Ernest Thompson Seton, wikimedia commons, New York Public Library Archives
If Ernest Thompson Seton’s father hadn’t decided to quit the ship business to be a gentleman farmer, or if he’d decided to go straight to Toronto from England to take up accounting, Ernest Thompson Seton would never have discovered the wonders of nature in Kawartha Lakes, he wouldn’t have aspired to study natural history or animal anatomy or woodcraft. He wouldn’t have become the man he did.
But his relationship with his father was strained at best.
Despite the abuse he received, Seton was not unkind toward his father when writing his autobiography. He almost paints his father as a victim of his father:
My father (born September 6, 1821) was an honourable man of high ideals and remarkable personal force. He was proud of his noble descent; but often he checked himself speaking of these things, as they savoured of worldly vain-glory.
By nature refined and scholarly, he loved books and art, and had aspired to a university career. But my grandfather, a rugged man of the business world, could not see the need of it. He had made his own fortune out of a small inheritance, and had had only a grammar-school education. So he bluntly told my father that he himself had succeeded without a university career, and he did not propose one for his son.
TRAIL OF AN ARTIST-NATURALIST: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ERNEST THOMPSON SETON (1940)
Ernest states that his father had no vices. Selfish was his personality.
He had, however, one or two peculiarities which did not vanish with age. He was very indolent, had a marked craving for “proper respect”; and was, I think, the most selfish person I ever heard of or read of in history or in fiction. He was so selfish that he thought himself generous in feeding his family, so important that the most vital interests of his family were always cheerfully sacrificed to his most trifling passing convenience. His own father had been a masterful rugged man and a stern disciplinarian; therefore my father, not considering that he was treated with proper respect at home, had left the paternal roof at the age of twenty-two, and married Alice Snowdon, my mother, then twenty years of age (born December 1, 1823).
Mother was a beautiful woman with a strange diversity of gifts—profoundly religious, full of energy, yet weak in character; and before they had been wedded a month, they two were one—and that one was my father.
TRAIL OF AN ARTIST-NATURALIST: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ERNEST THOMPSON SETON (1940)
Beatings from his father drove Ernest to seek refuge in nature, even after they relocated to Toronto.
After one of the worst beatings given by my father I got away from the house as fast as I could. I hoped soon to quit it forever.There was only one place to which I could go for quiet—for absolute aloofness; that was my cabin, far off in the woods. Here I could ponder and plan in peace; without doubt, temporary residence in that cabin would be a part of my plans for escape.
TRAIL OF AN ARTIST-NATURALIST: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ERNEST THOMPSON SETON (1940)
When Ernest became depressed, his mother sent him to spend his summers with the family that bought their Kawartha Lakes’ farm, the Blackwells. The people of Kawartha Lakes were kind to him, and Ernest began to wish William Blackwell was his father.
Ernest wanted to study natural history, but his father wanted him to be an artist. So out of revenge, Ernest decided to be the best artist, better than the others. In addition to his day studies, he took night classes at the Ontario School of Art. He succeeded with highest marks in all of his subjects and a gold medal for his art.
It was a proud moment for me and for my father, but also a turning point. I took advantage of my victory to say in brief: “Now I have taken highest place in the highest school in Canada. If I am to be an artist, I must take the next step, that is, study in London.”
There was no gainsaying my reasoning; and Father replied: “I’ll send you to London for a year at least. I will talk it over with your mother and brothers, and see what we can allow you. But it will surely be the least possible you can live on, and must be considered merely a loan to be repaid later.”
Just what I was to get he never would say definitely. But Mother realized the embarrassment of my position, and told me privately: “You shall have five pounds (twenty-five dollars) a month, if we can possibly spare it.”
TRAIL OF AN ARTIST-NATURALIST: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ERNEST THOMPSON SETON (1940)
Ernest got his art education in London, but very little money to live on. He became the cliched “starving artist”:
So far as money was concerned, I was as hard put as could be. My father had intimated that I should have sixty pounds a year to live on. But he never sent it. I had no regular allowance. He never sent me anything except in response to a prayerful letter telling how badly off I was, and that all my cash was gone. The whole amount he advanced in two and a half years was eighty pounds (four hundred dollars).
In London I made a few shillings by illustrating occasional books for the publishers, Cassell, Petter & Galpin, but it was a trifling addition to my income.
Ten pounds for my two ocean passages came out of all this, so that thirty pounds (one hundred and fifty dollars) was my annual income to meet all expenses. Books and art materials were necessaries of life, so I saved on such non-essentials as food and clothing. Consequently I was always ill-dressed and hungry.
My constant study was economy. Meat was high-priced in England, so I gave it up. My breakfast was usually a bowl of porridge with milk, a cup of coffee with a slice of bread and butter. The coffee was a beverage of my own fabrication—a compound of bran, molasses and beans, pounded up together, then roasted into a hard loaf. A piece of this the size of a walnut gave the colour of coffee and something of the taste to a cup of hot water.
My lunch was commonly half a pound of white beans, occasionally varied with a few raisins or dates, the actual cost of the same being six cents. This meal was usually eaten in the British Museum as I sat on one of the benches or under the shadow of Memnon.
My dinner in my own room was a big bowl of bread and milk, sometimes supplemented with one slice of bread and butter.
My total weekly expenses for living were generally under two dollars, to which must be added six shillings (one dollar fifty cents) for my room and care of the same, which included the cooking of my porridge and the heating of my morning coffee.
TRAIL OF AN ARTIST-NATURALIST: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ERNEST THOMPSON SETON (1940)
Ernest was poor, but happy. He spent his days drawing at the Museum and eventually convinced them let him get a membership to their library so he could study their volumes on natural history.
Then he had to return home. At age 21, Ernest’s father presented him with a bill for every cent spent on his life, plus interest:
One day, after I had been home long enough to recover from the immediate effects of the voyage, my father called me into his study. He took down his cash-book, a ponderous and aged volume, opened it at E, and then made one of his characteristic speeches:
“Now, my son, you are twenty-one years of age; you have attained to years of manhood, if not of discretion. All the duties and responsibilities which have hitherto been borne for you by your father, you must now assume for yourself. I have been prayerfully rememberant of your every interest, and I need hardly remind you that for all that is good in you, you are, under God, indebted to your father—and of course, to some extent, your mother also.
“For this, you must feel yourself under a bond of gratitude that will strengthen rather than weaken as life draws near the goal that all should keep in view. You owe everything on earth, even life itself, to your father; reverent gratitude should be your only thought. While it is hopeless that you should ever discharge this debt, there is yet another to which I must call your attention at once.”
He now pointed to page after page in the cash-book—the disbursements that had been made for me since my birth. There they were, every item with day and date perfect—unquestionably correct—even the original doctor’s fee for bringing me into the world was there. The whole amount was five hundred and thirty-seven dollars fifty cents.
“Hitherto,” said he, with traces of emotion at the thought of his own magnanimity, “I have charged no interest; but from this on, I must add the reasonable amount of six per cent per annum. This I conceive to be a duty I owe to myself as well as to your own sense of duty and manhood; and I shall be glad to have you reduce the amount at the earliest possible opportunity.”
I was utterly staggered. I sat petrified. Most men consider that they owe their sons a start in life. My father thought that his father owed that to him; but his case, he felt, was different.
