In a Highlander’s Shoes [4 Day Expedition]- A Story of Survival, History & Land [SHORT FILM]

how best to move forward across an unknown land how can you travel swift and light bearing only the necessities for survival and a simple life is there a way to see the land beyond just a resource or an obstacle but as an entity with a story to tell and as a home to belong to all my life i've been obsessed by these questions and for the past three years i've been taking a step back in time around 300 years into my country's past to see what i can learn from the warriors cattle drovers and travelers that once called this land home in this short film i'll put all i have learned acquired and made to the biggest test so far embarking on a four-day expedition across a variety of remote land in the scottish highlands joined by my buddy finn behind the camera i experience walking carrying eating and sleeping the way our ancestors did but this isn't just a diary of an idiot in a blanket this is the story of the land itself if it could speak what would it tell so then step on your deerskin shoes and come join us [Music] our journey begins near the town of drum the rocket by the banks of the iconic loch ness not far from irkut castle put my dancing shoes on shall we now i often get asked why focus around the 17th century in particular well for one thing in the vast scheme of time it really isn't that long ago only your great grandparents great grandparents great grandparents or something like that yet there was still aspects of highland culture that remained relatively unchanged for centuries with threads of knowledge leading far back into celtic history it is also a time filled with fascinating stories like rob roy mcgregor jacobite warriors and cattle thieves that sparked my interest from a survival perspective this time also runs deep in the cultural memory of scotland as it marked a time of great change civil unrest and land reform that would begin what would be known as highland clearances so to sum up it's a period of history that covers a lot of interesting themes and as someone with a fascination in survival i felt there was a lot i could learn from this small step back in time for this particular journey i'm basing a lot of my kit from what the old highland cattle dovers would have carried with them when driving cattle from all over the highlands to the main markets in falkirk and sometimes down into england their heads of cattle often meant they had to avoid traveling by main settlements so we'd have to spend the nights wrapped up in their plates on the open hills to mine their livestock and always be ready to protect themselves or their cattle from thieves in the book the drove roads of scotland and page 24 there was a recorded description of a band of drovers from 1723 it describes him as wearing brown checkered plates hand spun tweed clothing going bare-legged and armed with broadsword and dagger missing some of the kit described such as a snap mall flintlock pistols and of course cattle but much of my foods and equipment is based on clues i've found in this book as well as others which i'll reveal as the journey goes on according to the book drovers would have made their journeys between the months of may and october slowly driving their cattle forward along preferred routes covering an average of 15 to 20 kilometers a day our journey took place at the end of june and we plan to cover a similar daily distance to experience the rhythm of life and allow plenty of time to cover rugged ground and to film the adventure our first day takes us west across a vast trackless bog in moorland of balmacan and as soon as we begin the place names already reveal clues and stories we pass lone nephilia meaning the meadow of blood which marks the site of a deadly feud between the mackenzies and mcdonald's in 1603 we skirt around the mountain of miaal forevonnie which means the hill of the cold moorland which should have warned us what was about to come for as soon as we passed it the weather changed with squalls of driving rain and a steady wind from the northeast which turned what was meant to be a midsummer's day into what felt more like an autumn or winter conditions [Music] i'm [Music] we continued on in a westerly direction navigating our way between the small hills and walk-ins meeting the locals and passing the remains of an ancient forest we also saw evidence of grouse merlin burning and other reminders of modern land use now my last multi-day highlander expedition was in 2019 with julius from smoothgafix and we walked three days and two nights and one of our main challenges was that we only brought one small bag of oats each to last as three days of hiking which was a bit miserable calorie wise but we did allow ourselves to keep our familiar modern hiking boots but for this trip i wanted to try something a bit different extending the expedition by another day and night and trying to be as historically authentic as possible while also not starving myself by wearing handmade deerskin shoes and carrying a variety of historical food rations inspired by clues that found in the historical literature as finn was here as my cameraman and safety buddy using modern equipment it meant that i could go full 17th century experiencing the journey with no modern technology getting the taste of a scottish somewhere now i'm absolutely soaked yeah me too i got pretty cold up in the it was like not scary but a bit