Powerful and perceptive, this wandering contemplation is a celebration of our hunter-gatherer heritage and a passionate call not merely for its preservation, but for its renewal. Darling explores the meaning of wildness in the Alleghenies, the tundra of the far north, the marshes along the Chesapeake Bay, and the inner terrain of the human spirit.

'Let's make offerings to the creatures of the forest and pray to the ravens. Wild meat will nourish us without clogging our arteries or our souls. We will laugh and weep and sweat. We will drink from the spring of our original freedom. Only our skills can get us there. We must invent a new and ancient way of relating to the world. We are an endangered species. Failure is not one of our options."