Away from the island's familiar sweet spots, a new generation of Sicilians is reshaping its wine, food, and hotels: "Our vocation," says one, "is to make Sicily less rough but still authentic." Mission accomplished. Ondine Cohane discovers an old place with a new lease on life

After a few miles on the road to Mount Etna, Sicily's villages disappear, leaving just the sharp contrast of the forested areas (known as dagola) and the lava fields of the volcano, ossified and nearly barren. Flashes of the Ionian Sea are visible below. Carmelo Giuffrida, my guide, explains how the split nature of this landscape is echoed in the character of the people who live close by—in their irreverence and fatalism. One house might be destroyed in an eruption; another, only feet away, spared. We get out of the four-wheel drive at Monterosso and start climbing toward the Val di Bove. Apart from the crunch of our boots on the volcanic sand, an occasional birdcall, and a low grumbling from the volcano that becomes more apparent as we ascend, there are no sounds. The hard climb means that Carmelo and I barely speak, save for his pointing out trees and plants. Many of these have medicinal and mythic associations: One is thought to halt mortality, another is an antiseptic that Achilles supposedly used, and a third would hydrate lonely climbers when there was no water around. As we get higher, the trees seem more like bonsai than pine. A pair of falcons hover overhead. And then we arrive at the Val di Bove, a vast crater that resembles an unending primordial valley. As Carmelo moves off to let me experience it by myself, the rumbling grows more intense. I sit there for what feels like an hour, watching the shadows change.

Carmelo, a fifty-year-old naturalist from Catania, Sicily's second-largest city, on the eastern coast, left the island for a couple of decades to live in New York, and traveled extensively in Latin America and India before his parents got sick and he came home to take care of them. He decided to stay and, as a guide, to introduce visitors to the unique flora and wildlife and to the true character of Etna—the paradox of violence and nurturing—that is the reality of the volcano. As we walk back down from our conquest, we discuss Bruce Chatwin's book In Patagonia—and then how the personality of the volcano (the creator, the destroyer, and the equalizer) can be compared to Indian deities. I am struck by how Carmelo's adventures farther afield have made him more attuned to nuance in his explanations of his home turf. Carmelo is part of a new wave of Sicilians who are changing the way the island is experienced by travelers. Among others I had heard of—and had now set out to find—are the owner of a small modern hotel outside Syracuse; a chef in Ragusa Ibla, said to be one of the most innovative in Italy; a young woman near Menfi making some of the island's best olive oils; a dessert wine impresario who has created a stylish resort on his vineyard in Salina; and a slew of emerging wine producers. Sicily, known for sending away its sons and daughters (think Corleone!), is, like my native Ireland, reversing the migratory pattern as a result of new prosperity. Talent is coming home, and making its mark.