"The Hermit of Treig"

Yesterday evening I was looking for some distraction from doomscrolling the internet.  While wandering around I found the above movie on Amazon Prime (free with ads).  The sparse Wikipedia entry described it as a Scottish documentary portrait of an elderly man who has lived for 40 years "off the grid" in a log cabin in the Highlands.  The film has received multiple audience awards at festivals and was the Best Single Documentary at the 2022 British Academy Scotland Awards.

Worth a try I thought.  In a bad mood because of the obligatory introductory ads on Prime, I at first became frustrated with the film's slow progression and started to click the fast-forward a few times.  But then the story started to fill out with some historical context about the earlier life of this remarkable man wandering the Yukon.  Within half an hour I was totally absorbed, and by the end I deemed it to be worth recommending to others.

The film will not be for everyone.  If someone is Gen Z with a vibrant social and digital life, the appeal of this man's story will be severely muted or absent.  For me there was a very strong resonance since I am older than he is and have always treasured time spent in the woods (but I cringed every time I saw him carrying his firewood over irregular rocky ground without even a proper walking stick).  I am pleased to offer a "spoiler" by reporting that he is very much alive and well at the end of the film (and today).

My local library system did not have a DVD of this movie, but I did find that he has written a book (The way of the hermit : my incredible 40 years living in the wilderness, by Ken Smith).