There was the awful sum, every item reasonable and exact. Nothing was said about my grandfather’s money, or my mother’s twenty thousand dollars—both received by him and not accounted for. In the last, at least, I had a definite stated interest of two thousand dollars.
TRAIL OF AN ARTIST-NATURALIST: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ERNEST THOMPSON SETON (1940)
This was the end of their relationship. Ernest tried to gain his father’s favour by reverting to Seton name, a name attached to royalty that his father hadn’t gotten around to assuming, but their relationship only deteriorated.
Although he could have paid off most of his bill immediately, Ernest decided to hold onto his money. His father had made it apparent that he wasn’t welcome at home any longer, so Ernest decided to use his funds to leave home and begin life on his own.
At age 30, after his brother ran into trouble and sold his property near Port Credit that included a cabin where Ernest had an outdoor life and practiced his art, Ernest decided to leave Ontario again.
I had, however, bought some Toronto real estate. This I managed to sell for one thousand eight hundred dollars. With four hundred and fifty of this, I paid my father a last instalment, in full, of all his claims for educating and bringing me up. Then, with my steamer ticket and one thousand two hundred dollars cash, I set out for the East, arriving in London, England, June 11.
TRAIL OF AN ARTIST-NATURALIST: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ERNEST THOMPSON SETON (1940)
Ten year later, at age 40, Ernest had made a name for himself, discovered success as an author and illustrator, and earned “not only enough to insure comfort for myself and family, but also sufficient to enable me to help numerous relatives who were less fortunate, and especially to take care of my father and mother.”
When he was 42, Ernest’s father passed away. He’s buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Toronto.
Read more about Ernest Thompson Seton and his live in Kawartha Lakes here: Ernest Thompson Seton.
Ernest Thompson Seton (1860-1946), author, wildlife artist, founder of the Woodcraft Indians (later renamed the Woodcraft League of America) and one of the founding pioneers of the Boy Scouts of America, spent only a few years in Kawartha Lakes, but his pioneer experiences here defined his career path and the man he became. In his own words, “As I look back on the experiences of that place, I rate them among the very best of my life-training.”
Seton won several awards for his books and contributions to the science community and Scouting movement. In fact, Seton is much better known outside of Kawartha Lakes, despite this being the location that inspired him most:
Japanese creators have turned Seton’s books into anime and manga, and some of these productions have been dubbed with other languages and shown around the world. The Philmont Scout Ranch in Santa Fe is home to the Seton Memorial Library and Museum. The Seton Legacy Project organized an exhibition at the New Mexico History Museum. Greenwich, Conneticut is home to the Ernest Thompson Seton Scout Reservation. In Toronto, there’s the E.T. Seton Park and plaque on the family home at 6 Aberdeen Avenue. Carberry, Manitoba has dedicated an entire museum, art gallery and gift shop to honour the time Seton spent there.
In her book, Survival: a thematic guide to Canadian literature (1972), Margaret Atwood poses the question, “What have been the central preoccupations of our poetry and fiction?” Her answer is “survival and victims” and in her pursuit for an answer, she identifies a distinct genre of stories: “the “realistic” animal story, as invented and developed by Ernest Thompson Seton and Sir Charles G. D. Roberts, is not, as Alec Lucas would have it in A Literary History of Canada, “a rather isolated and minor kind of literature,” but a genre which provides a key to an important facet of the Canadian psyche. Those looking for something “distinctively Canadian” in literature might well start right here.” Atwood then goes on to list numerous authors following in this genre, including Farley Mowat. Characteristics of the genre include the theme of survival, animals as victims, and tragic endings. Characteristics that mirror Seton’s life.
Seton was a pioneer on the lands of Kawartha Lakes and his time here propelled him into a pioneer of Canadian literature.
“The fact that these stories are true is the reason why all are tragic. The life of a wild animal always has a tragic end.”
Seton, Wild Animals I Have Known (1898)
Arrival in Kawartha Lakes
Born Ernest Evan Thompson in 1860 at Number 6 Wellington Terrace in South Shields, England to Joseph and Alice Thompson, Seton was one of twelve boys. At the time of Seton’s birth, Joseph was a wealthy shipowner, but after financial loss, Joseph decided to take the family to Canada in 1866 to set up life as a gentleman farmer on a large tract of land.
July and August of 1866 we spent in Lindsay town. I can visualize it now—wooden sidewalks, huge pine-stumps everywhere with vigorous young cedars growing about their roots; barefooted, bare-headed boys and girls scoffing at our un-Canadian accent. Apple-trees laden with fruit to which we soon learned to help ourselves; tall rank weeds, with swarms of grasshoppers everywhere; the coffee-coloured river with its screaming roaring, sawmills; cows and pigs on the main street; great, hulking, heaving oxen drawing loads of hay, with heavy breathings that were wonderfully meadow-like and fragrant; and over and above all, in memory as in place, the far-pervading, sweet, sanctifying smell of new-cut boards of pine.
Father came prepared for the life of an English country gentleman. He proposed to take a huge tract of virgin forest, with a lake in it, build a castle on the lake, and live the life; so brought his library, his scientific instruments and a dozen different sporting guns.
We had come to live, at least in part, the lives of hunters. I think Mayne Reid and Swiss Family Robinson were the principal guide-books that my father had consulted, but Robinson Crusoe was not overlooked.
Yet we were doomed to continual disappointment; the hunter-dream faded slowly but surely.
Mother’s instinct was to go slow, to try it first in a little place, to make sure that this was what we wished to do. Mother’s views had no weight whatever, but the opinions and advice of sundry businessmen in Lindsay had. So we bought a partly cleared hundred-acre farm on Stony Creek, only three or four miles east of the town, but in the virgin woods.
The whole family went to see it and had a picnic. Down in the glorious woods by the creek, in a superb “beaver meadow,” surrounded by tall elms making Gothic aisles around us, we lighted our camp-fire, the first of my life.
Trail of an Artist-Naturalist: The Autobiography of Ernest Thompson Seton (1940)
Sketch by Seton’s brother, John Enoch Thompson, sent to G.W. Beall in 1925, depicting “The Elms” farm in Ops township as it was in 1866. Image is from the Beall Scrapbook, courtesy of Kawartha Lakes Museum & Archives, digitized by Kawartha Lakes Public Library. The date “1857” is carved in the log above the door.
We moved out to our backwoods farm that September. It had a small house—the usual pioneer log shanty—and a few ramshackle outbuildings, the handiwork of Bill McKenna, who had first staked the claim.
The house was very small for us, very badly prepared for winter, and swarming with rats.
Trail of an Artist-Naturalist: The Autobiography of Ernest Thompson Seton (1940)
Fortunately, the Thompsons didn’t have to suffer living in the log cabin for too long.
Mother had been used to an ample house and a staff of competent servants. Now she and my cousin Polly were doing all the housework, as well as milking some of the cows; and the whole of us roughing it in one log shanty, composed of a big living-room, with a little box-room for Father and Mother in a corner, one for my cousin in another; and the rest of us in hammocks, or upstairs in a big loft through which the wind and weather romped as out of doors, and snow drifted across our bed-clothes.
Father had planned to build a convenient house with part of his remaining capital. “It must be roomy; is it not to be our home for life?” was the oft-repeated phrase.
