Ernest Thompson Seton and The Arctic Prairies: Aylmer Lake Expedition Field Notes 2015 #1

Michale, Patty, Thomas, David

This is the first in a series giving a day-by-day report on the expedition to Aylmer Lake in the Canadian Arctic sponsored by the Academy for the Love of Learning. The purpose of the trip was to follow the northernmost part of the Seton-Preble expedition of 1907. The two explorers traveled with two native guides. None of them had previously been to Aylmer Lake. Seton wanted to find out if it was a huge inland sea like Great Slave Lake. It wasn’t nearly so vast, but from its middle, it seemed large to me.

These journal entries are just the beginning—we are planning a more comprehensive publication and exhibition for 2016. My notes will show up as several separate postings, accompanied representative images from the trip.

Notes from summer 2015. Expedition participants: Michale Lang (independent curator), Thomas Jaggers, Patty Nagle (Academy for the Love of Learning), David L. Witt (expedition leader, author of these notes, and Seton Legacy Project curator).

Ex officio: Kevin McNeil, outfitter, Aylmer Lake Lodge.

Saturday July 25. I drove from Taos to Santa Fe, spent the night at the Academy for the Love of Learning campus prior to an early morning flight out on United Express from Santa Fe airport; felt concern over travel arrangements; a flight delay could be disastrous. Must be at Air Tindi Float Plane base on time: tomorrow morning early.

Sunday July 26. Patty, Thomas and I arrived separately at the airport only to find my worst fears unrealized: Flawless flight from Santa Fe to Denver to Calgary. Some rain at Calgary, clouds, air bumps. Endless very green farm fields. Long layover between flights useful as getting through Customs took considerable time and several layers of airline and security people to deal with. Fortunately we got in the “Connecting Flights” line that saved much time [TIP: Make sure to get in this line!].

Lunch of uninspired Fish & Chips at airport Montana Restaurant. Took off again on next flight with stopover in Edmonton (we briefly got off the plane), then continued on same flight to Yellowknife, arriving on time, late evening. Immediately caught the free shuttle from airport to Explorer Hotel (good rooms & location).

No flight delays, but there could have been, so getting to YK a day earlier could have been a good plan just as insurance against air connection problems.

Met up with Michale for late night snack in the hotel bar where she met Thomas and Patty for the first time. Michale had arrived in the morning and had a fine day in YK, including making friends with visitor center manager, Tracy, who took her on a tour of the town.

Monday July 27. Up at 4:45am. Sunrise: 4:50am. Got to float plane base on time at 5:30am as requested. $20.00 (Canadian) for van taxi: four of us plus gear from hotel.

Loading the plane took an hour: too much stuff; after much discussion left much of the groceries behind to make room for three fisherman and their gear: friends of Aylmer Lodge owner Kevin McNeil who were going up for a free week in return to making substantial repairs on the Lodge. (7 passengers + pilot)

A single-engine Cessna C-208 Caravan floatplane was scheduled to carry us; a de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter with its larger payload capacity could carry everything (including bread, eggs, cheese, pancake syrup, etc. and a few other commodities that would be missed) but at a considerable increase in cost. The fishermen made a decision about what could be left behind when neither Kevin nor his wife could be reached. (The remaining provisions only finally arrived at the Lodge on the plane that came to retrieve us the following week.)

Smooth water takeoff in float plane. Noisy inside the Cessna. I began notes on my Aylmer Essay #1 noting contrasts between large and small in the North. Huge areas of Boreal forest browned and devastated from huge fires last year during cold spell. Dry this year as well but warm. The forest, burned and not-burned, monotonous to my eagle-level sight. Rocky highlands. Boggy lowlands. Browned snagged trees interspersed with fire-free green carpet of forest. Warming temperatures could have pushed forest north over the tundra, but instead, forest may actually be in retreat due to fires. Significant percentage of NWT forest burned in 2014. 

