back to the woods

The author accompanies a group of elite birdwatchers to Attu Island the farthermost island in the Alaskan  Aleutians where he joins them to chase rare birds blown off course on this 15 mile long uninhabited rocky outpost.    There he discovers there is a lot of fascinating social and natural history overlooked by the birders.  However, he is on a personal quest to understand why he has always wanted to find a substitute for the woods of his childhood which have been destroyed by urbanization.  He finds it is not so much a place that he is looking for but a mind set which he realizes that naturalists and hunters have.