Some men called him "Wolf"
Born Ernest Evan Thompson on August 14, 1860 in South Shields, Durham, England, eighth child in a family of ten sons, his family was descended from Lord Seton, Earl of Winton.
In 1866, his family moved to Canada and settled near Lindsay, Ontario. It was there, in the wooded area, that his fascination with nature evolved.
In 1870, the family moved to Toronto and from 1870 to 1879, Seton roamed the Don Valley - a haven for birds. In 1873, he purchased a copy of Ross's Birds of Canada and soon realized, through his own observations, the many errors in the book. At the age of 16, he started gathering information for his own book on the birds of Canada.
His painting started in 1876 and he became a member of the Toronto Society of Arts. His Sharpshin Hawk earned him a two year apprenticeship in a Toronto portrait studio. At nineteen(1879), he won a gold medal in the Society's Art Contest. He then moved to England where, in 1880, he won a seven year scholarship to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in London.
In 1881, he enjoyed his first public exhibition but could not resist the "Call of the West" - the "Buffalo Wind" - that beckoned his return to Canada in 1882. After a brief rest in Toronto, he left for Carberry, Manitoba aboard a colonist-cattle train. That year, he adopted the Seton ancestral name but initially called himself Ernest Seton Thompson.