like concerning concerning anyway seems like the backpack is holding up nicely staying waterproof as evening approached the weather worsened and we found what little shelter the land provided hunkering down on the leeward side of a small hill called the almond which overlooks meaning lock of the shivering which legend tells us home to a fearsome kalyan who is said to kill lonesome travelers by first stealing their bonnet and slowly rubbing a hole into it and as she does so the traveler grows weary and faint and finally dies so i better keep a hold of my hat then nice made a quick mattress from uh just pulled up heather get me off the ground a bit and i've got my sheepskin let's fin over there and there's fancy smancy tent now i am a wee bit cold which is concerning because there's no way i'm gonna be able to light a fire here partly because everything's so wet and also there's no fuel and also even if it did it's not safe to do it and there's an open heath line like this i'm absolutely soaked through i've got some london trousers that are somewhat dry and i've got a dry pair of socks um so yeah it's a bit chilly just a little bit not that much it's a lot i'm a bit mad so apparently it might get down to three degrees tonight which would be less than ideal yeah it should be interesting i might have to go spoon finn in his tent over there i don't know if he knows that yeah he might get a wet highlander coming in cuddling up to him in the middle of the night see you guys in the morning time to go fetal food pouches made from cow stomachs tanned and oak bark one containing a trail mix of forest pignuts and dried blueberries another containing smoked locally sourced venison [Music] daily food parcels of traditionally baked bannock breads and oat cakes wrapped in handmade beeswax linen cloth [Music] all carried inside a backpack made from a bog tan sheep that's right skin of sheep buried skin and a bog whap out eight months later sew up waterproof buckle backpack that was his butt this is front legs it's pretty much like you're giving a sheep a piggyback and that's just some of the preparation that went into the run-up of this journey now i've got a ton of past videos discussing my kit and i'll share more detailed videos on how i made these newer editions in the future so don't forget to subscribe and ring that bell so you don't miss out on any of that [Music] this film took a ton of time and expense and a good way you can support the channel for free is just to click the link in the description below and try a free trial of learning about pretty much any subject you can think of i'm currently listening to a really interesting series called myth and human history which helped in the research for this video and some of my past favorites include cooking across the ages and the celtic world but there's something there for everyone the platform is called wandream the rebrand of the great courses plus it's got all the thousands of courses that were there before but now it's new and improved with even more content it's basically like netflix but it makes you smarter and there's so many subjects to choose from the ignorance is no excuse all the courses are delivered by experts in their field with years of experience i like to download the lectures on my phone so i can learn while i'm just going about my daily life one dream has been a really big supporter of my past videos which i'm grateful for and it's a platform that i actually use and like so if you're keen to try it out just click that link below to start your free trial or go to wandream.com forward slash fandabbydozy right back to me freezing my arse off on the hill i don't think i've ever been so happy to see the daylight again it's been drizzling all night my kids actually soaked [Music] we pushed westward passing a ruined hunting lodge built in 1801 and continued on across the vast bog we passed more place names that reveal clues about the land such as the black rock of the roaring deer and the rock of the crow's nest [Music] that was probably the toughest night in the blade i've ever had i'm i'm not surprised that was very cold i'm not sure if i've said this whilst the camera's been running but i don't think i've ever been more impressed by anything ever you could vouch for these guys that i did come to your tent and cuddle i know and i i in fairness i kind of assumed there'd be a little bit of oh well we won't show the camera but i've got a few modern comforts nope 100 legit yeah so every time i come within smelling range of you and your gear there is a very distinct odor coming off you and it's history it's certainly not bad but it's not particularly pleasant either so it's like the sheepskin still sticks to sheep and of course with the jerky that you made to bring on the trip you used your plate as a kind of housing for the smoke so it's got this lovely aroma of smoked meat yeah but the the damp has a distinct smell as well so all of this mixed together is making a very interesting order let's go find that fragrance number five smell like your ancestors in the early 1700s general george wade started building roads through scotland so the british army could better maneuver when fighting the last jacket by rising but prior to this time there were very few roads or properly built bridges in the highlands and maps were almost unheard of so navigation was done mainly by memory and was passed down to generations and embedded in the