It is simple to find a log cabin in deep Highlands forest by the loch.

The shelter was made from local timber with corrugated metal roof. It might have been designed to offer protection for hikers who are caught in the wild storms.

Its perimeter fence and strong front gate indicate that its owner is more than just a passing walker.

To create patios and paths, rocks have been used as flagstones. A person has planted a flower and vegetable garden.  

The logs were carefully stacked in a store that was specifically designed for them. The small stove’s chimney emits wood smoke and a chimney stack cheerily.

It is the kind of place hard-pressed city-dwellers daydream about escaping to: yet the cabin is so far ‘off-grid’ that the nearest road is a two-hour yomp across the bog and moorland of Lochaber. It is a long trek to the nearest shops. 

Ken Smith calls it home. He has been living on the banks at Loch Treig for nearly 40 years in utter isolation, refusing to conform to the dictates of the seasons. He was soon nicknamed The Hermit of Treig.

Smith’s solitary lifestyle is now the subject of an intriguing documentary, filmed over two years by Scottish director Lizzie MacKenzie. 

Ken Smith, 74, has lived on the banks of Loch Treig in splendid isolation for almost 40 years, shunning convention for a life regulated only by the passing seasons. Inevitably, it has earned him a nickname - The Hermit of Treig

Ken Smith (74) has lived in remarkable isolation on the banks Loch Treig’s banks for over 40 years. He shunned convention to live a lifestyle that was only governed by the changing seasons. It has given him the nickname “The Hermit of Treig”. 

Now, after almost four decades in the wild, age is taking its toll. Smith is facing his greatest challenge - whether his failing body will allow him to remain in his beloved cabin for the rest of his days

After nearly four decades of living in the wilderness, Smith is now facing his greatest challenge – whether his failing body will allow him to remain in his beloved cabin for the rest of eternity. Smith faces his biggest challenge: Will his declining body allow him to stay in the cabin he loves for the rest his life?

This reveals the fact that his need to be isolated was motivated by the desire to heal from some of the deep grief and traumas he suffered as a teenager. 

After almost 40 years in the wilderness, it is now that age has taken its toll. Smith now faces the greatest challenge of all: Will his declining body allow him to stay in his cabin and continue living his dream life?

Two well-publicized emergency evacuations have been called for by health problems in the last two years. But Smith (74) seems to be indefatigable.

He is still able to climb up the hillsides that rise above Loch Treig. which is known, rather aptly, as the ‘lonely loch’. 

Looking down, he says: ‘There’s no road here but [people]They used to reside here before building the dam. There are all of their ruins. The score now is one and that’s me.’

He takes a strange pride in his isolation: ‘It’s a nice life. Everybody wishes they could do it, but nobody ever does.’

Smith’s survival depends on his foraged berries and vegetable harvest, as well as the catch he makes in the Loch. ‘I think if you love the land, it sort of loves you back,’ he says of his modest bounty. ‘It loves you back in all the things it produces for you.’

Smith, who is erect and slender beneath his snowy furrow of wiry eyebrows, seems curious about the natural world around him, but only half-interested.

An inveterate chronicler, he records nearly everything he sees with his ancient Zenit camera, from a spider’s web to a spectacular sunrise — developing the photos on his trips to Fort William. What he doesn’t capture through his lens, he sets down on paper.

At the age of 15, he began his first diary and wrote frequent letters.

In a cardboard ‘box of memories’ he stores precious images, letters and documents. One record keeps track of all visitors. The majority of visitors don’t come. 

The last person to call leaves has no clue when they will see another living being. ‘It could be the next day, it could be a fortnight,’ he says.

Smith appears untroubled in any case. Smith doesn’t want to be far from his friends, but he wants to be apart from the rest of society.

Smith was driven to the less traveled roads by a single and harrowing incident.

Ken’s cabin is on the 57,000-acre Corrour Estate, which is managed by a trust on behalf of its owner, Lisbet Rausing, daughter of Hans Rausing - one of the world’s wealthiest men until he died in 2019

Ken’s cabin is on the 57,000-acre Corrour Estate, which is managed by a trust on behalf of its owner, Lisbet Rausing, daughter of Hans Rausing – one of the world’s wealthiest men until he died in 2019 

He left his Derbyshire home at age 15 to work as a general laborer both on farms or on a construction site for a new fire department.

One night in October 1974 — when he was 26 years old — his world was turned upside down. After a night with gang members, he was assaulted by them. He suffered life-threatening injuries.

‘There was about eight of them and they come charging at me and kicked me head in and shoved me through a baker’s window,’ he recalls matter-of-factly.

After suffering a brain haemorrhage, he was in a coma for 23 consecutive days. He still has five scars to his head that surgeons have operated on to reduce the pressure.

‘Certainly gives you a different view of life, I can tell you,’ he says.

‘They said I would never recover. They claimed I wouldn’t be able to speak again. Although they said that I wouldn’t be able to walk again, I was able. And that’s when I decided I would never live on anyone’s terms but my own.’

He lives on the remote Loch Treig in Lochaber in the Scottish Highlands and the log cabin, which he built himself, is a two-hour walk from the nearest road

The log cabin, built by him himself, is located in Loch Treig, Lochaber, in the Scottish Highlands. It’s a 2-hour walk to the closest road.

Smith decided to travel instead of going back to work and was captivated by the concept of being in the wild.

He walked through the Yukon, the Canadian territory that borders Alaska, wondering how long he’d last if he just walked off the highway and ‘went into nowhere’.

