Just a short walk from the lapping waters of the Wisconsin River sits a former chicken coop modestly rebuilt for human habitation. From its humble shelter one of this nation’s greatest conservationists reflected on the land and animals around him. "The Shack," as his family knew it, was purchased by Aldo Leopold in 1935 as part of an abandoned farm and became Leopold’s home in the wild and the setting for A Sand County Almanac, one of this country’s most outstanding pieces of nature writing.

"Trophy-hunting," Leopold wrote, "is nothing to apologize for. The disquieting thing in the modern picture is the trophy-hunter who never grows up, in whom the capacity for isolation, perception and husbandry is undeveloped, or perhaps lost."

Like many other great conservationists of his era, Leopold was not only an outspoken advocate of preserving wilderness and protecting his country’s natural resources. He was also a hunter. His writings bear the unmistakable mark of a man who recognized his role as "conqueror of the land-community...and citizen of it."

Near Baraboo, in south-central Wisconsin, the shack from which the hunter strode to pursue birds and bucks still weathers the white of winter. In the hardwoods and marshes, descendants of the whitetails that the author stalked still lure hunters from their homes, some in search of winter meat, others aching for antlers.

By happy chance, I came to the land of Leopold while in the Madison area on business. A friend and I arranged a visit--a pilgrimage of sorts--to the author’s abode among the pines and hardwoods. With some time to kill before our appointment at the shack, we decided to stretch our legs with a hike on a nearby trail along the Wisconsin River. A skiff of snow had blown in during the night, mostly melted but still visible in areas shaded from the feeble December sun. Approaching the riverbank, I spied five sets of deer tracks meandering through a sodden patch of white. One print was huge.

As I ambled along, imagining the size of a buck that could leave such a remarkable footprint, I saw him, standing motionless, eyeing a smaller buck I’d spotted crossing the trail in front of us. Then out of a thicket he walked, a whale of a whitetail, girthy, roman-nosed and grunting gutturally on the trail of a late-cycling doe. A handful of nontypical tines twisted outward from a heavy 12-point rack. Here was a sagacious old stag worth any hunter’s admiration--and I suspected that he wasn’t the only one in the county.

The Shack was a converted chicken coop in which Leopold wrote and reflected on the world around him.

The next fall I returned to Leopold country, this time to hunt. Professional responsibilities (read "other hunting trips") made it impossible to arrive in November as I’d planned. By the time I turned my pickup onto the main street of Baraboo, Christmas lights twinkled brightly on the storefronts and there remained just over two weeks to find my wife a present.

Having done more research on hunting than on gift buying, I knew exactly where I’d concentrate my efforts. Hours of electronic homework in previous months narrowed my Wisconsin whitetail possibilities to a pair of DNR properties, two state parks and some acreage owned by a local conservation organization.

Within minutes of hitting town I contact Steve, a helpful ecologist I met over the phone doing research. Good news. Mike, a friend of his, is willing to show me around one of the properties. Could I meet him early the next morning? It seems a silly question for a guy who has just driven 1,100 miles looking for a buck bigger than those in the local holiday displays with twinkling red noses.