Seton questioned calling this north country “Barrenlands” because of the abundance of wildlife and vegetation. But fire destruction of tundra and forest, as well as population decline of caribou around Aylmer from abundant to absent (traditionally they migrated through at this time) may make this descriptive word all too true.
See this for more on caribou.

In his book Never Cry Wolf (1963) Farley Mowat identified over hunting by aboriginal and whites as the cause, caustically criticizing the Canadian government for denying the obvious. (Not unlike American climate-change deniers.)  Sadly, Canadian government agencies continue to uphold this long discredited position. Combined with unusual ice storms replacing snowstorms in the north (caribou can’t get to their lichen food through ice) one of the great animal populations of the world is disappearing with scarcely any publicity. (A week later, Yellowknife locals told me that tribal elders claim the caribou have just gone somewhere else for now. Shame on all of them for not facing facts and for wildlife organizations everywhere not panicking over the loss of millions of animal lives.)

Diamond mine and lakes

That forest fires burn in an area that seems to be comprises of 20-50% water seems incongruous. Two diamond mine complexes spotted. Winter ice roads to the mines also disrupt caribou, but diamonds are essential to the NWT economy. Caribou are important only as a magnet for foreign trophy hunters and to traditional First Nations life. (Although foreigners getting a license to hunt caribou not so easy anymore.) The caribou will soon be gone, but diamonds are forever.  We learned that a moose had reportedly been spotted in the Aylmer region recently, an area that contains almost nothing that a moose can eat; moose are not typically tundra animals.)
Aylmer Lake Lodge is approximately 100 miles north of treeline. 

We are about 40 minutes into flight when the forest cover and tree size diminished into discontinuous stands with bodies of water increasing. 2 large white birds seen in flight over tundra (probably gulls). No mammal life spotted. Two diamond mine complexes spotted.

I spotted a stranded ice floe (difficult to tell how large) one hour, ten minutes into the flight.

Hexagon patterns on tundra in places. Everywhere punctuated by endless numbers of lakes, from pond size to Eagle Nest Lake (New Mexico) size (maybe some larger). Aylmer significantly larger and easily identified for a long ways off.

Patterned tundra ground

Caleb the pilot took us to 3500’ (approx. 2000’ above the ground) flying us at 125 knots against a headwind. Under the right conditions, the Cessna can reach 145 knots. Take off and landing doesn’t seem to require much distance. Flight began at 6:30am taking longer than average. Distance from floatplane base to Lodge approx. 190 miles. Small waves on lake didn’t affect feeling of the landing (watering?).

Aylmer Lake Lodge

After the landing

 

Ernest Thompson Seton Birthday #155

Aug 14
Annual Ernest Thompson Seton Birthday Celebration
 Seton Birthday Reception & Gallery Opening
and Lecture with Julie A. Seton, Ph.D.
Huge Persona in a Tiny Package: Julia M. Seton, My Grandmother


Date: Friday, August 14
Times / Program:
6:00 – 8:30 pm: Opening Reception
7:00 pm: Lecture by Julie A. Seton
Cost: FREE to the public

Please join us for our annual celebration of Ernest Thompson Seton’s birthday with a lecture by Julie A. Seton, the late artist-naturalist’s granddaughter.


The lecture, Huge Persona in a Tiny Package: Julia M. Seton, My Grandmother, offers insight into a different perspective of the Seton legacy, that of E. T. Seton’s second wife. Julie A. Seton says, “I remember my grandmother as the largest personality in the smallest body I’ve ever encountered. I have been extracting her incredible journey as told through her personal diaries and other documents. My mother said, 'Chief ran her, and she ran the world.' I invite you to come and listen to her story
of partnership and leadership.”

In August of this year, Julie A. Seton is releasing a new edition of E. T. Seton’s autobiography, Trail of an Artist-Naturalist, 2nd Ed. Julie will also be signing copies, which will be available for purchase at the event at a special discounted price in honor of Seton’s 155th birthday.


The event also marks the continuation of the current exhibition, “Bird Portraits” featuring Seton’s finest avian illustrations. The images come from the Academy’s collection of Seton artwork plus a special loan of selected works from the Philmont Museum and Seton Memorial Library at Philmont Ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico.

