Bothy

May 23, 2022

Greetings from the happy wanderer,

Each week a cloud of words gathers here and showers me with drops of inspiration. Sometimes I just get wet, and sometimes a few words gather in my palm and form something worth sharing. Sometimes it is a single tear from above that stays clear from the cloudburst.

This morning it is ‘Bothy’.

For as long as there have been places to explore, people have tramped paths in the earth to get there, and by their own footsteps created the way for the next traveler. In some places, a nearly secret arrangement of refuge formed, rudimentary lodgings for a weary wanderer to rest out of the weather.

A bothy is a simple nest, a small hut that is left unlocked for travelers to use. Some are one room, perhaps once a shelter for a shepherd or even for the flock. There is a place for a fire, perhaps a table, sometimes a bed.

For generations, these huts have become a place where strangers traveling through could stay the night, be warm and dry. Most are made of stones found in the place they were built, with wooden roof, a basic door, sometimes a window.

The bothy was accepted by the landowners as a necessity, perhaps first for people working the land, but it evolved into this other idea. This is a common thing in the Scottish Highlands, but the same tradition formed in the remote places in the Alps, in New Zealand and Finland. They are called different things, but the purpose is the same.

Now there is a network of bothies for hikers to use as they make their adventures in the blustery highlands. There is nothing luxurious about them, you need to bring your own food and firewood and whatever you will sleep in. It is the most fundamental sort of hostel, and it costs nothing to stay there.

There is an expected conduct among those who use the bothy. The bothy code is fairly simple;

Respect others, the land, the bothy. Leave it like you would like to find it. This code, like the principle of the bothy, is based on a trust, the understanding among people in need that binds them together.

Part of this code is the understanding that the door is always open, there are no reservations, so you may end up sleeping with strangers. The agreement, mostly in the invisible space between us, is that we need each other in these strata of the world, and so it’s best to honor the code.

Travelers bring what they can, share what they have, and some nights new friendships are born.

It’s interesting to me that in such primitive situations we find such noble ideas as honor, respect, compassion, fellowship. I have never been inside a bothy, but since the moment I read about them I was drawn to the idea. This morning I realized why.

The bothy is an extension of us, it is an idea made real in the form of simple shelter. The unlocked door is the symbol of an open heart, a welcoming expression of one human for another. It’s often the simplest things that are so enduring, so powerful.

I have been a traveler, in many forms, and I have been given shelter, offered someone else’s food, the company of a stranger who would be a friend. I know how that changes you for the better.

Any of us can make this possible for other travelers. A kind word, a few dollars, maybe even a place to stay. It doesn’t have to be limited to remote trails in misty highlands. We can all be the bothy.

Hope this finds you with an open heart,

David

Copyright © 2022 David Smith