(My Incredible 40 Years Living in the Wilderness)

by Ken Smith

Pub Date 28 May 2024

Description

Subconsciously, I pressed myself into the loch’s banks as that summer inched forward. We’d got off to a rocky beginning, but I started to see Treig in a different way. There was something about this land that told me just to hold on a while longer. It might’ve been just a whisper at the time, but I knew it was definitely worth heeding. I just knew that was it. This was the place.

Seventy-four-year-old Ken Smith has spent the past four decades in the Scottish Highlands. His home is a log cabin nestled near Loch Treig, known as “the lonely loch,” where he lives off the land. He fishes for his supper, chops his own wood and even brews his own tipple. He is, in the truest sense of the word, a hermit.

From his working-class origins in Derbyshire, Ken always sensed that there was more ot life than an empty nine to five. Then one day in 1974, an attack from a group of drunken men left him for dead. Determined to change his prospects, Ken quit his job and spent his formative years traveling in the Yukon. It was here, in the vast wilderness of northwestern Canada, that he honed his survival skills and grew closer to nature. Returning to Britain, he continued his nomadic lifestyle, wandering north and living in huts until he finally reached Loch Treig. Ken decided to lay his roots amongst the dense woodland and Highland air, and has lived there ever since.

In The Way of the Hermit, Ken shares the remarkable story of his life for the very first time. Told with humor and compassion, his unique insights allow us to glimpse the awe and wonder of a life lived in nature and offer wisdom on how each of us can escape the pressures and stresses of modern life.

My thoughts:

I came across The Way of the Hermit as I started my search for books that will be published this year.I find the premise to be intriguing. Adding this title to my ever growing wish-list! Do you collect titles? Even knowing you may never get a chance to read them all? There is something unique and delightful in the search and discovery. I do hope I get the chance to read this story. Maybe one day. Sometimes those opportunities show up when least expected. Like last October when I went to a library sale with my mother and found books I hadn’t read but I knew of them or had previously added them to my wish-list. Funny thing is, they were not on the list of titles I brought with me to the sale. What a lovely thought to know they were edged in my memory.

Stephanie Hopkins