names of the mountains we of course were new to the land so i had to use a map and compass to pick our way across the bogs nowadays the highlands are full of tracks and roads which is a blessing for navigation and ease of walking but presented a new challenge for me wearing my thin soaking wet deer skin shoes of the barn the lad will not work and the less will not learn [Music] soul's finally worn through for my spare pair of shoes so these ones you also see there i made them a bit differently these are made from um veg tan deer hide with the skin off um so yeah i haven't worn these any real distance yet so hopefully they're gonna last me these next two days because i don't have any more [Music] nice is [Music] oh that's squishy [Music] notices folks we put the fire in a sandy bank it's not like pete or anything we're pretty far away from any flammable vegetation and the wind isn't strong anyway and we will legal trace in the morning now i often find myself in a difficult situation when it comes to fires because i'll stay survival and especially historical bushcraft survival and then we need fires and but increasingly in scotland we're getting problems with this irresponsible fires or just with much more drier weather the potential of a fire going wrong and has increased another land keep it small and controlled and clean up after yourself leave no trace so one of the reasons why um i wanted to have pre-made bannocks and dried meat is so you know i could still have a meal uh if i couldn't get a fire going so that proved very useful last night when uh yeah we're in the middle of a mirror and it's pouring the rain um but i wanted to experiment to see what is it like if you you know put it in some hot water because um you know generally if you can keep food up then you're going to get more nutrition out of it and generally just a better for your morale so um this is my food parcel for today see i've got my final bannock left my savory yeah wild garlic panic so i figured i'd try and just chucking in break some of this up chuck it in some boiling water i'm also gonna chuck in some of the venison it's all right i wouldn't sell in a restaurant just it being hot i think this adds to the morale factor [Music] [Music] neighborhood welcome to hotel feeling more vegas sleep actually i can hear the midges waiting for me [Music] though with the midges hot on our tail we rose with the sun and plodded on to within striking distance of a glen i was very excited to see now you often hear the word wilderness used to describe scotland and if we define this as land untouched by humans then you could argue that there's actually no wilderness left here anymore as almost everywhere has been touched by past or present management and the highlands were once more populated than it is nowadays the vast desolate bogs of merlin that we've been traveling through the last couple days is usually what first comes to mind when people think of scotland but it didn't always look like this and as we descend the ridge we're reminded of the ancient past [Music] i plain africa is widely considered one of scotland's most beautiful glenns and is home to some of the last remnants of the native caledonian forest which once covered the entire country but over the centuries of deforestation for fuel agriculture and industry now only fragments of this diverse ecosystem are left however over the last few decades the love for the forest has started to awaken again and many initiatives and organizations such as trees for life and kierangramsconnect have started large-scale planting of native trees to try reconnect these fragmented habitats again the glenn is also a site of a battle that took place in 1721 between government-backed forces of clan ross against rebel forces of clan mackenzie and the mccrays an old rover's route also passes through here connecting the lands tell within venetian we pick our way down to find the old trail until disaster struck what's happened blown a hip just on this last stretch going downhill my hip feels like it's swollen up i never in a million years thought that the guy dressed in deer-skinned shoes would have outlasted me and my big boots and my gore-tex trousers and stuff but limp along finn yeah you're what best of luck cheers we shall see you tomorrow i'll see you tomorrow afternoon if nothing goes wrong just me and you go pro it's me and you finn limped his way to a nearby road to hitchhike to the finishing point as i plodded alone westward following the old rovers route now part of the contil way [Music] i reckon the the main time i've missed modern shoes is walking on tracks like this kilometers and kilometers of it does start to hurt i can feel the balls of my feet getting pretty [Laughter] [Music] tender [Music] [Laughter] [Music] and [Music] so all in all today i felt pretty good felt pretty fit um i'm too tired those uh bannock breads are actually giving me quite a lot of energy i'm actually finding that i don't need to eat both the sweet and the savory um both yesterday and today i just ate the sweet one and some of the oat cakes some bit of meat and it was fine my own really main downside is my feet just walking on these these hard paths uh they really do hurt uh after a while i was getting some hot spots in the bottom of my feet i tried to get around it i put some dry sphagnum moss in the sole of my sold my shoe in an attempt to try and cushion the hot spots and it did actually work i'll