The Unknown Barefooter of Badenoch

There was an interesting article the other day in the Strathspey & Banenoch Herald about a local full-time barefooter. During the winter.

And where the heck is Badenoch?

Here’s the story: Man with no name but a familiar face in Badenoch.

It seems that there is a man in Badenoch who is regularly seen going about his business barefoot. Here’s the picture they provide of him walking in the streets of Kingussie (the capital of the region).

The man with no name takes the snow in his stride

[Caption from the article.]

This is in the Highlands of Scotland. It’s actually not too far from the Cairngorms, which I wrote about in I Like the Unpath Best while describing Nan Shepherd’s book The Living Mountain.

He sounds like he could be any of us. From the article, quoting him:

As he strolled happily, healthily, heartily down Kingussie’s High Street in the bitter wind and snow, he explained: “They are my chief sensors. They are the most immediate and constant connection I have with the earth and I would never want to prevent them from doing their job.

“If you put shoes and socks on my feet it would be like blindfolding my eyes.

“Think about it — although people insist their hands are the major tactile sensors they are quite wrong, since what do our hands touch most of the time? Most of the time they’re touching nothing but air, they’re waving around in space. But our feet are on the ground all the time, constantly feeling that connection with the earth.

“I haven’t needed to ‘blindfold’ them for over 10 years and I certainly don’t intend to change now.”

He’s actually chosen a pretty good place to remain barefooted. I’ve written before about how prevalent they were in Scotland throughout the past. For instance, here in Scottish Bare Feet we see a description from the mid-1800s.

I tried half an hour at the window, and I was certainly amazed at the number of persons, mostly young women and children, who crossed George Square, destitute of either shoes or stockings. The most curious part of the thing was this, that whereas in England and on the Continent bare feet are ordinarily looked upon as an unmistakable sign of extreme poverty, if not of actual destitution, the majority of the barefooted lassies we saw were otherwise decently and comfortably clad.

And in Reddeshankes, there’s a description from the 1500s of how the Highlanders regularly went barefoot.

Moreouer, wherfor they call ws in Scotland Reddshankes, and in your Graces dominion of England, roghe footide Scottis, Pleas it your Maiestie to vnderstande, that we of all people can tollerat, suffir, and away [tolerate] best with colde, for boithe somer and wyntir, (excepte whene the froest is most vehemonte), goynge alwaies bair leggide and bair footide, . . .

The weather is actually fairly conducive to going barefoot, even in the winter (except for the occasional snowstorm). As I wrote about in A Change of Latitude, the world’s ocean currents are such that they tend to drive warmer (but wetter) weather to the western sides of the continents, and much closer to the poles than you might think.

Even Scotland rarely drops too much below freezing. Here, for instance, are the highs and lows for the past week in Kingussie (and presumably the picture was taken sometime during that period).

      Jan 1: 42°/37°
      Jan 2: 44°/37°
      Jan 3: 43°/37°
      Jan 4: 39°/32°
      Jan 5: 44°/30°
      Jan 6: 45°/40°
      Jan 7: 44°/32°
      Jan 8: 42°/35°
      Jan 9: 39°/31°

As full-time, colder-weather barefooters know, the feet easily adapt to those sorts of temperatures, as long as you keep the rest of the body fairly warm. In the picture above, despite the shorts (a la Cody Lundin), you can see that his body core is pretty well wrapped up.

Anyways, go take a look at the article — it’s pretty interesting. (It’s also nice that they don’t make fun of him.)

It is also interesting to see these little pockets of barefootedness in the industrialized world.

[H/T: DNEChris of The Barefoot Runners Society.]