The new house, a plain, substantial, two-story, eleven-room brick barn, forty by sixty feet, was begun in August, 1866, and finished in January, 1867, for the amazing sum of a thousand dollars. Yes, that was how we reckoned in those days. Seventy-five dollars per room, for a plain-built house. But labourers worked from 7 A.M. till 6 P.M., and got seventy-five cents; skilled labour, a dollar and twenty-five cents for a ten-hour day. Butter was ten cents a pound; eggs, six to eight cents a dozen; pork, four cents, and the best beef, eight to ten cents a pound. Board and lodging was a dollar and fifty cents a week. A good hired man got ten dollars a month and his keep; he worked from dawn until after dark—and was happy. We have changed things now, and have not improved them much, except in shortening the hours.
We moved into this brick barn in January, 1867. Every stick and brick in its building is bright in my memory. Every smell of lime, lumber, or dank, chill room is strong in my consciousness today.
Trail of an Artist-Naturalist: The Autobiography of Ernest Thompson Seton (1940)
Seton’s sketch of “The Elms” house and log cabin. Part of the Seton Museum’s collection.
Where in Kawartha Lakes was this place that so heavily influenced Seton?
In his autobiography he mentions the property was on Stony Creek and originally Bill McKenna “had first staked the claim.”
A search through the land records for Ops township revealed the Thompsons were on the west half of lot 15 on concession 10, right about the south-west corner of Tracey’s Hill and Settlers Roads. Seton also says his father sold the land to William Blackwell in 1870, when Joseph Thompson decided farming wasn’t profitable and moved the family to Toronto where he worked as an accountant.
Land records of Victoria County, 1822-1954
The original land patent went to Samuel McConnell in 1837, and after passing through a number of transactions, ended up in the hands of Patrick McKenna by 1865. The “1857” carved above the cabin door had to have been made during McConnell’s, Proudfoot’s or Keenan’s time on the property because McKenna didn’t have the property until 1859.
The land records also shows the $1000 mortgage used to construct the brick house (mentioned in Seton’s autobiography, excerpted above) and that Joseph Thompson did have trouble making the farm financially viable.
The following table is a transcription of the above page from the land records.
No. of INSTRUMENT
NATURE of INSTRUMENT
ITS DATE
DATE OF REGISTRY, HOUR
DATE OF REGISTRY, DAY
GRANTOR
GRANTEE
CONSIDERATION
LAND___ AND REMARKS
Patent
10 April 1837
The Crown
Samuel McConnell
W1/2 100 acres
136
Deed
12 Dec 1856
11
16 Dec 1856
William Proudfoot etux
Thomas Keenan
sells whol lot 200 acres
808
Deed
24 April 1857
11
18 Sept 1857
Samuel McConnell by his atty Jas. Henderson
William Proudfoot
sells whol lot 200 acres (see power of atty attached)
1822
B & I
4 Feb 1859
10.15
5 Feb 1859
Thomas Keenan etux
Patrick McKenna
sells W1/2 100 acres
1840
mortgage
4 Feb 1859
10
9 Feb 1859
Patrick McKenna etux
Henry K. Meredith
mortgage W1/2 100 acres
1840
Dis Mort
22 May 1860
Henry K. Meredith
Patrick McKenna
Dis of nesN above Mort
2940
Mortgage
10 May 1860
11
14 May 1860
Patrick McKenna etux
Trust & Loan Company
$800+
Mortgages W1/2 100 acres
7102
B & I
13 April 1864
2
13 April 1864
Patrick McKenna etux
Francis McKenna
N1/2 of W1/2 50 acres
7103
B & S
13 April 1864
2.15
13 April 1864
Patrick McKenna etux
Patrick McKenna
S1/2 of W1/2 50 acres
7740
Lis Pendens
9 Jan 1865
2
9 Jan 1865
Peter Murtha vs
Patrick McKenna
W1/2 100 acres
9853
Mortgage
8 Sept 1866
2
15 Sept 1866
Joseph Logan Thompson + wife
Trust & Loan Company
$1000
W1/2 100 acres
12520
B & S
10 Aug 1866
12
4 May 1868
Trust and Loan Company
Joseph Thompson
W1/2 100 acres Under power of sale
13560
B & S
26 Aug 1868
10
26 Jan 1869
Joseph Logan Thompson + w
George Molyneaux Roche
$3443
W1/2 100 acres Subject & Mortgage
13561
B & S
26 Aug 1868
10.5
26 Jan 1869
George Molyneaux Roche
Alice Thompson wife of J L Thompson
$3443
W1/2 100 acres Subject & Mortgage
156
B & S
30 Mar 1870
2.30
30 Mar 1870
Joseph L Thompson + Alice his wife
William Blackwell
$3000
W1/2
157
Mortgage
30 Mar 1870
2.35
30 Mar 1870
William Blackwell etux
Alice Thompson
$1600
W1/2
174
Dis Mort
7 April 1870
2.30
14 Apr 1870
Trust & Loan Company
Joseph Logan Thompson
Discharge of 9853
710
Assignt
15 May 1872
11.10
25 May 1872
Alice & Joseph L Thompson
John Paterson
W1/2 Assignt of 157
766
Dis Mort
10 Oct 1872
12.45
10 Oct 1872
John Paterson
William Blackwell
W1/2 Dis of 157
After the Blackwells the property went to the Callaghan family, who had the adjoining property to the south and according to a farm sign, the property remains in the hands of the Callaghan family today. (Note: this is the same Callaghan family for which Jack Callaghan Public School is named.)
Note the above table includes the Latin words and abbreviations used in the original document. “etux” is Latin meaning “and wife”; “Lis Pendens” is Latin meaning “pending lawsuit”; “B & I” is likely “Bank & Insurance”; “B & S” is abbreviated from “Bargain & Sale”; “Dis Mort” is abbreviated from “Discharge of Mortgage”; “atty” is abbreviated from “attorney”; “whol” is abbreviated from “whole”; and “assignt” is “assignment.” As for “Dis of nesN,” the first part is “Discharge of” but the last part is a mystery.
Moving to Toronto but returning to Kawartha Lakes
For four years I had seen only the big woods all about me. To the eastward the forest was solid and unbroken. It was inconceivable that there should be anything beyond that. My childish fancy made that the end—the rim of things. I knew there was nothing that way, no clearing, nothing but woods and woods and woods.
Then came the great change. We were not very successful as farmers. The work was far too hard; my big brothers had quit, one by one.
Mother told me we were going to Toronto to live. At my side of the schoolhouse wall hung the map of Europe, and on the lower part I made out “Otranto.” This I proudly pointed out as the new home we were headed for. Father, now nearly fifty years of age, was quite unfitted for farm life, but he was an expert accountant of modern training, and expected to get a position as such in our new home city.
On April 12, 1870, we said good-bye to the woods. The rough little cordwood railway train left Lindsay for Port Hope, forty long miles away; and with incredible speed, in half a day landed us there at noon. We stopped at a small hotel on the hill for midday meal. I stepped out on the back porch and got a marvellous thrill, for there was a great, wonderful mountain—not high, but enormously long and gloriously blue.