need to put more in because obviously it's been flattened but there's a real kind of satisfaction and freedom to this kind of living and it's funny how i am even though i'm carrying around a sword i'm generally carrying lighter kit than and i would you know with modern stuff sure it might not be as comfortable but still does the job i'm still alive i'm still enjoying myself [Music] do [Music] good way to round off the day reckon this [Music] julie [Music] nights [Music] oh give me your warm sun never thought i'd be happy to be walking through a bog again my sore feet are thanking me to my north stands a mountain scooter now kerman which means the peak of the quarters and landmarks a point where the gland splits into four directions the glenn to the north leads to the falls of glomac one of the largest waterfalls in the uk to the west leads to morvik and on to elon dawn and castle i will take the glenn to the south to loch clooney near the site of the battle of glenshield that took place in 1719 and it's here where i plan to end my journey closing in on this last stretch of my adventure i reflect upon the three questions i set out to answer and here's some stuff i've been thinking about to know how best to move forward you first need to know where you are now and for that you need to know where you've come from to travel light you must strip away all that is unnecessary for body and spirit each item made used and cared for as if it was an extension of your body to understand the land you must first learn its language for rights and signs and scars and speaks in metaphor and myth the insightful place names stories and legends i've told along the 70 kilometer journey are just scratching the surface of what's there however these are not just unique to this area or scotland alone view any map wherever you are in the world through the lens of the indigenous language and you can find some hidden treasures there if not literal truths then sometimes metaphorical ones or pieces of the puzzle that can help us put together the picture of the land's personality so we can better decide how to live on and with it into the future listening to the trudging in my own footsteps a single gallic word appears in my mind that seems to sum up everything i'm trying to answer quianalis means a deep sense of homesickness or militantly and to me this homesickness seems to be a common condition for many people however key analysts can also mean a strong sense of belonging to a place and it's this sense of belonging that i feel when i'm doing a journey like this and i suddenly realize that maybe what i'm trying to do with all my exploration is to just feel at home wherever i go to find that balance somewhere between acting as a respectful guest in the land a responsible steward of it as well as being a free wild creature no different to the trees and the animals now i want to be clear that i'm not trying to romanticize the past as there are many modern comforts i look forward to returning to all i'm trying to do is rescue useful knowledge from our ancestors to have as tools of resilience to face a future that is never predictable and gain a broader perspective of what it means to be human and in this trip i definitely learned a lot although this particular adventure may be coming to a close the ancestral path and learning journey is never ending [Music] and my father for your [Music] finn is back everybody he had his own mad adventure trying to get back good to see you again man good to see you too bud so we've just uh come along the glen a few kilometers to the site of the battle of glenshield i thought that was a fitting place to end such a video yeah there you go four days walking as a 17th century highlander and what's the main takeaway points well to sum it up quickly i respected their ancestors before now i respect them even more i puffed off people huge thank you to finn from the scottish mountain man channel for capturing his adventure with his amazing filming definitely go check out his own videos also thank you to wanderiam for sponsoring this and making it possible please do check out that link as it helps me find more videos i'm also super grateful to all my patreons who also support this work thank you to all the talented musicians who collaborated on this film check out their related links and credits in the description below also thank you to kate and fabio for your help with the research thanks for watching folks and we'll be back with another video as soon as i can

Channel: Fandabi Dozi

Views: 187,705

Rating: 4.9790959 out of 5

Keywords: Highlander, Survival, Scotland, Land, Myth, Bushcraft, craft, culture, history, jacobite, Fandabi Dozi, Expedition, short film, outdoors, nature, forest, sword, camping, outlander, kilt, plaid, traditional, drover, wild, wilderness

Id: L8GE23uWHtI

Length: 34min 4sec (2044 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 30 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/DanceFirearms]

This guy is a badass with great content. He sold me on walking staffs for most of my bush adventures.

[u/Jazzspasm]

Can i make a humble request - For every new media post to reddit, also put a direct link in the comments?

Reddit app’s media player is absolute pish, and I can’t watch this on my phone like I should

Not your fault, OP - I’m keen to watch this cracking post - currently finagling out how 👍🏼

[u/zzpza]

The sheep skin bog bag was very intriguing.