‘If you go somewhere that isn’t planned, that becomes an adventure,’ he says. ‘That’s how it began.’

Two years later, he followed his feet for 22,000 miles until he finally reached the Pacific Ocean. He was ready to return to England.

To his parents, he wrote asking if they could pick him up at Heathrow. It was only after he landed that he discovered the awful truth: ‘They’d died. No home to go back to,’ he says. ‘That hit me real bad that did.’

Smith, who was alone in the sea of untapped grievance, took to his feet and began walking across Britain, pushing away any numbness. 

Rannoch Moor was where he stopped to think about his parents. He began crying uncontrollably.

‘I cried all the way while walking,’ he says. ‘I thought, “Where’s the most isolated place in Britain?” So I went round and followed every bay and every ben [mountain] where there wasn’t a house built.

‘Hundreds and hundreds of miles of nothingness, looked across the loch, saw this woodland. That’s the place.’

It was somewhere he could finally grieve: ‘Yeah, cried everything out and went back to normal.’

An inveterate chronicler, he records nearly everything he sees with his ancient Zenit camera, from a spider’s web to a spectacular sunrise — developing the photos on his trips to Fort William. What he doesn’t capture through his lens, he sets down on paper

An inveterate chronicler, he records nearly everything he sees with his ancient Zenit camera, from a spider’s web to a spectacular sunrise — developing the photos on his trips to Fort William. What he doesn’t capture through his lens, he sets down on paper 

He accepts he puts himself at risk by remaining in the wild. Unsteady on his feet and suffering from double vision, he struggles to thread a hook on a fishing line. And the stroke has clouded his memory

Accepting that he will be at great risk in the wild, he agrees to it. He is unable to walk properly and has double vision. The stroke also clouded his memories. 

He began building the log cabin after first trying it out with some small sticks.

Ken’s cabin is on the 57,000-acre Corrour Estate, which is managed by a trust on behalf of its owner, Lisbet Rausing, daughter of Hans Rausing — one of the world’s wealthiest men until he died in 2019.

His modest requirements have been met over the years by a safe place. He has his own wood firewood and some that he heats up in an old bath for washing himself outdoors. 

He draws the sap from the birch trees to make hooch and has invented a compostable waste system he calls ‘the bottomless pit’.

His main connection to the outside world since 1984 when he settled here was a series of radios which receive local stations. 

He keeps a small library of books — picked up from charity shops — which he reads using a head torch, especially in the dead of winter, when it can be dark most of the time.

He doesn’t have a phone and doesn’t want one. It is not something he uses, and neither are social media. He is a living time capsule from a past age.

But doesn’t he miss human company? Is he in love with someone else? He pauses briefly before admitting: ‘Yeah, there was really only one girl that I liked. All I wanted to do was see the world.’

He recalls how she even asked him to marry her: ‘And that’s when I told her I was going abroad, but if she still thought the same when I came back then I probably would have married her. I never went back,’ he adds.

It would take a special wife to endure Smith’s way of life, one imagines. 

Once a month, he gets up at 4am to hike for three hours along the railway track to his nearest station at Corrour, then makes an hour’s journey to Fort William to fill his 70-litre rucksack with provisions and medical supplies for the following few weeks.

Ken Smith forages for berries near the banks of Loch Treig in the Scottish Highlands, where he has lived in a cabin for almost 40 years

Ken Smith hunts berries by the banks of Loch Treig. This is where he’s lived for over 40 years in a log cabin. 

But while his resourcefulness appears to know no bounds, the same cannot be said for his health. In February 2019, the perils of Smith’s isolated existence were brought home when he suffered a stroke while outside in the snow

His resourcefulness is amazing, but it’s not the same for Smith’s health. In February 2019, the perils of Smith’s isolated existence were brought home when he suffered a stroke while outside in the snow 

His resourcefulness seems to have no limits, but the same can’t be said about his health. In February 2019, the perils of Smith’s isolated existence were brought home when he suffered a stroke while outside in the snow.

He used a GPS personal locator beacon — his one concession to modern life — which he had been given days before, to trigger an SOS. This emergency alert generated a huge response that made national headlines.

A response center in Houston, Texas received the SOS signal and notified UK Coastguard. Lochaber Mountain Rescue was alerted. Smith was then airlifted from Fort William to Fort William where he stayed for seven more weeks.

He was left with severe head and leg injuries after the log pile he fell onto him caused him to need medical evacuation.

Smith had to be monitored by his doctors while recovering from stroke. He wanted to return to his cabin.

Asked if he wouldn’t be more comfortable in town, he replies: ‘No. He asked, “What would you do?” Sit in a pub drinking beer?’

Accepting that he will be at great risk in the wild, he agrees to it. He is unable to balance on his feet, and has double vision. And the stroke has clouded his memory: ‘That’s the nuisance of it. I live in a cloud world,’ he says.

Because of his health, he must accept greater help than he’d like.

Ken’s head stalker, the estate head, delivers food to him every two weeks. He pays his pension from the state for the food.

‘People these days have been very good to me,’ he says. 

He is determined to stay put and is philosophical about his prospects: ‘Something will happen to me that will take me away one day as it does for everybody else. But I’m hoping I’ll get to 102.’

He is already been planning his funeral, though, and has stockpiled around 70 gallons of his birch wine for the occasion: ‘When I die, instead of everybody moaning and sad, I want everybody to be merry. Getting p***** up on my wine.’

What will you invite? ‘Anybody can come that I know. And they know me, so they’ll come.’

You can now watch The Hermit Of Trig on BBC iPlayer.