Ernest Thompson Seton (born Ernest Evan Thompson;[1] August 14, 1860 – October 23, 1946) was a Canadian and American author, wildlife artist, founder of the Woodcraft Indians in 1902 (renamed Woodcraft League of America), and one of the founding pioneers of the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) in 1910.

After settling in Lindsay, Canada West Seton spent most (after 1870) of his childhood in Toronto, and the family is known to have lived at 6 Aberdeen Avenue in Cabbagetown.

[5] On Seton's 21st birthday his father presented him with an invoice for all of the expenses connected with his childhood and youth, including the fee charged by the doctor who delivered him.

After experiencing vandalism by the local youth, Seton invited them to his estate for a weekend where he told them what he claimed were stories of the American Indians and of nature.

The stories became a series of articles written for the Ladies Home Journal, and were eventually collected in The Birch Bark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians in 1906.

Since 1922, Woodcraft Rangers has served Los Angeles youth with Seton's model of character building, which encompasses service, truth, fortitude, and beauty.

Today the Woodcraft Rangers organization serves over 15,000 youth in the Los Angeles county by helping them find pathways to purposeful lives.

Youth participants are encouraged to discover their natural talents and are embraced daily with the belief that all children are innately good.

Baden-Powell had read Seton's book The Birch Bark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians and was greatly intrigued by it.

[18] Seton called his father, Joseph Logan Thompson, "the most selfish man I ever knew, or heard of, in history or in fiction."

He cut off ties completely after being made to pay off an itemized list of all expenses he had cost his father, up to and including the doctor's fee for his delivery, a total of $537.50.

He later became involved in a literary debate known as the nature fakers controversy, after John Burroughs published an article in 1903 in the Atlantic Monthly attacking writers of sentimental animal stories.

[20] For his work, Lives of Game Animals Volume 4, Seton was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 1928.

Seton designed and built his castle as a 32-room, 6,900-square-foot (640 m2) multi-level building with a flat-roof and rough hewn stone wall exterior.

Seton Castle burned down in 2005 during an attempt at restoration, but all the artwork, manuscripts, books, etc., had been removed to storage before renovation was to have begun.

The new Academy Center that opened in 2011 includes a gallery and archives featuring artwork and other materials as part of its Seton Legacy Project.

Roger Tory Peterson drew inspiration for his field guide from the simple diagram of ducks that Seton included in Two Little Savages.

Obtained in the early 1960s as the site of the future Metro Toronto Zoo, the land was later used to establish parkland and home to the Ontario Science Centre.

In 1988, Yury Iosifovich Koval published a short novel called Шамайка (Shamayka), a retelling of The Slum Cat.

In a 1993 issue of the Japanese manga Diamond is Unbreakable, the character Jotaro Kujo references Seton's quote "there is no animal that cannot be tracked".

The French titles are: Seton's appearance inspired the design of the character Shiton Anehata, a scholar and zoophile who is one of the Abashiri convicts in the manga Golden Kamui.

Seton is also mentioned in Philip Roth's 2010 novel, Nemesis, where he is credited for having introduced Indian lore to the American camping movement.