its attendant lightning – a scene that could have been taken out of The Lord of the Rings.

 

 

The massive flow of water is the lifeblood of the glacier. Old photos showed the Lewis as a monster of ice; now it is much reduced in stature and in a few years will disappear back into the edge of the ice cap itself. Walking on just-revealed earth, ground never before touched by any human, I was watching liquid history, ice formed thousands of years ago, now melted into the water passing swiftly by. The water level pulsed to a higher level once each day, for about seven hours, before, in the evening, subsiding again – the glacial heartbeat.

The hidden ice caverns must be fantastical, the realm of ever-change. Its rivers pulse through like veins of blood, although those sibilant streams do not bring life to the ice mass; they are more like the hemorrhaging of a wound. The interior thunder suggests that its many passages are growing in size causing it to bleed out – the cryosphere equivalent of the Ebola virus. The arterial outflow from its slowly beating heart carries an unmistakable question. When its great heart stops, what will become of us?

 

Photographs © 2009 David L. Witt

Aylmer Lake and The Arctic Prairies

In 1907, after a life that had already included many great adventures, Seton embarked on one of his most important. At age 47 he made a five and one-half month canoe trip on rivers in Canada’s western Arctic. Accompanied by biologist Edward A. Preble, they began on May 18 and continued through their return at the beginning of November. Seton began publishing his results in the November 1910 issue of Scribner’s Magazine – the same publication that had made his career by publishing Lobo’s story sixteen years earlier.

 

Seton was still deeply hurt by the “Nature Faker” controversy of 1903 in which his credentials as a naturalist had been called into question by the lyric nature writer John Burroughs. He increasingly turned his attention to serious non-fiction including the 1909 Life Histories of Northern Animals and a full treatment of his expedition with Preble, The Arctic Prairies published in 1911.

 

The purpose of the 1907 trip was to explore an area above the Arctic Circle, especially the little known Aylmer Lake. The lake had been visited before but not mapped. Rumor was that the lake was as large as the gigantic Great Slave Lake (which is southeast of Aylmer). Aylmer Lake, at 847 Sq. Kilo., is connected by a narrow passage to Clinton-Colden Lake at 737 Sq. Kilo., but even taken together, the two are miniscule compared to Great Slave.

No matter. Seton and Preble had a wonderful time studying plants and animals, climate and hydrology, and writing the first scientific and travel guide to that area of the Northwest Territories. Near the end of the trip a capsized canoe dunked all of Seton’s journals and maps into a river. The loss of all his notes would have been disastrous, but they soon turned up safe and dry. When he got back he slept in a building for the first time in almost half a year. He had experienced not one day’s ill health up until that time. After his first night inside he caught a terrible cold.  

On August 20^th, Seton wrote, “we camped in Sandhill Bay, the north point of Aylmer Lake and the northernmost point of our travels by canoe.” They hiked another six or seven miles north of the lake: “We had a most complete and spectacular view of the immense open country that we had come so far to see. It was spread before us like a huge, minute, and wonderful chart, and plainly marked with the processes of its shaping-time.”

Seton was euphoric and shared his excitement over several pages ending with: “This was the land and these the creatures I had come to see. This was my Farthest North and this was the culmination of years of dreaming. How very good it seemed at the time, but how different and how infinitely more delicate and satisfying was the realization than any of the day-dreams founded on my vision through the eyes of other men.”

 

Seton was clearly enthralled by the Arctic (excepting the mosquitoes). Unlike in our time, he had essentially no visual information about that region before seeing it himself. The still photos and filmed documentaries I have seen of the northern Polar region show a place of stark beauty. I have visited many mountaintops in New Mexico, Colorado and California that gave me a feel for the tundra. But no film or book can capture the crystalline air, the mystery of glacier-sky horizon lines, or the summer sun skirting the edge of the earth without setting. Nothing can prepare you for ice mountains thousands of feet deep nor the sight of huge Arctic wolf paw prints nor the airplane-loud roar of multiple cliff waterfalls.

 

It is now almost four years ago since I made my one visit to the High Arctic of Baffin Island, closer to the North Pole than the southern edge of the Arctic Circle. With that trip I came to understand Seton’s rhapsodic descriptions. For a very long time I have wanted to find a way to Aylmer Lake – increasingly so since seeing Baffin.

