By the time Ernest Thompson Seton arrived in Clayton, N.M., in 1893 as a hired gun to kill wolves, nearly all the wolves were dead. Post-Civil War New Mexico had welcomed an influx of cattle ranchers and sport hunters who saw the gray wolf as a varmint, a nuisance, something easily expendable with poison, a bullet or a rope.

The wolves that survived had grown cunning. They abandoned hunting in daylight, lest they become the hunted. They not only shunned the strychnine-laced meat that Seton left for them, but carried it away and hid it under debris. They avoided his steel traps, yet left bold footprints around his stone cabin at night.

The steps that Seton would eventually take to kill six wolves turned his path back on itself, recreating Seton as one of the leading conservationists of his time.

This weekend, the History Museum opens the exhibit Wild at Heart: Ernest Thompson Seton, celebrating the life of this artist, author and co-founder of the Scouting movement. On Thursday, May 20, guest curator David L. Witt, author of Ernest Thompson Seton: The Life and Legacy of an Artist and Conservationist (Gibbs Smith, 2010), spoke at the Fray Angélico Chávez History Library’s Brainpower & Brownbags lecture series.

He only had an hour, so Witt chose to focus on that pivotal year, beginning in 1893, when Seton brought his wolf-hunting skills to New Mexico: “At thirty-three, he almost certainly had more blood on his hands than anyone else in Clayton. None of it was human,” Witt writes in the book.

As he began his lecture, Witt warned the 35 attendees that “there are some dark parts; it’s about wolves. But it has a happy ending,” he added, “though not necessarily for the wolves.”

As Seton tried and failed in his early New Mexico hunts, he spent his free time studying the wildlife he could find – primarily, kangaroo rats – and ended up becoming one of the first scientists to publish drawings of the rats and their burrows.

(Also during that eventful year, he inadvertently invented a cattle brand for rustlers needing to re-burn the flanks of their stolen goods to camouflage the original brand. His explanation was that, as an artist, he was kindly answering some questions of a man whom he later discovered was a cattle-thief.)

Seton’s Calvinist upbringing also drew him into doubt in New Mexico – namely the religious belief that children are born in “total depravity” and must be made “good.” Seton decided he had always believed children were born good, and more important, could be kept on their own higher path by nurturing a bond with the great outdoors – thus planting the seed that would eventually become the Boy Scouts of America.

Wolf blood would yet be spilled before Seton’s great transformation would take place. The story of how Blanca and Lobo died is a difficult one, Witt acknowledged in his lecture. He described the manic, melancholy howling of Lobo after Blanca was killed. He took care to give the audience only brief glimpses of either wolf in their fatal traps (the black wolf “Lobo” in his trap, at left).

The death of Lobo sparked in Seton an internal debate based on this question, Witt said: “Why do we as humans carry on this war against nature … destroying habitat and species?

“He spent the rest of his life trying to answer that question,” Witt said.

The exhibit explores how he answered it, in his literary and scientific output, in his art, in his studies of Native peoples, in the summer camps he established in Connecticut and Santa Fe that, in 1910, became the Boy Scouts, with Seton as co-founder. He became a man who today ranks among the likes of John Burroughs and John James Audubon, with a distinctly New Mexico twist.

We hope this exhibit inspires visitors to take a fresh look at their own relationship to the natural world — in part by acknowledging the matters that are dark and violent, and in another part by celebrating those that bring us joy. (Below, White-Winged Crossbills, oil on academy board, 1883, courtesy of the Academy for the Love of Learning.)

As Witt writes:

New Mexico provided Ernest Thompson Seton with the environment he required for deep spiritual reflection, first in the winter of 1893, and then again in the 1930s and up to the end of his life. Ever present in that process was his keenly felt responsibility for causing the death of Lobo. The King of Currumpaw, specimen #677, a seventy-eight-pound male gray wolf of the semi-arid grasslands, had, in his way, worked a kind of magic. By forcing Seton to ask “WHY?” Lobo helped him on his journey from wolf killer to student of the Buffalo Wind. Seton made a transformation within himself, putting the best of what he had learned to work its way in the world – where it is working still.