As I wondered about its name, and fitted it into the fairy tales of my woods life, I noticed beautiful white gulls flying about, and then a sail-boat crossing it; and slowly it dawned on me that this was no mountain —it was Lake Ontario. I was seeing it from a high hill, which, to my untrained eye, made it seem high. It was wonderful, beautiful, but puzzling. This was one of those moments of supreme joy, fraught with the happy sense that fairies are real, after all.
Trail of an Artist-Naturalist: The Autobiography of Ernest Thompson Seton (1940)
Although, his older brothers found work and his father did well as an accountant in Toronto, Seton longed to return to nature. He found refuge in the wilds of the Don Valley, but it wasn’t enough. The family moved around Toronto, resulting in Seton needing to change schools, and he encountered bullies at every turn.
In 1875 we were living at 17 South Pembroke Street. I had been three years in Toronto, becoming more and more immersed in school studies, and very plainly showed a run-down condition at the end of the term in July.
When we had left Lindsay our farm had been bought by a highly respectable family named Blackwell. William Blackwell was a son of the pioneer of the region—Blackwell’s Settlement it was originally. His wife came of a good local family. While persons above the common run of farmers, they were eminently practical, industrious folk; and were making a success of life on the farm that we had failed on.
Acting on the doctor’s orders, Mother wrote to these people, and asked if “Ernest might visit them for a month this summer”; for she realized that food doesn’t count on a farm which produces everything; and, in this case, housed in the big house built by my father, there was plenty of room.
A cordial letter from Mrs. Blackwell resulted in my landing in Lindsay the next week. At the station I was met by George Blackwell, the son. He was three years older than myself, a picture of rugged health. He took me home in the democrat, out to the old farm, where I was kindly greeted by the big, bluff, hearty Mr. Blackwell and his gentle, motherly wife.
It was after sundown when we arrived. I was sad and silent. I took little interest in the supper. It was the first time I had been away from home and Mother. I subsided into myself, felt an overwhelm of hopeless gloom and heartsickness.
The motherly eye of Mrs. Blackwell made a quick and accurate appraisal of my condition. “He’s homesick,” she whispered to her husband. She called me, led me upstairs and helped me to bed; then tucked me in, kissed my tear-wet cheek, and left me.
How it came, about, I know not; but in the morning that black horrific cloud had rolled away. My life and interest in life were renewed, so that at once I took my place in the little world that hummed around me.
Three girls and three boys there were, all near my age; besides a hired man, a hired girl, and the father and mother of the family.
Then a new epoch was opened for me. Fresh food, fresh air, fresh life in abundance; plenty to do in the way of chores, but plenty of time for fun. The activities, exploits, and adventures of that time I have set down so fully in the Two Little Savages that it seems unnecessary to repeat them here.
Trail of an Artist-Naturalist: The Autobiography of Ernest Thompson Seton (1940)
Blackwell’s Settlement School (SS No 10 Salem School)
Seton returned to stay with the Blackwells for several summers, becoming friends with their son, Sam, and wishing William Blackwell was his father. (Note: architect William Blackwell, who designed the Academy Theatre in Lindsay, is not this William Blackwell, but is related to this family.)
Seton even had a hand in influencing the construction of a new school nearby.
A curious friendship sprang up between us. He seemed profoundly impressed by my scholarship; which, translated into terms of local life, made clear the fact that, being in the upper form at college, I was entitled to a second-class teacher’s certificate, but must wait till I was sixteen before I could avail myself of it.
He, as school trustee, had to hire a new teacher from time to time. Usually a third-class diploma was all they could command, and the idea of this small boy being a grade too high was awe-inspiring. He used to ask me the most abstruse and difficult questions—so it seemed to him—such as:
“Airnest, this room is twenty-one feet by fifteen. How much carpet would it take to cover the whole floor?”
“Thirty-five yards,” I replied, almost without pause.
He was staggered. All of the household joined in by various methods to check up the result, and found it quite correct.
On another occasion he took me to a meeting of the school board. They were discussing a new brick school-house to replace the old log building. According to law, the Government would face half the cost if the schoolroom was adequately heated and ventilated and had a minimum of one hundred cubic feet of air per scholar when every seat was full. The heating and ventilating were easily settled; but how in the world to find out how much air, was beyond these horny-handed trustees. They could not trust the architect or the contractor—they belonged to the enemy.
Then it occurred to my burly friend that puny little “I” might prove a tower of strength in this extremity.
They spread the plans on the table, pawed over them with mighty finger-stabs, discussed and made sarcastic remarks. Then Blackwell turned to me, and said:
“Airnest, this yer schoolroom is thirty by twenty by ten feet high. How many feet of air is that?”
Without using pencil or paper, I at once replied: “Six thousand cubic feet.”
They were aghast, and still more impressed when they found it correct.
“Now how much does that give each pupil?”
“How many seats are there?” I rejoined.
“Forty-eight.”
“Does the teacher count?” I asked.
“He sure does; he’s as bad as two, and counts for two.” And many rude jests were bandied on the teacher’s need for air.
“That is fifty persons. That gives one hundred and twenty cubic feet of air for each.”
“There!” exclaimed Blackwell. “I told you they were doing us. Just a put-up job!” For the Government demanded only one hundred cubic feet of air apiece; and he was rejoiced to find that he had detected the swindle before it had slipped through.
“Hold on!” I exclaimed. “There’s a lobby inside the room, that must come off.” The lobby was ten feet by ten feet by ten feet. This gave one thousand cubic feet. “Take that from the six thousand, equals five thousand; divided by fifty gives exactly one hundred cubic feet per person,” the Government minimum. The plans were all right; and in the burly committee, I felt a certain sense of disappointment that they had not been able to convict the architect of trapping them into a loss.
Trail of an Artist-Naturalist: The Autobiography of Ernest Thompson Seton (1940)
The school in question was School Section (S.S.) No. 10, known as the Salem school when “Blackwell’s Settlement” became known as Salem. The book, Ops: Land of Plenty (1968) says, “We have no date concerning the first school built in this section. An entry in an old school register states “In the summer of 1876 the first school of S.S. No. 10, situated on the north half of lot 18, concession 10 was torn down.” In the same summer, the south half of lot 19 was purchased and added to the original property (on the Hugh Moore farm). Mr. Fell of Lindsay was the builder and it is noted that the red bricks from the old school were used for the inside wall of the new one.” From Seton’s autobiography, it’s clear this was the school.
Lifelong Impressions
In all his years in Kawartha Lakes, Seton met a number of characters who left an impression on him. To name a few: the Sanger Witch (from whom he studied the medicinal uses of plants), Old Tom aka “Old Tobacco Creek”, and Cracked Jimmy Hussey. All of these people were so very good to him. A stark contrast to the bullying he received in Toronto and the abuse he got from his own father. Many of these characters make an appearance in the book, Two Little Savages (1903), autobiography thinly disguised as fiction.
Perhaps the biggest influence on Seton was the abundance of birds in Kawartha Lakes. He wanted to learn the names of every one and wished he had a book he could consult. Imagine his delight when he learned about the taxidermied birds in Lindsay.