 

Travel in the Arctic is dauntingly expensive, but I very much want to find a way to finance a trip to Aylmer Lake. Perhaps Crowd-source funding? Winning a lottery? I’m open to whatever ideas anyone may have.

 

Seton built rock cairns to mark his expedition route. Two are of particular interest to me. One marks the Sandhill Bay campsite; the other, the place where the Lockhart River enters the lake. Could those cairns still be there over a century later? I would like to search for them – they may still exist. I looked for a particular cairn on Baffin and found it unchanged from its building over forty years earlier.

 The account of Seton’s Arctic trip served as an inspiration when I was in my early twenties and may in some way have led me to Baffin, even though it was decades later. In honor of the Chief, I will provide a short account of my Arctic trip in the next two essays. I would like to have shared the Baffin experience with him. He would have been mighty pleased with what he would have seen there.

 

 

An Interview with Dieter Rall

Deiter Rall and Leila Knox at the Academy
August 10, 2012

Last August I invited family and friends of ETS to a special birthday celebration gathering at the the Academy for the Love of Learning. Among those attending were Dieter Rall who, as a boy, was a camper at the Seton Institute, and Leila Knox, who, as a girl, lived with the Setons. Leila is Julia Seton's niece. Both Leila and Dieter knew the "Chief" from the 1930s onward. For this entry, my Academy colleague Seth Biderman conducted an interview with Dieter. My thanks to both Dieter and Seth for allowing me to post this material here. dlw

The Enduring Influence of Ernest Thompson Seton: An Interview with Dieter Rall

October 2012 - The Academy for the Love of Learning

 When the Woodcraft Rangers began serving youth in Los Angeles 90 years ago, they took their guidance from the writings, philosophy and spirit of the founder of the national Woodcraft League, Ernest Thompson Seton.

By that time Seton was in his 60s, an internationally acclaimed artist, writer, storyteller, conservationist and educator. He had written and illustrated bestselling stories and guidebooks; counted the world’s leading politicians, writers and thinkers among his friends; and on top of founding the Woodcraft League, had been instrumental in the development of other youth programs as well, including the Boy Scouts of America.

As Los Angeles children flocked to the programs and summer camps of the exciting new Woodcraft Rangers, Seton and his wife Julia began settling in New Mexico, where he had been transformed as a younger man by his famed encounter with a wolf named Lobo. It was here, in his iconic “castle” outside Santa Fe, where Seton passed away in October of 1946. His estate passed into the hands of his wife, and then his children, who cared for it until 2003, when it was entrusted to an organization that shares many of Seton’s values, the Academy for the Love of Learning.

 

One boy who would be forever influenced by Seton’s vision and the Woodcraft Rangers of Los Angeles was Dieter Rall. He was born in Los Angeles in 1926, when the city was already an urban area, buzzing with streetcars and a flourishing movie industry. But the Rall family was more interested in the natural world than that of the screen. Encouraged by his parents, who “had an appreciation for nature and hiking,” young Dieter followed the lead of his uncles and cousins and became an enthusiastic Woodcraft Ranger.

Now in his 80’s, having retired to Santa Fe, NM, just a few miles from the Seton castle, Dieter still recalls many details of his life-changing experiences with Seton and the Woodcraft Rangers, most notably three summers he spent in New Mexico at the Seton Village Children’s camp.

In 2012, as part of its Seton Legacy Project, the Academy for the Love of Learning spoke with Dieter to capture some of his memories from that time.

Academy for the Love of Learning: What do you recall of the Woodcraft Rangers?

Dieter Rall: The League was very active in Los Angeles when I was a boy. There must have been several dozen “tribes,” and there were three summer camps. Everyone in Woodcraft knew each other. I became a Woodcraft Ranger when I was eight, and when I was ten, I attended a sort of competition, which we called “fiestas.” Everyone got together to show his skills in archery, water boiling from scratch, carving, one-legged “chicken-fighting” (you’d hold one leg behind your back and try to knock the other boy off balance), and so on. I performed particularly well, and as a result I was offered a $75 scholarship so I could attend Seton’s camp that summer. My family didn’t have a lot of money, so there’s no way I could’ve gone otherwise.

ALL: You knew of Seton then?