Opening weekend (May 22 and 23) is free for everyone, with special events in the Palace Courtyard. (See the schedule here.) The exhibit runs until May 8, 2011, with a full year of lectures, hands-on workshops and children’s storytellers to get you and your family in touch with your inner naturalist — and to keep the work of Seton going forward.

But why wait? Take a moment to ponder the Seton painting below (The Rooky Woods, watercolor, 1891, courtesy of the Philmont Museum). Let it play on your imagination and carry you into a walk through a forest. Hear the flap of the birds’ wings, the rustle of the leaves. Pick up a pen or a paintbrush and create. Plan your next walk – through your own rooky woods, your neighborhood or your backyard.

An old saying contends that an army runs on its stomach. But for museums, there’s no running without volunteers.

Last week, the New Mexico History Museum’s many volunteers were honored with a prestigious award by the Governor’s Commission for Community Volunteerism. The Governor’s Nonprofit Program Award recognized the museum’s 112 volunteers who last year donated 9,342 hours of unpaid service.

The award was given during a banquet at the Hilton Hotel in Albuquerque, where an estimated 600 volunteers and program staff represented efforts that ranged from foster grandparents to combating homelessness, addictions and teen pregnancy. Lt. Governor Diane Denish, co-chair of the commission, said that volunteer efforts in New Mexico last year accounted for $1 billion worth of work that might not otherwise have gotten done.

Patricia Hewitt of the museum’s Fray Angélico Chávez History Library nominated the volunteers. From her nomination:

(They) conduct tours of the Palace of the Governors, assist hundreds of school groups from throughout New Mexico, man our Information Desk, lead informative historic walking tours of downtown Santa Fe, act as Gallery Guides for the new 26,000-square-foot exhibits space, and answer “wayfinding” questions throughout the Museum’s campus.  Our volunteers assisted at every major 2009 History Museum event including Opening weekend, Spanish Colonial Days, Gem and Mineral Show, Mountain Man Rendezvous, Native American Artisans Indian Market Celebration, Christmas at the Palace, Las Posadas, and new exhibit openings and lectures.  They provide the personal touch that insures that visitors from youngsters to senior citizens have a welcoming and memorable museum experience.

Our volunteers who work behind the scenes at the Museum assist staff with archival processing and arrangement of photographic and manuscript collections to aid in proper housing and storage of fragile materials, and to assist with access and research.  Volunteers in the Museum’s Collections department helped to successfully move over 12,000 museum objects, including 3,706 costumes, accessories and textiles, into our new environmentally sound 8,381-square-foot storage vault.  As staff perform curatorial, administrative, and archival duties for our collections and exhibits they greatly appreciate the many talented volunteers who assist “backstage” at the Museum.

John Ramsay accepted a last-minute invitation from Patricia to attend the event and said it was just another never-know-what-to-expect day in the life of a volunteer. For the last 14 years, Ramsay has volunteered at the History Library, most of that time “in the bowels” of archived documents. While helping with cataloguing and such, he’s honed an interest in Southwest history deep enough to lead him to contribute a chapter to a book that will be published by UNM Press this fall.

“I’ve always been interested in history, and I’m a Southwesterner, really,” said Ramsay, who’s a retired chemist from Los Alamos National Laboratory. “I got involved back when Tom Chavez was there and got to see original documents about New Mexico history. It’s just intriguing.”

Ramsay also serves as treasurer of the New Mexico Historical Society and says that tending to such interests is part of keeping active.

“You’ve got to have an interest in what you’re doing,” he said. “Whether it’s volunteering for the handicapped or some of the things these other people you see here do. I like what I’m doing because I just find a satisfaction out of it.”

The History Museum applauds every one of its volunteers for the sacrifices they’ve made to make us a better institution. To us, this award simply confirms what we’ve long known: We can’t do it alone. Whether it’s meeting new people or working with old photographs, sharing your knowledge of the past or getting out the word on new exhibits, the History Museum can help you expand your horizons. For information on our volunteer programs, contact David Rogers at 476-5157.