Then I heard that a man named Charlie Foley, a hardware-man in town, had a collection of stuffed birds. Much scheming and many pleadings it cost before I was taken to town to see the great man. Into his room over the store I followed, awe-silenced, and there on a few board shelves were forty or fifty birds stuffed by himself. He talked little with me, as a sporting friend was present who discoursed volubly on his dogs. But he told me the names of many—the tanager, the wood duck, the blue crane, the gull, the barn swallow.
Trail of an Artist-Naturalist: The Autobiography of Ernest Thompson Seton (1940)
The Seton Name
His father would not let him become a naturalist and insisted Seton study art instead. Seton went on to become a world-renown artist. Among his accomplishments, he won awards for his art and illustrated Emily Dickinson’s volume of poetry, A Bird Came Down the Walk.
Seton broke his relationship with his father, when upon turning 21, his father presented him with a bill, itemized with all expenses related to Seton’s existence, including his birth. It was around this time when he decided to change his last name to Seton, the family name of Joseph’s mother, likely an attempt to please his father. He ultimately moved to Manitoba to live on his brother’s farm.
My ancestors on the paternal side were Scottish. During the turbulent days of the Jacobite risings in 1715 and 1745, they had sided with the Stuarts. After the fatal battle of Culloden, 1746, in which the Highlanders were scattered in flight by the troops supporting King George, many of the clansmen sought hiding in England; among them, Alan Cameron, a brother or a cousin of the Cameron of Lochiel. He was a man of importance, so a price of one thousand pounds was set on his head.
Among the shipyards of South Shields he took refuge. He assumed the name of “Thompson”; and, being a man of education, he spoke English well enough to complete his disguise. His grandson was my father.In the earlier rising, our great-grandfather, Lord Seton, the Earl of Winton, had taken part, and lost everything, fleeing for his life to Italy, where he died. His only grandson, and his lawful heir, was George Seton, of Bellingham, Northumberland, my father’s first cousin.
In 1823, after the general amnesty, this George Seton appeared before the Bailies of Cannongate, the highest tribunal in Scotland; and proved himself the only grandson and lawful heir of George Seton, Earl of Winton. The bailies acknowledged the validity of the claim, and George Seton was served with the title of Earl of Winton.
He died without issue, but named my father as his heir and the lawful successor to the title, as he was the only male survivor of the line.
My father’s grandmother was Ann Seton. She never ceased to urge our people to make a stand for their rights. My father always meant to do so; but his natural indolence effectually stopped all action.
On her deathbed, his grandmother, in these, her last words, enjoined him: “Never forget, Joseph, you are the heir. You are Seton, the Earl of Winton. You must stand up for your rights.”According to the law of Scotland, and under the original grant of the title, the Earldom should be transmitted through a female when a male heir was lacking; said female was to carry the surname Seton as though a male. Therefore, though lineally Cameron, my father’s legal surname was Seton.
These facts were common knowledge in our family; and frequently Father said that he felt it his duty to take his real name and assert his rights.
Trail of an Artist-Naturalist: The Autobiography of Ernest Thompson Seton (1940)
Eventually, Seton was able to study wildlife as he wanted to, and in 1891, he was appointed Provincial Naturalist by the government of Manitoba.
I found joy in all these possibilities, and stirred by memory of Charlie Foley’s bird-room, I resolved on having a museum of my own, a stuffed collection of all the birds I knew. At the time I thought this would comprise some twenty or thirty birds; in the years long after, when my dream came true, the list exceeded a thousand. And thus early I realized the need of money to establish my laboratory and museum.
Trail of an Artist-Naturalist: The Autobiography of Ernest Thompson Seton (1940)
The End of Seton in Kawartha Lakes
Seton returned to the area later as part of his lecture series, performing at the Academy Theatre. At that time, he was a household name in Kawartha Lakes and the locals were quite proud of their connection to Seton.
For the longest time, the only indication that Seton was ever in the Kawartha Lakes was an Ontario historical plaque. The plaque was originally located at Lindsay’s museum, when it was located on Kent Street West (near the current location of Pizza Hut.) The ceremony for the unveiling of the plaque at this site was held in 1963.
Left to right: Mr. J.B. Childs, warden of Victoria County (now Kawartha Lakes); Mr W.H. Cranston, chairman of the province’s historical sites board; Mr. Arthur Burridge, member of Victoria County Historical Society; Mr. D. McQuarrie, President of the V.C.H.S. ; Rev O.G. Locke, Minister of st. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Lindsay; Hon. Leslie Frost Q.C., M.P.P.; and Mr Lloyd Found, Reeve of Lindsay. Photo part of the Kawartha Lakes Museum & Archives collection.
When the museum was removed from this location, so too was the plaque. In 2011, the plaque was unveiled in its new location on the property of Fleming College, where it remains today. The Fleming College article about Seton is not correct: Seton didn’t spend his childhood in Lindsay. In fact, he spent no more than two months in Lindsay when the family first arrived from England. His happiest days, indeed the days that most influenced the artist and naturalist that he became, occurred over the next four years in Ops township, or as stated on the plaque, “near Lindsay.”
Text on the plaque reads, “Ernest Evan Thompson, who later adopted his ancestral name of Seton, was born in England and in 1866 emigrated with his family to a farm near Lindsay. There and in the Toronto region, where he lived 1870-79, he developed a consuming interest in nature. After illustrating a number of other writers works on natural history, he combined his observation to produce many books of his own. “Two Little Savages” and “Wild Animals I Have Known” are probably the publications for which he is best remembered. His writings did much to further popular interest in wildlife and the identification of birds and animals.”
From 1988 to 1999, the Kawartha Art Gallery (then the Lindsay Art Gallery) hosted 206 pieces of Seton’s art on loan from one of his descendants. One piece of art remains in the Gallery’s permanent collection. It’s oil on paper, untitled, and thought to have been made around 1895.
Portrayed is a cow in a snowy field with hills in the distance while a dog looks on from the ridge in the foreground. Likely this is a scene from Seton’s life in Manitoba, and the dog is one of the ranch’s dogs, perhaps the collie or shepherd he wrote about in Wild Animals I Have Known (1898).
“Untitled” by Ernest Thompson Seton. Courtesy of Kawartha Art Gallery.
These days when the name Ernest Thompson Seton is uttered, the response is always, “Who’s that?” Hardly surprising since the greatest effort made by Kawartha Lakes to recognize Seton was to reduce his formative years here to 110 words on a plaque that’s forgotten somewhere within the woods of a college campus. A mere few of his books remain on the shelves of the public library. One piece of art exists in the public art gallery.
There are many, many more stories about Seton’s time in Kawartha Lakes contained within the pages of his books. Many more than have been excerpted here. But one thing is apparent: his time in Kawartha Lakes made the biggest impact on his life. His legacy here should be much bigger than it is.
When we left the farm and big backwoods it seemed that I had left behind all the loved world of the wild things, the king-birds in the orchard, the robins by the barn, the swallows in the stable, the phœbes in the cowshed, the flicker on the dead tree, the peetweet tipping up his tail on the logs that crossed the creek, as well as the great blue crane (heron) that rose on mighty wings and squawked as he made away. But I was slowly learning this great truth—the things you love are begotten inside you.