DR: Of course. As the founder of the Woodcraft League, Seton was the guiding light for everything we did. He and [his second wife] Julia would come out to the West Coast for meetings with the Woodcraft leaders, gatherings of the tribes. Sometimes my parents would have them to dinner or lunch at our house. He was always interested in what was going on with Woodcraft, and also with what I was doing personally. And he usually had something pretty interesting to say.

ALL: So you traveled to the camp?

DR: Yes. I got on the train from LA to Lamy, and rode it by myself, an overnight ride, at the age of ten. That was a big deal, traveling on my own. I remember that feeling, knowing I had no one to answer to but myself.

ALL: What was the Seton Village Children’s Camp like?

DR: It was the life. Even though I was so young, I was included in all the activities. We slept in little “doghouses,” big enough for one or two of us, or in the cabins by the kiva. I remember the grownups slept in tents. On a typical day we’d be woken up by an Indian wake up call, and maybe go out for a hike, or horseback riding. We did some overnight camping, horse packing up into the Pecos Wilderness. We’d also work on crafts—I was very influenced by one handicraft teacher we had, from St. Louis. I also remember counselor Bill Wicker telling his us stories about treasure hunting in the Caribbean. The place was just full of colorful people, naturalists and craftsmen. And in the evenings we’d get visitors from Santa Fe, people from all walks of life, which was very interesting for me. Some nights we’d make a campfire in the hogan and do Indian dances. I still remember dancing a Whoop dance for Seton himself. He was very pleased to see it.

ALL: What other memories do you have of Seton?

DR: He was 80 that first summer. We all admired him greatly. He wasn’t stern at all, we just looked up to him, had respect for who he was. I remember he was a big man, with that big shock of hair. Always wore a suit, and on his birthdays he’d wear his special made Native American suit. And he was a storyteller par excellence.

ALL: We’ve heard and read much about his storytelling prowess. Do you remember his storytelling sessions?

DR: They were fabulous. He made you live right inside the story. Sometimes he’d tell them by the campfire, but often they were in the library in the Castle. It was a large room full of his books, with the stage at one end. We’d set up chairs, and the youngest of us would sit on the floor. He’d be up on the stage, and sometimes would add in slides. And he’d always act out the animal class. When he howled like Lobo [from “Lobo, the King of Currumpaw”], boy. The walk to your cabin, in the dark, after hearing that….

ALL: How many years did you attend the camp?

DR: I went three years, in 1937, 1938 and 1939. My sister also attended, in 1938 and 1939. That second year we paid for part of our tuition by setting tables. After that, the war broke out, and nobody could afford to travel at all.

ALL: How did the camp, and your encounters with Seton, influence you?

DR: It was life-altering. Being on my own was a big deal, as I said, but my involvement in Woodcraft, and attending the camps at the Seton Castle, really created a change in my lifestyle. I was very influenced by his ideas of cultural respect for Indian Philosophy, and I came to understand it’s as sophisticated as the “White Man” philosophy, in many ways. Also his way of viewing the closeness between humans and animals, how similar we are. Seton definitely influenced the way I treat animals and understand their feelings.

ALL: Would you say those are the key elements of Seton’s legacy, then, in your mind? That he brought a new sense of respect toward Native ways of being, and towards the animals and the natural world?

DR: Yes. He was also a leader in develop the whole idea of camping. He brought in the whole idea of the campfire, the fire ring into our culture. It seems so natural now, but it really was based on his influence. And he was a visionary in many ways. Not only the way he treated animals, and his respect for Indian culture, but also the fact that his camp was coeducational, for example, was very unusual at the time. But he considered coeducation as a natural way for kids to grow up.

ALL: What was your connection with Seton after 1939, when you no longer attended his camps?

DR: When I was an adult, with my own family, we’d stop by the castle every time we came through New Mexico. All my kids knew about Seton. And of course we ended up retiring out here, in 2002. We now live in El Dorado, close to land that was part of Seton’s original property.

About the Academy for the Love of Learning and its Seton Legacy Project: The Academy was founded in 1998 following a ten-year collaborative exploration into learning and transformation by legendary musician Leonard Bernstein and the Academy’s president and founder, Aaron Stern. Through a wide array of programming, including Ventana, Leading By Being, and Teacher Renewal, the Academy seeks to awaken, enliven, nurture and sustain the natural love of learning in people of all ages.

