The Right to Roam

Yesterday I wrote that I belong to this land.

Today I went walking on land that does not belong to me.

That is not unusual in Scotland. It is one of the things the country gets right.

People call it the right to roam. The law is more exact. Scotland gives people rights of responsible access to most land and inland water for walking, cycling, recreation, education, and simply getting from one place to another. The right is broad, but it is not careless. Homes, gardens, growing crops, and some other places are excluded. You are expected to respect the land, the people working it, the animals on it, and everyone else trying to enjoy it.

In other words, you can go almost anywhere.

Just do not be an arse.

I like laws that assume ordinary people are capable of freedom.

That probably says something about where my head is at.

I have spent years in places where someone else decided whether I was allowed through the door. Churches. Hospitals. Offices. Courtrooms. Family homes. Institutions usually begin by asking who has authority, who has permission, and who gets to stay.

Scotland’s access rights begin with a different assumption.

You may enter.

You may cross the field, follow the coast, walk the hill, sit beside the water, and keep going.

The responsibility comes with you.

That is the part I am still learning.

I have spent much of my life focused on the gates other people closed in front of me. Some were unfair. Some were necessary. Some were probably locked because I had stopped noticing what happened when I pushed through them.

That is harder to admit.

Freedom sounds noble when I am the one asking for it. It becomes more complicated when my freedom enters somebody else’s space, livelihood, peace, or safety.

The right to roam does not pretend those tensions disappear. It simply refuses to make exclusion the starting point.

Walk through.

Close the gate.

Leave the crop alone.

Give the animals room.

Take your rubbish with you.

Do not confuse access with ownership.

I have arrived in Scotland speaking a lot about belonging. I was born here. My people came from here. The air feels right in my lungs. All of that is true.

But belonging can become another form of entitlement if I am not careful.

The land does not owe me a life because I was born on it. Scotland does not have to become the country I imagined from Canada. Coming home does not give me permission to take up space without thinking about the people already living in it.

Maybe the right to roam is the right lesson for my third day.

I am allowed to be here.

I am allowed to move through this place, learn it, enjoy it, and find something of myself in it.

But I am not the centre of it.

The land was here before me.

It will be here after me.

For now, I get to walk.