Trail of an Artist-Naturalist: The Autobiography of Ernest Thompson Seton (1940)
Ernest Thompson Seton, image from Wikimedia Commons, photo by G.G. Bain, Library of Congress
Books:
Mammals of Manitoba (1886)
Birds of Manitoba, Foster (1891)
How to Catch Wolves (1894)
Studies in the Art Anatomy of Animals (1896)
Wild Animals I Have Known (1898)
The Trail of the Sandhill Stag (1899)
The Wild Animal Play for Children (musical) (1900)
The Biography of a Grizzly (1900)
Tito: The Story of the Coyote That Learned How (1900)
Bird Portraits (1901)
Lives of the Hunted (1901)
Twelve Pictures of Wild Animals (1901)
Krag and Johnny Bear (1902)
How to Play Indian (1903)
Two Little Savages (1903)
How to Make a Real Indian Teepee (1903)
How Boys Can Form a Band of Indians (1903)
The Red Book (1904)
Monarch, the Big Bear of Tallac (1904)
Woodmyth & Fable (1905)
Animal Heroes (1905)
The Birchbark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians (1906)
The Natural History of the Ten Commandments (1907)
Fauna of Manitoba, British Assoc. Handbook (1909)
Biography of a Silver Fox (1909)
Life-Histories of Northern Animals (two volumes) (1909)
Boy Scouts of America: Official Handbook, with General Sir Baden-Powell (1910)
The Forester’s Manual (1910)
The Arctic Prairies (1911)
Rolf in the Woods (1911)
The Book of Woodcraft and Indian Lore (1912)
The Red Lodge (1912)
Wild Animals at Home (1913)
The Slum Cat (1915)
Legend of the White Reindeer (1915)
The Manual of the Woodcraft Indians (1915)
Wild Animal Ways (1916)
Woodcraft Manual for Girls (1916)
The Preacher of Cedar Mountain (1917)
Woodcraft Manual for Boys; the Sixteenth Birch Bark Roll (1917)
The Woodcraft Manual for Boys; the Seventeenth Birch Bark Roll (1918)
The Woodcraft Manual for Girls; the Eighteenth Birch Bark Roll (1918)
Sign Talk of the Indians (1918)
The Laws and Honors of the Little Lodge of Woodcraft (1919)
The Brownie Wigwam: The Rules of the Brownies (1921)
The Buffalo Wind (1921)
Woodland Tales (1921)
The Book of Woodcraft (1921)
The Book of Woodcraft and Indian Lore (1922)
Bannertail: The Story of a Gray Squirrel (1922)
Manual of the Brownies, 6th edition (1922)
The Ten Commandments in the Animal World (1923)
Animals (1926)
Animals Worth Knowing (1928)
Lives of Game Animals (four volumes) (1925–1928)
Blazes on the Trail (1928)
Krag, the Kootenay Ram and Other Stories (1929)
Billy the Dog That Made Good (1930)
Cute Coyote and Other Stories (1930)
Lobo, Bingo, The Pacing Mustang (1930)
Famous Animal Stories (1932)
Animals Worth Knowing (1934)
Johnny Bear, Lobo and Other Stories (1935)
The Gospel of the Redman, with Julia Seton (1936)
Biography of An Arctic Fox (1937)
Great Historic Animals (1937)
Mainly about Wolves (1937)
Pictographs of the Old Southwest (1937)
Buffalo Wind (1938)
Trail and Camp-Fire Stories (1940)
Trail of an Artist-Naturalist: The Autobiography of Ernest Thompson Seton (1940)
A director, actor, author, and teacher, Rod Carley was born in Brockville, Ontario, on February 19, 1962. He attended York University, graduating with a B.F.A. (Honours) in Acting/Directing (1985) and graduated the Humber School for Writers (2013). (link)
His second book, Kinmount, won the Silver Medal for Best Regional Fiction from the 2021 Independent Publishers Book Awards and was one of ten books long-listed for the 2021 Leacock Medal for Humour. (link) The story is about down-and-out director Dave Middleton, who feels Kinmount is the last place he wants to revisit yet there he is directing an amateur production of Romeo and Juliet for an eccentric producer. From cults to karaoke, anything that can go wrong does.
In choosing to use Kinmount as the setting for this book, it would seem Carley took a page from Gord Downie, but where Downie chose Bobcaygeon from a map because it rhymed with ‘constellation’, Carley chose Kinmount because “”the name was naturally funny,” Carley says, noting the word Kinmount contains a noun followed by a verb. “With apologies to the good people of Kinmount,” he adds, noting a similar apology appears in the book itself. Aside from the name and some reference to a history of logging, Carley says the Kinmount in his story is otherwise fictionalized.” (link)
Cameron-area author of When We All Get Together, Bradley is a retired elementary teacher, who has also worked for the Ontario Science Centre. In 1994, she was awarded the William C. McMaster Award from Scholastic Canada for her essay about children’s literature.
When We All Get Together was the 2022 silver medal winner of the Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards.
“I found out about it [awards] through one of my writer’s groups and decided to submit it with no idea it would even be accepted, never mind win an award … I would have been pleased to get an honourable mention,” said Bradley. “Getting to the podium shows me that it was a worthwhile endeavour.”
Coboconk resident and graduate of University of Windsor, Barbour is the co-author of The Flora of Kawartha Lakes.
Anne is a retired professional librarian and earned her botanical skills with the Essex County Field Naturalists, and later the Kawartha and Carden Field Naturalists. She has a long history of volunteer positions with KFN and is currently assisting Kawartha Conservation in monitoring new invasive aquatic species.
Her co-author, Dale Leadbeater, describes how the book came together:
My contributions started when we collected field data for 10 years including pressing, drying, mounting, photographing, labelling and entering data into a custom database thanks to funding from the Stewardship Council and the ROM. Over 100 volunteers from all walks of life including students from Fleming College and almost as many landowners who often provided lunch. My co-author, Anne Barbour, hosted so many mounting days and her husband, Brian, made endless gallons of soup! We could publish a cookbook with all the great meals we ate!
Then Anne and I spent countless hours combing through other published lists for CKL to update names and to determine whether they were real or errors, tracking down specimens from colleagues and those filed by historical figures such as John Macoun, the first Canadian Botanist who accompanied the Sir Sanford Fleming expedition across Canada in 1872. It was a trip not only through space but also time. Truly amazing.
Retired from consulting, Leadbeater continues to volunteer for favourite projects, including the Couchiching Conservancy Land Trust as well as Harcourt Park Incorporated. A graduate of the University of Toronto, her focus has been on mitigation of climate change effects through land acquisition and management.
Along with Anne M. Barbour, she is the co-author of The Flora of the Kawarthas: An Illustrated Checklist of the Flora of the City if Kawartha Lakes, which includes reflections on historical ecology, occupation and how the current vegetation patterns were formed. The book is comprised of 14 years of research.
Any paddler will tell you that it’s not a good idea to stand up in a canoe or kayak. But that is exactly what Dale Leadbeater did when she noticed the distinctive bladders of American Bladdernut (Staphylea trifolia) growing on the bank of the Black River where she was paddling with two friends. “It couldn’t be, could it? Have to get a specimen to be sure!” She very carefully stood up in the kayak, while her friends exclaimed “Are you crazy?” Dale had to reach over her head to clip off a fruit-bearing twig. Then she had to sit down again… nearly as risky as standing up. But with the help of sturdy Red-osier Dogwoods for balance, she did not get wet. It turned out to be the only location in the entire City for this large shrub.