When the Academy purchased the last remaining state of Ernest Thompson Seton in 2003, it added to its programming the Seton Legacy Project. Coordinated by historian and Seton scholar David L. Witt, author of Ernest Thompson Seton: The Life and Legacy of an Artist and Conservationist, the Project keeps Seton’s legacy alive with a gallery of Seton’s work, storytelling events and celebrations, museum exhibitions, stewardship of his land and castle, and Evenings of Exploration focused on Seton. The Seton Legacy Project is supported by the generous donations and support of individuals who have been touched by Ernest Thompson Seton and his teachings. Learn more at www.aloveoflearning.org/seton_legacy.

The Importance of Clayton

Sierra Grande and Capulin
Photographs by David L. Witt  

            On March 16, 2012 I had the distinct pleasure of addressing a wonderful group at the Herzstein Memorial Museum in Clayton, NM. I was invited by museum director Victoria Baker to speak on Seton. My adventures earlier that day included touring several sites along the Corrumpa River with Victoria’s husband Rick, a rancher whose family has lived in Union County since 1910.  Joining the backcountry tour was writer/photographer Evan Davison, a Kansan who is an aficionado of New Mexican history and culture; and also Seneca the ranch dog. The parts of the Corrumpa River we saw (without running water due to the drought) ranged from sand and gravel cañons to wetlands to cottonwood forest. We traveled through areas familiar to Lobo, Blanca, and Seton still so remote that a local guide is essential.

I usually talk to groups using limited notes and that evening was no exception. My comments were not recorded, but I emphasized Seton’s connection to northeastern New Mexico. (This is also covered in my book, Ernest Thompson Seton, the Life and Legacy of an Artist and Conservationist.)

For visitors and residents alike, here is something of importance to note. Two major social movements of the twentieth century had their origins, at least in part, in Union County, New Mexico. This is not well known but should be celebrated. During the slightly less than three months Seton spent in and around Clayton, he came up with two vitally important ideas as well as several more decisions of great personal importance.

First, as he added to his knowledge as a naturalist by making a close examination of Southwestern ecology, he came to believe it was his destiny to introduce others to the glories of wild nature. As an educator, he would develop concepts for outdoor youth education that led to several important developments including foundational principles for what became the worldwide Boy Scout movement.

Secondly, even as he was killing wolves and coyotes – acknowledging the economic damage that predators could cause ranchers – he also felt there was a countervailing need for preserving our wild nature heritage. This included the preservation for big game species and, as well, predators such as wolves. He was the first person to popularize wildlife conservation on a mass scale. His work complemented the activities of John Muir and Theodore Roosevelt in land conservation.

I have written in my book about the importance of these movements, both of which went global. But here I want to emphasize that Seton’s stunningly important accomplishments came about as a result of the influence of the people, landscape, and wildlife of Clayton and Union County. That is, both the Scouting and wildlife conservation movements came about directly because of his time in New Mexico – not from the intellectuals of the big cities or universities, but out of the experience of one man, usually alone, and often on horseback, who took the time he needed to think about the world and how to make it a better place.



Seneca

 

 

 

Rick and Evan explore the now dry Corrumpa where dwell the spirits of Lobo and Blanca 

 

 

 

Tecumseh

Ernest Thompson Seton developed a system of ethics for the Woodcraft movement setting out elements of correct behavior for young people. He emphasized not only relationships within the human community but also to nature. He outlined his thoughts in The Book of Woodcraft (the 1912 and subsequent editions) and in a “Blazes on the Trail” pamphlet for the Woodcraft League, “No. 3, Spartans of the West” (1930) from the precursor to the Seton Village Press. (Two earlier essays were combined in the first Blazes on the Trail” issued from the “Indian Village, Little Peequo at Greenwich, Connecticut (1928). In that one he may have introduced the term Lifecraft.)

As his model, Seton cataloged what he felt were virtues of American Indian culture. Keep in mind that he was writing for a White audience often hostile to native history and interests. To his credit, surviving correspondence shows that Seton took an active interest in promoting the political rights of contemporary Indians. But his published writings were mostly about “historic” Indians.