This year’s annual celebration will honor Seton’s Legacy, his message and artwork, as well as the relationship and history that the land in Seton Village held for Seton and continues to hold for the Academy.

Ernest Thompson Seton and the Arctic Prairies: Aylmer Lake Expedition Planning Tips

Illustration from The Arctic Prairies

Summer, forty-two years ago, I came across Seton’s account of his 1907 exploration of the Arctic Prairies. I thought at the time that re-creating that adventure, or at least a part of it, would be a worthy goal. Finally, after years of desiring, I am just days away from the beginning of that trip. Thomas and Patty are joining me from the Academy for the Love of Learning.

Our journey begins where Seton’s ultimately ended (in 1946), Santa Fe. Quick flight to Denver, then a longer flight to Calgary, then another flight to Yellowknife on Great Slave Lake, capital of the Northwest Territories. The Arctic has its challenges (weather, grizzly bears, mosquitoes, etc.) but the only one that bothers me is making airplane connections – three different airplanes and two airlines to get to Yellowknife. Arrival there scheduled for 9:00 pm. There we will join up with project co-curator Michale.

I will be making travel notes along the way; I searched for but did not find any publications on how to plan an expedition. Among the four of us we have considerable wilderness experience, but it is the advance preparation that may be the greatest challenge. So I will present a planning few tips.

Why are you doing this? Lots of money and at least some risk is involved. TIP 1: Write out a statement of purpose. What is the justification for the expenditure? What do you hope to accomplish? How will you share what you learn? We have spent considerable time on this. Several people have edited and re-edited my original statement of purpose; it may also get additional post-expedition revisions. Our historical research will result in publications and exhibitions; we have not discounted the possibility of personal growth as well.

Pre-positioned supplies at Aylmer are limited. When Seton went there, additional supplies were non-existent. We are working with an outfitter who will supply food and much camping equipment, but not everything. Whatever we don’t take we won’t have. TIP 2: Make sure you understand what gear you will need, create a checklist to use when packing. Share the list among the expedition participants to make sure all anticipated needs are covered, but also be mentally prepared (as much as possible) for the unexpected.

The following morning we need to arrive at the Air Tindi Float Plane Base at 5:30am. Planning the trip to avoid such a tight schedule that allows for no major delays of airplane cancellations would have been a better course. TIP 3: Get to your location (Yellowknife, in our case) well in advance to avoid stressing out over missing air connections.

If you are planning to conduct research (this is a working trip, not a vacation), develop a workflow plan. I have put this together along the lines of the scripts I develop for museum exhibitions. Our goal is to explore and photograph the most important areas around Aylmer Lake visited by Edward Preble, Seton, and their two First Nations companions.

I have spent months studying maps starting with those drawn by Seton, and continuing with a contemporary topographical map and satellite imagery from Google Earth. Combined with Seton and Preble’s written accounts, I found GPS coordinates for all the places we need to reach. I know what days we need to be where and what we need to accomplish once we reach each of those places TIP 4: Know your territory before you even get there. Our time there is both short (eight days) and expensive ($$$$) so creating a daily schedule should get us the most value out of our time.

Anticipate what might go wrong (starting with TIP 1). In addition to travel delays, what happens in case of major medical injuries? If you are so wealthy that the prospect of spending tens of thousands of dollars on medical evacuation is not daunting, then you don’t need the remainder of this paragraph, although you should consider making a substantial donation to the Academy for the Love of Learning to help underwrite the expense of this trip. TIP 5: Get travel and medical insurance to cover as many disaster contingencies as you can imagine.

TIP 6: The Arctic sees lots of summer travelers. Be sure to make needed hotel reservations well in advance. Also, let your credit card company know you are planning out of the ordinary expenses.

TIP 7: Remember to take all your research files (old maps and written accounts in our case) and photographs. I will read (possibly aloud) the words of Seton and Preble to guide and inspire us.