Ronald Douglas Lawrence (1921-2003) lived in many places and tried many things. Among his accomplishments he and his second wife, Joan, maintained a wilderness property, “The Place”, near Uphill (page 219, The Place in the Forest) in Kawartha Lakes (then Victoria County) where Lawrence studied the local wolf pack. He wrote about it in The Place in the Forest. Then they bought a 350-acre farm of mostly wilderness, “North Star Farm,” where they cared for orphaned and abandoned animals. He chronicled the humorous account of this time in the book, The Zoo That Never Was. Lawrence sold the property after Joan’s death.
Lawrence was a Canadian naturalist and wildlife author of over 30 books.
Born on a ship off the coast of Spain, Lawrence was raised in Spain and at age 14 lied about his age so he could fight in the Spanish Civil War. He served for two years until he found himself outnumbered in the Pyrenees and fled to France. He made his way back home just in time for the arrival of WWII. He enlisted with the British and went to war again. He participated in D-Day at Normandy where he was seriously injured.
After the war, Lawrence he enrolled at Cambridge University where he studied biology for three years but did not complete his degree. He returned to Spain where he worked as a journalist and novelist.
He moved to Canada in 1954 and became a reporter for the Toronto Star. He also worked for the Winnipeg Press and Toronto Telegram. Among his reporting duties, he went to Africa as a foreign correspondent.
Lawrence and his third wife bought property in Haliburton. Lawrence helped establish the Haliburton Forest Wolf Centre.
W. G. Hardy was a writer, professor and hockey administrator. Born and raised on a farm called “The Elms” near Lindsay, Ontario, to parents George and Annie, Hardy was one of seven children. His sister, Winnifred Hardy, served as a nursing sister for WWI. Official records put his place of birth as Peniel, Ontario, but all that remains of the community once located at the intersection of Peniel Road and Kawartha Lakes County Road 46 is a church.
South of this intersection, Hardy attended school where he used to daydream while completing school by age 10. “They let me go at my own pace.” He was writing epic poetry by age 12. For the next few years, he worked the farm and taught himself Greek. He already knew Latin.
Hardy attended Victoria College at the University of Toronto, first attempting a mathematics degree, but then switching to the Classics so he could obtain a scholarship. He paid for his degree in scholarships, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in 1917.
While at university, Hardy served the Canadian Officers’ Training Corps. In April 1917, Hardy tried to enlist for WWI, signing up for the 109th Battalion in Lindsay, but was rejected for medical reasons. He returned to serve the University of Toronto’s Officers Company, but was discharged due to his heart condition. He never saw active service.
While working towards his Masters in Arts at the University of Toronto, Hardy married Llewella May Sonley and managed a publication called The Rebel.
After obtaining his Masters in 1920, Hardy took a position as a lecturer at the University of Alberta, and by 1922 he earned a Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Chicago and a professorship at the University of Alberta. From 1938 to 1964, Hardy served at head of the Department of Classics. He gave talks about the Classics on CBC Radio. In 1979, the CBC published unedited transcripts of this radio programs in the book, CBC television programs on W.G. Hardy and Hazel McCuaig (1979.) Additionally, Hardy criticized fascism and the modern education system. His articles about the Alberta education system were collected and published in the booklet, Education in Alberta (1954.)
After relocating to Alberta, Hardy began coaching the Alberta Golden Bears hockey team. He served as president of the Alberta Amateur Hockey Association and was appointed to the Alberta branch of the Amateur Athletic Union of Canada. Hardy put forth a motion to have the 1936 Summer Olympics taken away from Berlin due to Germany banning Jewish athletes. Hockey in Western Canada flourished with Hardy’s involvement, but was not without problems:
Hardy publicized the CAHA ambitions and published the article “Should We Revise Our Amateur Laws?” in Maclean’s on November 1, 1936. He argued for updating the definition of amateur, when it was commonly accepted to bend the rules in hockey. He felt that the AAU of C was hypocritical for classifying cricket, soccer, and tennis as pastime sports where athletes may compete with or against professionals and still be called amateurs. He sought for these inconsistencies with respect to professionals and amateurs should be “ironed out and a common-sense view be taken of the situation”. He further stated that the old definition of amateur came “from the days when only gentlemen with independent means were supposed to engage in sport”; and that in the era of the Great Depression, it was justified that a hockey player be allowed legitimate employment in sport and be compensated for work lost while away at playoffs or representing his country at international events.[39]
The amateur issue achieved significant press coverage by November 1936. Canadian journalist Scott Young wrote that public perception was against the AAU of C definition, and that Canadians were in favour of amateurs being compensated for travel, which was perceived as a reason for Canada not winning the gold medal in ice hockey at the 1936 Winter Olympics.[42]
(Scott Young was also a writer in Kawartha Lakes.)
Hardy’s legacy in hockey lives on in the Dr. W. G. Hardy Trophy established 1951 and the Hardy Cup established in 1968.
While it may seem strange for a scholar of the Classics to be so involved in ice hockey and writing novels, Hardy didn’t think so. “That was the Greek way of doing things. I didn’t want to become a straight academic. I was too interested in people.”
Hardy wrote his first novel, A Son of Eli, during a two-week period in 1929 when his wife was away from home. McLean’s published the book as a serial. Hardy said, “I write very fast. I never pretended to be a genius, but I have a talent for writing. I know my stuff.” Hardy went on to publish a dozen more books, some fiction and others non-fiction, countless short stories, as well as curate two anthologies.
Hardy was president of the Alberta branch of the Canadian Authors Association in 1972 and president of the national organization at least three times. He gave workshops and was a judge for writing contests, including the 1963 contest for new lyrics for the Maple Leaf Forever.
Hardy said his writing was a hobby, but that writing was hard work. He believed, “Some write for money, some for fame and recognition and some because they have a passion to express themselves. Amateur writers need the passion most.” He did not think writers should be too ‘arty.’ He believed in writing to market while also finding a compromise between what writers want to write and what the public wants to read. “After all,” he said, “the function of words is to put across ideas— and so why not market them’.”
“I believe that everyone has a novel inside them, formed through their own experiences and observations,” Dr. Hardy said tliis was his third reason for believing writers in Alberta could produce novels.
Dr. Hardy, who was president of the 1972 convention of the Canadian Authors Association, said he believes there are many advantages to writing a novel rather than a short story.
He said novels can use more characters, more places and a less – rigid structure, than short stories. Dr. Hardy said “besides these points, writing a novel is more fun.”
How do people go about starting to write a novel? Dr. Hardy said a good way for most to begin is to base the novel on n topic with which they are familiar.
He said to begin any of the three main types of novels — historical, contemporary life, novelists should follow a few basic steps.
To start with they should analyze what special knowledge they have going for them which could be helpful as background for their writing. Then books should be read to see how’ other authors have handled that type of novel.
The next basic step is for the writer to decide if he wants to write in the first or third person. Dr. Hardy said he prefers first person because by use of first person many points of view and many different characters can be presented.
The other suggestions Dr. Hardy gave were to draw up a resume — to help decide what the novel will say; to choose characters carefully and to decide on an approach — realistic or romantic.
He said one of the last things a writer does before actually writing the novel is a story line. By use cf the story line the information that doesn’t fit the general theme is discarded.
