Ken Smith is seen in photos from his younger years fishing next to his remote cabin. He built it himself, after quitting modern living at the age of 26 and being brutally attacked by a gang.
Ken, now 74, lives alone in the cabin since he decided to “never live by anyone else’s terms” and has done so for nearly 40 years. He lives alone in the log cabin he constructed himself, on Loch Treig in Lochaber. His main source of income is fishing.
He was an old hermit and used to make fire stations. At 26 he decided to leave modern life.
For almost forty years, he has lived in the Scottish Highlands without electricity, running water or gas. He relies on his log fire for warmth. Ken is a Derbyshire-born man who forages for fruits and plants his own vegetables. To this day, Ken still chops firewood from his wood stove and wash his clothes outside in an old bathtub.
Photographs now capture the hermit standing proudly beside his cabin, which he had built during the 1980s. Another picture shows him smiling after catching fish.
Ken sets out on frequent missions to obtain medication. He gets up at 4:00 am and hikes three hours before catching the train to Fort William. There, he packs his 70-litre backpack with sufficient supplies to last him for three to four more weeks.
He is seen in photos with newspapers and soup from his cabin, just one of many things he appears to have collected every month. But after suffering a stroke in 2019, he now suffers from blurred vision and memory loss, meaning he has had to accept help from outsiders.
BBC Scotland’s documentary aired today and revealed Ken’s amazing story. In the documentary, Ken states that it’s a pleasant life. “Everybody wants to do this, but no one ever achieves it.”
According to the BBC Lizzie McKenzie is a documentary filmmaker who has been documenting Ken for the past two-years.
Ken Smith, taken in 1980s shortly after his move from the Scottish Highlands. The log cabin (pictured) has no electricity, gas or running water
Ken’s main source of income is the fish caught in the loch, and he has long been fascinated by nature and the outdoors.
Ken Smith (pictured), who is 74 years old, survived almost forty decades living in the Scottish Highlands without electricity, running water, or gas. He relied on his log fire for warmth.
Ken Smith picks berries by the Loch Treig banks in the Scottish Highlands. This is where he’s lived for over 40 years in a log cabin.
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.
The documentary The Hermit of Treig (pictured eating a strawberry) will show how Ken turned his back upon modern civilisation after tragic events in his own life.
Ken is on regular trips to collect medication. Ken gets up at 4:30 am to hike three hours for the Fort William train (pictured).
The photographer who captures the essence of beauty. Ken was tracked down and his cabin found in 2020 There is no reception at the phone, water or mains electricity, and he makes use of a system that composts waste called “the bottomless pit”.
“Ken” was the photograph’s caption. He reads a lot. The last time I saw him, it was when he showed me the Guinness Book of Records. However, he kept saying that he did not understand a lot of what many of these records meant. What is Facebook? He replied.
“He is trapped in a time capsule. He doesn’t have a phone, signal or signal. And he doesn’t want it.”
It is approximately two hours walk to the log cabin from Rannoch Moor’s nearest road.
He said, “It’s called the lonely loch.” They used to live in this area before building the dam, so there isn’t any road.
He looks down from the hillside at the Loch and adds, “All their ruin are down there.” Now, the score is 1 and that’s me.
This documentary examines Ken’s journey to modern civilisation after he was traumatized by events.
He started building fire stations when he was 15, but at 26 he was attacked by a group of thugs. This caused him to have a brain hemorhage that put him into a 23-day hospitalization.
They said they would not allow me to recover. He says, “They said that I wouldn’t speak again.”
“They told me I wouldn’t walk again, but they were wrong.
“That was when I realized that I could not live by anyone else’s rules.
After the attack, Ken began to travel and explored the possibility of living in nature.
While in Canada’s Yukon Territory (Canada), he wandered off the highway to explore the area. He traveled around 22,000 miles before returning to Canada.
It was also during that epic trip that his parents passed away, something he didn’t realize until he arrived back.
“It took a long time for me to feel it,” he said. “I felt nothing.”
Ken eventually walked across Britain, when he felt helpless after the deaths of his parents.
‘I cried all the way while walking,’ Ken tells the documentary.
“I was thinking where’s the most remote place in Britain?”
“I followed each bay, every Ben and wherever there was no house being built.
“Hundreds of miles and hundreds of nothingness. “I looked out over the Loch and saw this forest.
After arriving at Fort William he fills up his 70 litre rucksack with enough supplies for three to four weeks before repeating the journey in reverse
Ken (pictured foraging) refuses rejoining civilisation. He claims he will continue to live in his cabin until the end of his days – and that his goal is to live to 102.
Ken is a berry collector, with some of them in storage to prevent birds from reaching them. He lives mostly off fish caught in the Loch.
Ken said that the moment he realized he was done crying was when he decided to start building his log cabin.
He has been there since then and has survived mainly on fish from the loch.
He said, “Learning how to fish is the best way to make your own life.”
But things got more complicated when Ken suffered a stroke on February 2019
He managed to transmit an alert using a GPS locator beacon while out on the frozen snow. This was a gift he received just days prior.
This message activated an SOS and was sent to Houston’s response center. The centre then notified the UK coastguard.
Ken was taken by helicopter to Fort William Hospital, where he spent the next seven weeks recovering.
Doctors urged him not to leave his home and move to a place with carers. Instead, he decided to go back to his cabin.
The documentary will explore how traumatic events in Ken’s life led him to turn his back on modern civilisation (Pictured: Ken in the documentary The Hermit of Treig, airing on BBC Scotland tonight)
The pensioner lives in an old log cabin he constructed himself, on the banks of Loch Treig. There, fishing is his main source of nutrition.
Ken picks berries from his garden and plants his vegetables. He still chops his firewood, washes his clothes outside in an old bathtub (Pictured : Loch Treig).
A trailer shows Ken from Derbyshire foraging for peanuts in a trailer
Ken, (pictured), has suffered a stroke that left him with blurred vision. He also suffers from memory loss. This is threatening his ability to live normally.
However, his stroke-related double vision and memory impairment means that he must accept assistance from the head stalker at the estate in which his cabin is located.
Ken sends food packages to his stalker every two weeks, paying him money from the pension.
Ken said that “people these days are very kind to me.”
Ken fell onto a stack of logs a year later. He was forced to fly to another hospital, but he insists that his cabin will remain the same.
Ken says, “We weren’t made to live on this earth forever.”
“I’ll be here till my last days, certainly.”
“I have been through many different incidents but seem to have survived all of them.
“It’s inevitable for me to get sick once more.” I will experience something that takes me out of this world one day like it happens to everyone else.
“But I am hoping that I will get to 102.”
BBC Scotland will broadcast The Hermit Of Treig at 10pm on November 9, and it will be streamed on BBC iPlayer.