TIP 8: Take a satellite phone or other communication device. Establish regular check-in time with home base: family members and/or co-workers should have a copy of the expedition member’s contact list. One person should be designated as the home base contact.

TIP 9: After the expedition, evaluate by comparing what you thought you might learn or experience with whatever actually happened. Were the original purposes met? Did new ones emerge? 

 

After each adventure like this, I return to all the above criteria and reassess, starting re-creating gear lists of what I took needlessly or what I should have brought. I will also review every other category to see how I might have improved on the plan.

Apparently Seton and Preble did a good job of planning as they returned alive from a nearly six-month canoe trip. We can only hope to do as well as they did.

Ernest Thompson Seton: The Arctic Prairies and Academy for the Love of Learning Expedition to Aylmer Lake

Ernest Thompson Seton and the Search for Canada’s Lost Great Lake, The Aylmer Lake/Arctic Prairies Expeditions 1907/2015

An Exhibition and Book Project of the Academy for the Love of Learning

In 1907 forty-six year old artist, naturalist, and co-creator of the wildlife conservation and Scouting movements, Ernest Thompson Seton, began the greatest wilderness adventure of his extraordinary life. He led a six-month, 2000-mile canoe voyage into the Barren Lands northeast of Great Slave Lake (Northwest Territories). In The Arctic Prairies he chronicled the people and environment found along the way, including his destination, the fabled Aylmer Lake:

            Imagine a region of low Achaean hills, extending one thousand miles each way,    subjected for thousands of years to a continual succession of glaciers, crashing,      grinding, planing, smoothing, ripping up and smoothing again, carrying off whole    ranges of broken hills…

I have long imagined following Seton’s route over the cottongrass covered tundra, watching for Arctic Wolves, Musk Ox, and Caribou under the midnight sun along the shores of Aylmer Lake, far north of the Boreal forests and just south of the Arctic Circle. This summer I will lead an expedition there. Based on Seton’s maps, photographs, drawings and journals, we will follow in his footsteps, concentrating on the areas around the lake that he explored 108 years ago.

We will chronicle our experiences in video and still photography, and in words, reacting to and inspired by that earlier journey. In his time, Seton—who was a scientist and social innovator—made significant contributions to ecology, ethology and youth outdoor education, creating important foundations for today’s environmentalism. He raised alarmingly perceptive concerns about the problematic human relationship to wild nature. Our disconnection from nature, he believed, threatened the very survival of our civilization.

As a naturalist, historian, and museum curator, my goal with this project is to examine the nature of transformation—mostly environmental, but social as well—and to bring back what we learn (and what we feel, in terms of experience) as the basis for a traveling exhibition and accompanying publication. We also plan on using film and web-based media for dissemination of our findings comparing conditions of 1907 with those of 2015.

For Seton the Arctic journey was at once a professional one for him as a field biologist but also highly personal as a visitor to the wild. In his books, Seton described two visions of nature. In one of these nature is beautiful and dangerous, but always our teacher. In the other, nature is merely something to be despoiled at whim, particularly whim driven by greed. The vast wilderness that surrounds Aylmer is far from any city although not untouched by human activities. Nonetheless, Aylmer remains a touchstone of wildness, and given what we know about it from over a century ago, a place for contemporary data collection and for reflection on where, in a general sense, we came from and where we may be going.

This lens of transformation gives our project a unique perspective. Seton called upon us to become keen observers (in the tradition of Thoreau) while at the same time to take personal responsibility for how we choose to live as temporary wilderness residents and as citizens of the civilized world after our return. What Aylmer may teach us we cannot know in advance, but we will photograph and write and just be as best we can, afterwards sharing what we have found and learned on our own Arctic Prairies.     

The expedition begins on July 26, 2015. More about that soon.

David L. Witt

Curator, Seton Legacy Project

Ernest Thompson Seton Stories #11

Academy for the Love of Learning Feb 4, 2015

This is the eleventh, and perhaps the final in a series, an annotated listing of Ernest Thompson Seton books, adding two more titles to the existing list.