Dr. Hardy said when the novelist has had a book published he has completed “an achievement equivalent to any in the world.”
Early settler in Lindsay, Ontario, William McDonnell is perhaps best known locally as the author of Manita, a poem he created about a local legend. The legend tells of young Iroquois chief Ogemah, who fell in love with Manita, a beautiful chief’s daughter of their rivals, the Heron peoples. Since the poem was written without the consent or input of indigenous peoples, it is an example of cultural appropriation.
While the poem spans 26 pages, the book opens with several pages describing the town of Lindsay, and with the last pages of the book consisting of advertising for local steamboats, it appears the book was created to draw tourism.
The controversy around Manita is not new.
Watson Kirkconnell asserts many of the facts from the original legend were changed. “From this era, too, dates the legend of Manita. In the version told me by Johnston Paudash, son of the Mississaga Chief at the Nanahazhoo Reserve, Rice Lake, Manita or Nomena (“light of love”) was the daughter of a great Mississaga chief who lived at Pleasant Point, Sturgeon Lake. Ogemah, an Iroquois chief, paddled alone from his own country to ask for her in marriage, but was murdered by a jealous Mississaga brave. About 1886 a poem on this theme was published in Lindsay by the late Mr. William McDonnell. This poem is a pretty little idyll, but as a portrayal of Indian psychology it is hopelessly sentimental and therefore unbelievable. It also substitutes Huron for Mississaga, Sturgeon Point for Pleasant Point and brings Ogemah on the stage by way of Lindsay, the wrong direction entirely.” (from Victoria County Centennial History, 1921 edition.)
The only known remaining copy of Manita, once belonging to local writer and historian Ford Moynes, is located in the archives of the Kawartha Lakes Public Library. They’ve recently digitized the book and made Manita available to view online.
Although he was known locally as Squire McDonnell and the author of Manita, outside of Kawartha Lakes (then Victoria County), he was the author of several books, which were published in the hundreds of thousands and read around the world, and a play that was performed in Toronto:
From the pen of Mr. George Beall, Albert Street, and from his scrap book comes a second interesting story: “Wm. McDonnell, 1814-1900, born Cork. Ireland. Wm. McDonnell went to Peterborough in 1830 and then studied law at Pennsylvania, U.S.A. He settled in Lindsay in the 1840’s and founded a tannery, and later a store about 1852. He was in the Lindsay Customs Office and also a Lieut. Colonel in the Militia. He was a good musician and composed both libretts and music for the 3-act opera “The Fisherman’s Daughter”, which was put on at the Princess Theatre, Toronto.
He very successfully wrote several books the sales of which ran into hundreds of thousands. He published two narrative poems – “Manita” and “Cleope”. Manita was based on an Indian legend of Sturgeon Point, and later a steamer, owned by Charles Burgoyne of Fenelon Falls, and ran daily trips between Lindsay and Coboconk was named “Manita” after the heroine of this poem.
Wm. McDonnell was always known in Lindsay as “ Squire” McDonnell. He built two houses on the north end of York Street on the river bank. The first was burned in the fire of 1861 and the second is with some additions, the present Canadian Legion Hall.
After his father brought young McDonnell to Canada, business reverses compelled the father to return to Ireland, but he died on the way home and young McDonnell was left alone in Canada to fend for himself at the age of 16 years.
His indomitable energy, intelligence and uprightness won for him the place which he was to hold until the day of his death, a place in the hearts; of all who knew him. His record was an exceptionally good one. He was chosen as clerk of the Division Court and appointed Justice of the Peace. He was a member of the County Council, was Reeve and for many years a member of the Council of the Town of Lindsay. He was a frequent contributor to the Public Press and wrote a series of articles on “ Government” for the Toronto Globe.
It is interesting to note that he supervised the taking of the first census in Victoria County and appointed Census Commissioner by a warrant issued the 2nd of January, 1852, by his Excellency James Earl of Elgin and Kincardine, Governor General of Canada.
Wm. McDonnell was a member of King Hiram Lodge A.F. and A.M. He was interested in education and for many years held the position of chairman of the Grammar School Board. Up to the time of his death he maintained a keen interest in public affairs. He died at the age of 81 and is buried in Riverside Cemetery.”
(Note: the above quote from an article by Ford Moynes published in the Lindsay Daily Post, no date known, cites McDonnell’s biography as written by George Beall and taken from the Beall scrapbook. Upon searching the digitized copy of the Beall scrapbook, made available online by the Kawartha Lakes Public Library and courtesy of the Kawartha Lakes Museum & Archives, it appears the McDonnell biography pages are missing. Perhaps they will turn up in the Ford Moynes fonds.)
Although the publication of A Man from Mars was announced in The St. Louis Republic (St. Louis, Missouri, USA) of Saturday 5th December 1891, it appears it never made it to print:
A theosophical novel by Mr. W. McDonnell, author of the very successful “Exeter Hall,” and of “Heathen of the Heath,” is announced for early issue by John A. Taylor & Co. of New York. The title selected for the forthcoming book is “A Man from Mars,” and the story is said to run on the lines of Edward Bellamy’s sociological “Looking Backward.” * The work purports to describe a visit to the planet Mars by two adepts in theosophy by occult powers. They find a perfect social system in operation amongst the inhabitants of Mars—society being organized on the same principles as those laid down in Mr. Bellamy’s story.
McDonnell’s house, now the Royal Canadian Legion branch 67. The riverbank is now McDonnell Park. This postcard is from the Beall scrapbook (from the Beall collection at the Kawartha Lakes Museum & Archives)
Lucy E.M. Black is the author of The Marzipan Fruit Basket, a collection of short stories (Inanna Publications, 2017) and Eleanor Courtown, a work of historical fiction (Seraphim Editions, 2017). Her novel, Stella’s Carpet (Now or Never Publishing, 2021) is a study of intergenerational trauma. The Brickworks (Now or Never Publishing) will be released in Fall 2023. Her award-winning short stories have been published in Britain, Ireland, USA and Canada in literary journals and magazines including Cyphers Magazine, the Hawai’i Review, The Antigonish Review and others. She is a dynamic workshop presenter, experienced interviewer and freelance writer. She lives with her partner in the small lakeside town of Port Perry, Ontario, the traditional territory of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island, First Nations.
Of her first book of short stories (The Marzipan Fruit Basket), best-selling author Donna Morrissey says Lucy E.M. Black arrives into the world of Can Lit with this compilation of beautifully written short stories that speak to the heartfelt intimacies of both her characters and her readers.
“Stella’s Carpet is a treat – a multinational, multigenerational gem of a novel about family, loss and the ties that bind. Lucy Black writes with heart, verve… and oodles of talent.” —Brad Smith, award-winning author of Copperhead Road, The Return of Kid Cooper, The Goliath Run, CactusJack
Lucy writes and distributes a Monthly Newsletter, whichincludes book reviews, her book news, as well as promotes local arts events
She is a columnist for the Pineridge Arts Council, The Writing Room is the name of her column
She is a freelance writer for Silver Sage Magazine and other publications
Lucy has assumed the position of Creative Non-fiction Editor, The Artisanal Writer, an online journal discussing the craft of writing
kawarthalakeswriters.com 