In honor of the 100th anniversary of Fray Angélico Chávez’s birth, the History Museum’s Library, which bears his name, will hold a daylong symposium in the auditorium this Saturday. Check out the schedule below. You’re invited. It’s free. And, if you’re among the first 200 to arrive, you’ll receive a commemorative copy of Jimmy Santiago Baca‘s poem written in honor of the friar and hand-printed on the Palace of the Governor’s historic presses.

Tom Leech (left, in photo below) and James Bourland (at press, in photo below), the skilled hands of the Palace Press, produced a stack of the commemorative poems on Tuesday. The sun image on its cover came off of the 1899 Chandler & Price machine once used to produce the fabled Estancia News Herald. The poem was printed on the Vandercook Press in a Bodoni Condensed font.

The poem came about when Tomas Jaehn, director of the Fray Angélico Chávez History Library, decided to ask Baca if he would be willing to write something in honor of the late friar — a renowned historian, author and artist. Baca drew on their shared love for Hispanic culture in crafting his poem, which reads, in part:

… you resemble the sun,

you are here in the grass, on the adobe wall,

in the pages of my poetry book

you glow

redemption, open-hearted love for the land,

warming the air with your vehement passion to announce

to all life how beautiful our Hispanic culture is ….

The beauty of that culture was threaded throughout Chávez’s life. Born Manuel Ezequiel Chávez in Wagon Mound, N.M., Fray Angélico was ordained as a Franciscan, served several parishes in New Mexico and was instrumental in renovating the church in Peña Blanca – a true hands-on effort. The murals he painted of the Stations of the Cross used images of himself, his family and parishioners. He also renovated churches in Domingo Station, Golden and Cerrillos.

As an Army chaplain, he was present for the World War II beach landings at Guam and Leyte and, during the Korean War, was stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas, and Kaiserslautern, Germany.

Upon his return, Chávez was appointed archivist of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, where he catalogued and translated the Church’s Spanish archives. As noted in a biography on the Web site of the New Mexico Office of the State Historian:

While digging for the golden nuggets of Franciscan history in the archdiocesan archives, he instead came across baptismal, marriage, and death records that revealed much about the families who had settled the region. He wrote: “It was like the case of a miner who sifted a hill of ore for gold, setting aside any silver he encountered; in the end the silver far outweighed the gold. The only thing to do was to render the silver useful.” He compiled the silver and published the Origins of New Mexico Families: A Genealogy of the Spanish Colonial Period in 1954. Genealogists searching for their familial roots have found the book invaluable.

Chávez is perhaps best known for writing La Conquistadora, the Autobiography of an Ancient Statue about the figure of the Virgin Mary revered by parishioners of St. Francis Cathedral in Santa Fe. He also wrote short stories, novels and poetry. T.S. Eliot called his poem, The Virgin of Port Lligat in 1959 a “very commendable achievement.”

After his death in 1996, the History Library was named in his honor, and a bronze statue of him graces its entrance. A self-portrait is on display in the Palace of the Governors’ Portrait Gallery, and it carries an interesting tale. Painted in 1939 as an “idle sketch” on a board by Fray Angélico in 1939, it was later trimmed down to repair a drawer in the convent at Peña Blanca. In 1970, someone cleaning out the drawers happened upon it. Fray Angélico donated it to the museum, writing: “I thought you might display it more as a curiosity than a work of art.”

A finely rendered sketch of the young friar, the portrait is, contrary to his recommendation, displayed as a work of art.

Here’s a schedule of Saturday’s symposium. Come for the whole day, or drop in when you can:

10-10:25 am: Frances Levine, director of the New Mexico History Museum; Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan, Archdiocese of Santa Fe

10:30-10:40: Jimmy Santiago Baca, poet

10:40-10:55: Fabian Chávez, former legislative leader, longtime public servant and brother of Fray Angélico

11-11:30: Nasario Garcia, professor emeritus of Hispanic Languages and Literatures

11:35-12:05: Thomas E. Chávez, former director, Palace of the Governors

1:30-2 pm: Melina Vizcaino-Aleman, doctoral candidate, American Studies Department, University of New Mexico

2:05-2:35 pm: Jack Clark Robinson, O.F.M., Ph.D., History, University of California-Santa Barbara

2:40-3:10: Ellen McCracken, professor of Spanish, University of California-Santa Barbara, and author of The Life and Writing of Fray Angelico Chavez: A New Mexico Renaissance Man (UNM Press, 2009)

3:30-4:30 pm: Questions and testimonials

Funding for the event was made possible by the New Mexico Humanities Council. The event is also supported by the Center for Southwest Research, University of New Mexico, and has been designated a We the People project by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the New Mexico Humanities Council.