The Indian Seton most admired was one of the more remarkable figures in North American history. Tecumseh, a Shawnee, who through his industry and wisdom, became an important leader in the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries. Playing an important role in complex inter-tribal politics, the decisions he made in peace and war had important implications for Canada, Great Britain, and the United States. A man of the people uninterested in personal wealth, he advocated for the downtrodden (even Whites) and, with his brother, preached the virtues of life lived in harmony with nature. These virtues held the greatest appeal to Seton who believed that North American history would have had a different (and better) outcome had the teachings of Tecumseh prevailed. He wrote in “The Spartans of the West” a section on allegations of cruelty by Indians, giving him an opportunity to introduce the great Shawnee chief:

There are many exceptions to this charge that the Indian is cruel to his enemies, enough, almost, to justify a complete rebuttal, and among these was none more honorably distinguished than Tecumseh, the war chief of the Shawnees; perhaps the greatest of all historic Indians. Like a new incarnation of Hiawatha, he planned a defensive federation of the whole red race, and led them in war, that he might secure for them a lasting peace. All great Indians had taught the doctrine “Love your friends.” But Tecumseh as the first in authority to extend the heaven-taught precept, so they should be kind, at least, to their enemies; for he put an end in his nation to all torturing of prisoners. Above all whose history is fully known, Tecumseh was the ideal noble Redman realized…

Among those aspects of Indian culture found admirable by Seton: a rich spiritual and religious life, an honoring of bodily fitness, reverence for parents, respect for the property of others, a strong sense of morality, a need for honesty in all matters, a commitment to peace and hospitality, and the manifestation of courage, the highest value of all. “He [the Indian] believed that he should so live his life that the fear of death should never enter his heart; that when the last call came he should…meet the end in triumph.” These virtues (and others), taken together are sometimes summarized as “Perennial philosophy,” moral principles generally shared by religious traditions worldwide. Seton recognized the similarities to Christian morality and ethical traditions of ancient Greeks. But since he was writing for an American audience, he felt that the values of courage and honor exemplified by native Americans made for a more relevant model than anything out of European tradition.

I began to wonder how modern scholarship interpreted the life and deeds of Tecumseh. For all that he might have been a “noble Redman,” who was he and what did he represent? He was not interviewed by the press and tragically no authenticated portraits exist. There are, however, many first-hand accounts and one writer, Canadian novelist John Richards, knew Tecumseh when he reached the height of his political influence.

Included in the Academy’s library is a book that belonged to Seton’s daughter, Dee Seton Barber, Tecumseh, A Life. Written by historian John Sugden and published in 1997, the book includes sources known to Seton as well as a vast amount of newer research. Although not a romanticized view, Sugden’s depiction of Tecumseh would seem entirely familiar to Seton.

Sugden tells the history of that sad time in great detail, as well as Tecumseh’s importance to native peoples, but here I am more interested in what he has written about Tecumseh’s character. Sugden’s book is filled with the first-hand accounts from Whites and Indians who knew the Shawnee chief as friend or adversary. They all agree that he conveyed a striking presence from his appearance and ability as an orator, to his sagacity and leadership ability. Among the tribal peoples of that time, chiefs had little authority beyond their personal moral strength, that is, they gathered about them followers for whom they modeled the virtues that exemplified the highest achievements of what Seton would call Lifecraft. According to Sugden, “Everywhere, tribal organization was weak, and the village chiefs had limited ways of enforcing discipline and compliance. They relied upon persuasion, example, and consensus.”

By recognizing the threat White civilization posed to all Indian peoples, Tecumseh worked on a near-continental scale to organize resistance on a cross-cultural scale. Outraged by the unilateral abrogation of treaties by the Whites, Tecumseh reacted with defiance but not with vengeance. He protected non-combatants and disavowed the use of torture as a legitimate act of war – even in the face of genocide by the invading Whites. This strong moral stance did not go unnoticed by Whites or Indians. Apparently this was a lifelong trait, for even as a boy “he gave early evidence of generosity and humanity, as well as the ability to respond to the goodwill he found in individuals.” He believed that Indian land was communally owned and could not be sold by individual chiefs or even by individual tribes. He worked to build a confederacy of tribes to support the belief.

Perhaps Tecumseh’s greatest strength was his unmitigated service to community, first of all to the Shawnees, but over time, to the greater community of all tribal peoples in the Mississippi and Ohio watersheds. His life of service came with a price in terms of personal wealth, inability to achieve a normal family life, and ultimately, losing his own life. Yet for all this, there is no evidence that he held any regret for choosing this course. This example of devoting one’s life to something beyond self interest continues to inspire. Sugden writes, “For Indians today he remains the ultimate symbol not only of courage and endeavor, but also of unity and fraternity.”