1932

Famous Animal Stories: Animal Myths, Fables, Fairy Tales, Stories of Real Animals

(New York: Brentano’s Publishers)

 

Quote: “In the wild world, November is the Mad Moon. Many and diverse the madness of this time, but none more insane that the rut of the White-tailed Deer. Like some disease it appears, first in the swollen necks of the antler-bearers, and then in the feverish habits of all. Long and obstinate combats between the bucks now characterize the time; neglecting even to eat, they spend their days and nights in rushing about and seeking to kill or possess.” (Excerpt from Rolf in the Woods.)

This large volume (686 pages) including dozens of stories was edited, compiled, adapted, “retranslated,” and even written by Seton. He draws on authors classic and contemporary whose names are well known (or not) even if the stories associated with them are only vaguely recalled. In this, his largest work following his move to Santa Fe, he provides an introduction to each story. Included are two of his earliest favorites, Mayne Reid and James Fenimore Cooper, as well as several of his New Mexico colleagues. 

1940, 1968

Trail and Camp-Fire Stories

(Santa Fe: Seton Village Press) Edited by Julia M. Seton

Quote: “My wife, Julia, college-bred, of high traditions, a leader of youth, experienced in expression, especially in story-telling, has listened to these same stories for more than twenty-five years. She knows what to leave out and what to emphasize. Her knowledge of the art has enabled her to put the tales into form most acceptable to readers, realizing the places where the emphasis given by personality on the stage could not be carried into print.”

In this book Julia Moss Seton transcribes twenty stories told by Seton to his live audiences, but which for the most part, did not himself write down. She begins, however, with her own informative essay on the art of dramatic presentation. (Extraneous note: Seton introduces the term “google” in “Gorm, the Giant of the Club.” He defines it as the sound and/or process of a boat sinking as it takes on water.)

New Book About Ernest Thompson Seton

Seton has been the subject of several biographies, from children’s books to dissertations to an exhibition catalog (mine!). Most of his biographers were too young to have known Seton; to my knowledge Jack Samson was the only one who met him. It turns out there is an important exception to this.

Leila Moss Knox, Julia Seton’s niece, not only knew the Setons but also lived with them in the 1930s. And now, most fortunately for us, she has written about the experience in The Storyteller: My Years With Ernest Thompson Seton, Including Illustrations and Excerpts From His Stories. I have known about the production of this work for some time and was fortunate enough to read the manuscript in early versions. Seeing the final product shows that it was worth the wait.

With its release we have a fascinating, charming, and insightful account of Seton as he was in the 1930s when Leila Knox was a young girl living at the Castle for three years. Those of us who write biographies can read Seton books, peruse documents in archives, review photographs, and even recreate some of his adventures by following in his footsteps. Historians can learn a great deal from various sources, bringing our own experience as researchers and expertise as writers to interpreting our subject for readers.

Various “Seton’s” emerge based on the perspectives, prejudices, and filters applied by any particular historian. Leila’s book, however, is unique for she brings to it her first hand memories. The Seton who emerges here is the one that many of us may have hoped for. He is a funny, kind, and loving man who also lives up to the Woodcraft ideals he espoused. He is, for me, the man I wanted to know. The “Seton” described in my book can be very hard-edged and at times not particularly nice. Although combative and contrarian, I always suspected that he could also project considerable warmth. The “Seton” in this book is the one you would have wanted to know—the naturalist, the genuine friend and admirer of native peoples, and always, the engaging and charismatic storyteller.

Leila herself has a knack for storytelling as well as an incredible power of recall that she credits in part to her training by Seton and Julia in the skill of “Quicksight” (Chapter 19) where she must commit objects and shapes to instantaneous memory. We are most fortunate to have had such an acute observer on the scene. She sets it all up from the first sentence: “When I was a little girl, I lived in a castle.”

