• Ken Smith, after being badly beaten at the age of 23, decided to cut himself off from civilization
  • The guy went on a trip and became interested in the idea of ​​living in the wild. Having lost his parents, he finally found the place to settle and spent 40 years away from civilization and society.
  • Ten years ago, the director accidentally ran into Ken Smith’s footsteps, and managed to convince him to agree to make a movie about him. Thanks to an unusual acquaintance, the guy saved his life, because he could send an SOS signal using the device he gave him.
  • Ken Smith is now 74 years old, but despite the doctors’ insistence and a double stay in the hospital, he does not want to leave the log cabin he built, which, he announced, is ready to wait for his last days.
  • You can find more of these stories on the Onet homepage

Ken Smith of Great Britain hid in the forest wilderness without access to electricity and running water and had been shunning the traditional lifestyle for 40 years. The man built a log cabin with his own hands and lived on the banks of a Scottish lake hidden in the mountains far from civilization. Director Lizzie Mackenzie mistakenly contacted the 74-year-old, who decided to make a documentary about his life. As you might imagine, Ken Smith’s life in the Outback is full of challenges, and it turns out he totally appreciates it, and has consciously decided not to forgive him. The man himself got his food, relying on fishing and what the forest and backyard provided. He also collects firewood from the forest and washes clothes in an old outdoor bath.

“It’s a beautiful life. Everyone would like to do it, but no one ever does it. It is a lonely lake. There is no road here, but people used to live here before the dam was built. “All the ruins of their homes are there,” Ken Smith told the BBC, whose cabin is a two-hour walk from the nearest road, on the edge of Rannoch Moor, above Loch Trig.

Lizzie Mackenzie first got in touch with Ken Smith 10 years ago, and in the past two years she’s made a documentary about him, The Hermit of Treig, for BBC Scotland. In the article, written by “bbc.com”, the man revealed that he came from Derbyshire and had been involved in handicrafts since his childhood (when he was 15 years old he was involved in building fire stations). When he turned 26, after a party trip downtown, he was badly beaten by a group of people, resulting in a brain haemorrhage and loss of consciousness for 23 days. After he regained consciousness, he heard a very unfavorable speculation, as he said:

They said I would never get better, that I would never talk again, that I would never walk again, but even so, I did. Then I decided that I would never live on anyone else’s terms except mine

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Ken Smith began traveling extensively and became interested in the idea of ​​living in the wild. He wandered into the Yukon, a Canadian territory on the border with Alaska, and, as he revealed, began wondering what would happen if he simply left the highway and “went nowhere,” which he did…finally. Before returning home, he passed about 35.5 thousand. How many. It was at the end of this trip that he discovered that his parents had died in his absence to the great shock of him, and it was not until a long time later, when he wandered around and stayed in Great Britain, that he experienced the feelings of his complete loss. Near Ranosh:

I cried all the way while I was walking. Find out where is the most isolated place in the UK? I walked and followed every bay where no house was built. Hundreds and hundreds of miles out of nowhere. I looked at the lake and saw this forest

Thus, Ken Smith found out where he had chosen to settle. As he admitted, the moment he realized this, he stopped crying and ended his journey. He decided to build a house with his own hands – at first he experimented and made a life-size model from small sticks, and then began to build a real house from wooden logs. The man moved into his house in the woods and spent…the last 40 years there. The cottage does not have the above amenities and there is no cell phone coverage.

Ken Smith has set up a backyard garden where he grows vegetables, but as he admits, his diet is mainly based on the fish he catches in the lake. In the winter of 2019, 10 days after the director left his home, the man had a stroke. His life was saved by a gift from her – a personal GPS transmitter that allowed him to send an SOS signal, which was automatically sent to a response center in Houston, Texas. The center informed the Coast Guard of Great Britain that the man had been found and flown to Fort William Hospital. Ken Smith spent seven weeks there and recovered.

Doctors tried to convince him to return to civilization, where he could use the help of guardians and utilities, but… he just wanted to go back to the wilderness. Ken Smith returned to his log cabin, but continued to complain of “double vision” and memory lapses, so he decided to accept help from strangers. The person in charge of the forest in which he lives brings him food every few weeks, pays for it from his pension. Despite being hospitalized again in 2020 after being crushed by logs, Ken Smith still cheers up and appears to be regaining his faith in people despite being badly beaten in his youth.

“People have been nice to me these days. We are not laid on the ground forever. I will definitely stay here (in the log cabin) until my last days come. I’ve had many accidents, but I think I’ve lived through them all. I will definitely get sick again someday. Something will happen to me that will take me someday, just like everyone else. But I wish I was 102 years oldKen Smith summed it up.