Seton was influenced both by his own experience of living close to native peoples in the U.S. and Canada as well as by extensive reading. He probably first read James Fenimore Cooper’s 1826 novel, The Last of the Mohicans: A Narrative of 1757, at an early age. One of the main characters, Chingachgook, is, like Tecumseh, an exemplary warrior, hunter, and moral leader. (Cooper likely would have been familiar with the famous Tecumseh.) Seton was doubtless moved, like other liberals of his generation, by the seminal book on the treatment of natives, A Century of Dishonor, Helen Jackson’s 1885 bleak chronicle of the wars against indigenous peoples. He gave a list of “Standard Indian Books” for further reading in Spartans of the West. These volumes were included in his personal library. Many of the books may be seen in the Academy’s Seton Gallery and Archives. I am always glad to show them when you come by to visit the Gallery and Castle.

Updated Seton Web Pages

 

After about a year of mighty effort, the staff of the Academy for the Love of Learning has published our updated Seton web pages. The new material is an educational supplement to my book on Seton. It is meant for anyone new to the Seton Legacy, but also presents an in-depth consideration of Seton philosophy.

It is divided into three main sections with lots of links so there is plenty to explore.

The “About” region includes sections on Seton Castle plus the Gallery and Archives, the Learning Landscape (exploring our relationship to the land at Seton Village), and a concise Biography.  

The “Learning from Seton” region includes a reprinting of stories from Wild Animals I Have Known plus “Krag, the Kootenay Ram” and “Badlands Billy: The Wolf that Won.”  These are accompanied by helpful comments and study questions that can be used by students and teachers.

The “Lifecraft” region explains Seton’s meaning for this term, and, in addition, gives a contemporary interpretation of Seton’s “Nine Principles” of Woodcraft and the “Fourfold Path.” These concepts were central to Seton’s thinking on education. To give this region more depth we have included comments on the “Learning Field” and other ideas developed by Academy founder Aaron Stern. I can only conclude that Aaron and Ernest would have found one another fellow creatures of the heart.

Finally, we include a brief section of “Other Resources” for those wanting links to other Seton web sites and collections held by other institutions.

You are welcome to browse the highlights and or spend time reading Seton stories and/or exploring the various links elsewhere on the Academy for the Love of Learning web site.

And please do contact us for information on how to become a supporter of the Seton Legacy Project or the Learning Landscape. There are many ways to help from volunteering at the Academy to providing general financial support or underwriting specific projects. Contact me anytime to learn more: davidlwitt@aloveoflearning.org

 
Lots more blog entries to follow in 2013, including a closer consideration of how the little town of Clayton, New Mexico in Union County became the catalyst for much that Seton would accomplish in his life and an essay on Tecumseh. Look also for an introduction to Seton Village wildflowers  and announcements about upcoming Seton programs at the Academy

Lobo the King Wolf Part IV

No hurrahs for Hollywood, but Seton’s Lobo story inspired two films.  Clash of the Wolves (1925) starred Rin Tin Tin as “Lobo” in his 9^th Hollywood feature.  Many years later, Disney released the Legend of Lobo (1962), “A tale of the Old West told in song and story by Rex Allen with the Sons of the Pioneers…Based on a story by Ernest Thompson Seton.”

While the “Lobo” in Clash of the Wolves is not the same one as in Seton’s Currumpaw story, it cannot be ruled out that whatever studio released this picture called its lead character Lobo to take advantage of the name recognition from Seton’s earlier story.  (Rin Tin Tin also portrayed a character named Lobo in a 1929 movie, but I have not seen that one.) The title cards in this silent film give information reminiscent of Seton’s Lobo: “I know that wolf. That’s the famous Lobo.” And: “I’ll give $100 for his hide.” But instead of hunting the wolf, the human protagonist in this one befriends the wounded animal.

This Lobo leads a band of outlaw wolves until he is injured when his foot is pierced by a cactus thorn. (The movie appears to have been shot in a California desert location.) Unable to extract the thorn, Lobo seeks the help of his mate (played by another dog, credited as Nanette in the IMDb notes on the films) in extracting the life-threatening sticker, but no luck there. Knowing that showing signs of weakness leads to death in the wolf world, Lobo attempts to hide his wound, but when it grows worse his fellow wolves drive him out of the pack to die alone. Meanwhile, his mate waits in vain with her puppies for his return.

