The Way of the Hermit: My Incredible 40 Years Living in the Wilderness

by Ken Smith, Will Millard Narrated by Dean Williamson

Overview

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.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"A rip-roaring read, filled with death-defying adventures — fighting off grizzly bears; avoiding a charging bull moose; nearly freezing in an ice-encrusted tent... Smith is a good storyteller.[The Way of the Hermit] flows smoothly, with just enough of the vernacular to give it personality."—The Washington Post

"A rip-roaring read... [and] a love story to the mountains in the mist, the pulsating northern lights and the red deer at dawn. And to independence.”—The Washington Post

"Moving...The Way of the Hermit feels qualitatively different from other hermit-related books… They are the basic stuff of existence, the point at which Smith makes daily, intimate contact with the natural world and his own human needs. His ability to appreciate them despite their repetitious quality is worthy of a zen monk… Few of us can say as much, and it feels like a blessing to have spent this time with someone who can.”—Slate

"A Thoreauvian account of solitary life in the Scottish Highlands….[a] spry memoir….A delightful manual for would-be back-to-the-landers, if not hermits in training.”—Kirkus

Kirkus Reviews

2024-02-14
A Thoreauvian account of solitary life in the Scottish Highlands.

A few miles from Scotland’s tallest mountain is a deep fissure called Loch Treig, “the lake of death.” Poke around in the misty, mossy woods around it, and you may come to a hut called Stagge Inn, the “r” having fallen off long ago. Smith, who has lived there for decades, writes, “that sign is no more than a metaphor for the gently sliding state of things.” As he notes in this spry memoir, he’s getting old, living on scraps, far from supplies and medical care. However, that’s just as he wishes. He has a radio to listen to the weather forecast and old symphonies, and he’s adept at the art of home brewing. If his existence is a little hobbitty, at least he hasn’t had to work for anyone but himself. His path to that solitude—it’s not really a hermitage, he reckons, since he doesn’t shun people and the Highlands are a popular spot for tourists—was roundabout, beginning when he signed on as a teenager to plant trees and wound up being what he calls “a homeless nomad” for years before talking the laird into letting him build his hut on an old estate. Smith is a quite selective member of society, most of whose trappings he rejects: “I’ll tell you what I think is weird,” he cajoles, “and it ain’t the hermit.” Instead, it’s the world of confinement and consumption and a little time off a year to visit, perhaps, “a place, like where I live, for a week of the happiness I feel every day.” One envies that, though perhaps not the ice storms, pine martens, slugs, and other tests of spirit.

A delightful manual for would-be back-to-the-landers, if not hermits in training.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940160619859
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/28/2024
Edition description:	Unabridged
Sales rank:	933,490

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