Military service has its advantages, but alas, dining off of Tiffany silver isn’t one of them. At least, not anymore.

Last Saturday saw the commissioning of the new USS New Mexico, namesake of a fabled World War II battleship reborn as a $2.25 billion nuclear submarine. Besides carrying the Land of Enchantment’s name, the sub carries something precious to New Mexico: two dessert plates from a 56-piece Tiffany silver service created for the original USS New Mexico. And, no, there won’t be any breakfast on Tiffany’s plates served; they’re for display purposes only.

The New Mexico History Museum holds the set and has several of its pieces on display in its core exhibition, Telling New Mexico: Stories from Then and Now. Each piece was handcrafted to reflect different aspects of the state’s cultural heritage – Coronado’s Expedition 1540-42; San Miguel Chapel – Old­est Church in the US; and the First Locomotive through Raton Pass – 1879. Pretty much everyone’s favorite piece is a humidor in the shape of Taos Pueblo. (That’s it at left and, if you know which viga to press on, you can pop open the various floors of the “pueblo.”)

Dr. Frances Levine, director of the History Museum, hand-carried the plates from New Mexico and attended the commissioning ceremony at the Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia, along with fellow New Mexicans: Ret. Admiral William Payne, a state senator; Senate President Tim Jennings; Tourism Secretary Michael Cerletti; and Veterans Services Secretary John Garcia.

“It was fantastic,” Levine said, “so tradition-conscious.”

Best part? “I got to go on the sub,” she said.

(You, dear reader, can’t go on it, but you can take a virtual tour here.)

The plates that will live aboard (and underwater) for the next year depict…

…The Santa Fe Trail…

…and Taos Pueblo.

Their history goes back to 1918, when the state of New Mexico commissioned Tiffany to create the service for the USS New Mexico. The battleship served as the first flagship of the United States Pacific Fleet, and was a vital part of U.S. operations in the Pacific Theater of WWII.

First sent to Pearl Harbor, the ship was deployed to protect our eastern seaboard in mid-1941, barely missing the attack on the Hawaiian port. Her subsequent history, as told in a recent column by Jay Miller:

The pre-landing bombardment of Luzon began on January 6, 1945, perhaps appropriately, the state of New Mexico’s 33rd birthday. The sky was full of kamikaze planes. A suicide hit on her bridge killed the commanding officer and 29 others, with 87 injured. The remaining crew made emergency repairs and her guns remained in action until our troops got ashore on January 9th.

After repairs at Pearl Harbor, she headed to Okinawa for the invasion there. This time the enemy threat was from suicide boats. On May 11, she destroyed eight of them. The following evening, the New Mexico was attacked by two kamikazes. One plunged into her. The other hit her with its bomb.

In the resulting fires, 54 men were killed and 119 wounded, but she continued to fight. On May 28, she departed for repairs in the Philippines to be readied for the invasion of Japan. On August 15, while sailing toward Okinawa, she learned of the war’s end. On September 2, she entered Tokyo Bay to witness Japan’s surrender.

After the battleship was decommissioned in 1946, the Tiffany service was used on the carrier Midway and the flat-top Bon Homme Richard before it was donated to the Palace of the Governors. When the New Mexico History Museum opened May 23, 2009, the service was on display for the first time in decades.

To see some of the Tiffany the pieces yourself, visit the History Museum and head downstairs to the World War II section of the Telling New Mexico exhibit. It will be a lot easier than trying to see them on this:

The silver plates aren’t the only mark of New Mexico on a ship named for New Mexico. U.S. Rep. Martin Heinrich said: “A lot of New Mexicans worked really hard to make this happen and to make sure that crew is stocked up with plenty of New Mexico salsa and other things to make sure they know we’re thinking about them out there.” True? Here’s proof:

New Mexico salsa …. Talk about military might!