Weaving together her own story with that of the Setons, she also presents excerpts from Lobo, Johnny Bear, the Slum Cat and many others. She had the great privilege of hearing them directly from Seton at the Castle and during their travels around New Mexico and elsewhere.

The book is written for early readers as were many of Seton’s stories. And as with those stories, Leila’s account can be enjoyed by any of us who want to know about what the Chief was like at home and about Seton Village itself in the early decades. Seton fans can look forward to a reading an enchanting account packaged in a beautifully designed volume.

No one lives in the Castle now (although I sometimes sleep there under the stars on warm nights), but it comes alive again with this account of its builder and the life he led there. The Storyteller is not to be missed by anyone who has admired Seton or has had their lives changed for the better by coming into contact with his stories.

The book has been released this month, for information go to setonthestoryteller.

Lucia and the Bear

Lucia at the ready

In his first book of stories, Wild Animals I Have Known, Seton included “Bingo, the Story of My Dog.” In the account, the narrator is caught in his own wolf traps and is soon surrounded by wolves.  From afar, Bingo senses his plight, and comes to the rescue chasing off the wolves and bringing a wrench within reach so that the narrator can release himself from the traps. (A model for the later movie and television character, Lassie.) The story is about the high moral value of loyalty, one of the canine virtues.

With that in mind, I present a story about a real dog, Lucia LRC, as told by one of her humans. Lucia passed away after a long illness on February 24, three months shy of her 14^th birthday. Lucia knew only other dogs during her first four months of life. She had never set foot into a house until she came into ours, inexplicably already house trained. She remained remarkable to the end, a canine of the highest virtue.

Lucia and the Bear by Bonnie Schermerhorn

I was sitting on my porch one delightful summer afternoon enjoying the simple delights of warm air and sun on my skin, a book in hand, a drink at my elbow when Luca and Lucia began a ruckus. Lying down and barking—yes they are multi-taskers—something, or someone was getting their collective dander up.

They raised themselves from the cool of the cement and ambled over to the edge of the porch, hackles rising as they walked, warning in low-throated growls rising to deeper barking, bodies stretching and straining. What was over there, I had to wonder. “Quiet down, quiet down” got the usual response – increased barking and growling. Enough growling and I had to get up to determine if anything was truly amiss—strangers on the property, another dog passing through, a flock of wild turkeys?

As I stood at the end of the porch tension increased—Lucia, ever faithful, ever vigilant ran to the edge of the house and took a stand. With her paws firmly planted and barking in her deepest, deep throated bark she made it clear “no one shall pass!” Luca, never one to be left behind, and devoted sibling that he is, ran to her side. Between the two of them they sounded like the hounds from hell banishing whatever fool-hearted being might come their way and try to cross their path.

However just as Luca took his stand, shoulder to shoulder with Lucia, to battle whatever demons were approaching I saw something. Emerging from the trees was a large, brown, no…cinnamon colored, an elk calf, a large dog? As it ambled ever closer both Luca and I realized at the same time just what it was—a cinnamon bear. Big, shaggy coated, large head moving slowly side to side as it waddled along.

Luca registered the bear as a ‘do not mess with’ creature. He promptly turned tail and ran back to me on the porch and inserted himself behind my legs with only his head peering around from my knees. Lucia barking manically, Luca yapping and yelping, me screaming at the top of my lungs for Lucia to get herself over here—well, we were quite hysterical!  Frothing, biting, champing at the bit, sounding as demented as we possibly could and Lucia never wavered. I called to her, I pleaded with her, Lucia return to safety! What I was going to do to defend us all should the bear continue on his path I gave no thought to. Lucia stood her ground. She would do battle with that bear if it was her last act upon this earth.

We all stood frozen in this tableau for a few minutes continuing our ear shattering sounds. The bear was practically nose to nose with Lucia when finally, it seemed, he had had enough of our foolishness. Perhaps too much noise after the relative quiet of a night filled with dumpster diving. He took one final look at Lucia; he couldn’t be bothered with Luca or me, ever so slowly turned his back to us and meandered away as if not bothered by a care in the world.