Ernest Thompson Seton was a man of widely diversified gifts, a writer, artist, and naturalist. He is most commonly remembered as a writer of realistic animal stories that appeal to all ages. He was also a painter and illustrator, an internationally famed naturalist, a conservationist, and a youth leader who helped to found the Boy Scout movement. It is difficult, if not impossible, to separate these complementary talents in his published work.

Seton was born on 14 August 1860 in South Shields, Newcastle's seaport, on England's northeast coast. His maternal grandfather, William Snowden, had been a prosperous shipowner and master. His father, Joseph Thompson, had been a wealthy partner in a shipbuilding firm. A series of business failures drove the family to immigrate to Canada in 1866, first to a farm near Lindsay, Ontario, and four years later to Toronto. In the 1860s and 1870s Lindsay was pioneering territory, and Toronto...