To Lobo, man is his greatest enemy, from whom he can expect no succor. Against all probability, the wolf is found and brought back to health by a kindly miner who faces problems of his own. Dave Weston (played by Charles Farrell who went on to a role as a minor television actor in the 1950s) is shot by a claim jumper, Borax Horton, who leaves him for dead. Lobo attempts to get help from Dave’s girlfriend May, but both May and Lobo are also threatened by the villainous Horton. Somehow, Lobo manages to get word to his wolf pack which joins him in giving the unfortunate Horton his comeuppance. Dave and May, and Lobo and his mate (Nanette), live happily ever after.

The plot was improbable, but Rin Tin Tin took his role seriously and brought to it the gravitas his audience had come to expect. Or so I assume; I have not found any contemporary reviews by film critics of his time.

According to the IMDb site, at the peak of Rin Tin Tin’s popularity, “Warners maintained 18 trained stand-ins to reduce any stress on their dog star, while providing him (“Rinty”) with a private chef who prepared daily lunches of tenderloin steak (consumed as live classical music was played to help ease the dog's digestion.)” And: “Trainer Lee Duncan, on the first film he made of the dog: ‘At first the dog did not know he was watching pictures of himself, but when it dawned on him his tail wagged ferociously.’" One can only imagine how proud Rinty must have felt when he learned that Clash of the Wolves had been inspired, at least in some degree, by the popularity of Seton’s story!

In The Legend of Lobo, the unnamed wolf actors (played by actual wolves or wolf-dogs of various ages) go through their Disney paces with faux natural history, lots of cute scenes, some tearful scenes, and even less plot than Clash of the Wolves. At least it featured wolves rather than dogs, but without a compelling actor like Rin Tin Tin, it is mostly a bunch of wolves running around doing wolf things with a voice-over narrator trying to impose some kind of order on pieced together documentary nature footage. The narration is overrun from time to time by the annoying accompaniment of singing cowboys.

Since there is no dialog in this film, we are helped by the wanted posters for Lobo with the price on his head increasing from $100 to $1000. The tale of “The bravest wolf of all” spends half or more of its time on the back story of Lobo’s parents, “El Feroz” the dad and an unnamed mother. Amid several scenes of cute wolf puppies at the den, the narrator interjects the occasional Setonism such as: “All of his life, he (Lobo) would be one to learn from experience, store it up, and remember it.” And: “When the buffalo were wiped out it left cattle as the wolves’ only hope for survival. So El Feroz took what seemed his rightful share.”

As in the original story, the plight of the cattlemen having their livestock destroyed is shown as an important problem while at the same time “a kind of nobelness (sic) in the wolf” is also acknowledged.

The young Lobo goes through various traumas, including getting lost from his parents, surviving a threatening encounter with a mountain lion, trying to support his doomed father caught in a leg trap, and witnessing cowboys shooting his mother after she is caught killing a cow. Seton did not spare his young readers from the experience of tragedy and neither do the film makers.

Contrived scenes of puppy Lobo romping with a baby antelope and the two of them joining a swimming party of baby raccoons probably had limited credibility in 1962 and certainly has none now. The only realistic part came when the young wolf attacks one of the raccoons (ending the scene!). Of greater concern, the director set up actual animal fights, wolf vs. badger, wolf vs. wolf, and showed wolves snared in leg traps. In other places, uncontrived documentary scenes of wolf life were rather interesting.

At the end of the movie, following the random scenes of real or imagined wolf behavior, the producers introduce a story plot: a trapper is brought in to rid the world of Lobo once and for all. He traps Lobo’s mate (in this case a black wolf since presumably a white one was not available) and holds her prisoner in a building at the ranch. Lobo rallies his pack to attack the ranch! They stampede a herd of longhorns who knock over the building thus freeing the female from her entrapment. The wolves happily run off and head out for a new promised land free of humans. The narrator calls it quits at this point. Sadly for the wolves no such paradise exists.

But I would like to give the wolves another chance. I hereby announce that for the next film incarnation of “The King of Currumpaw” I am available to write the screenplay.