‘I never thought I would die!’
Waterloo’s pioneering ‘Giraffe Woman’ recalls girlhood experience with contagion scare that set the course for her life
She’s 87 now, happily shuttered in her townhouse on the fringes of a Waterloo retirement community, self-isolating with 1,000 books.
But Anne Innis Dagg — the trail-blazing zoologist known as the Jane Goodall of Giraffes — has lived through this once before.
Seventy six years ago, when she was 11, the plucky preteen contracted scarlet fever and, in the custom of the time, was quarantined for a month, alone.
“I was on the fourth floor of an isolation hospital near the Don River,” she notes in a joint phone call with her daughter, Mary Dagg. “I was the only one.”
Her family came to visit on her birthday, and just like families during the current pandemic, they stood on the street below her window and waved.
“I remember looking down on them, little things,” recalls the woman who made the study of giraffes her life’s work. “I guess they were all crying. It was weird.”
She’s not prone to fits of sentiment — that becomes clear early in our conversation.
A bastion of no-nonsense practicality, the freshly minted Order of Canada member never had that luxury, reaching her goals with an indomitable cando spirit and ability to see the bright side.
“I never thought I would die,” she offers without hesitation. “I just thought this was a good chance to get some reading done.’’
But this was 1944 Toronto. With a world war raging and austerity on the home front, Dagg found herself limited to one book.
But that book — “A Girl of the Limberlost” — provided a focal point for her entire life.
“It was the only book I had for months,” she confides as Mary, well acquainted with details of her mother’s life, listens in surprise.
“I just kept reading it, I guess. She was a girl who was doing wonderful things, so maybe that got into my system. She was a very valiant person.”
Keep in mind the acclaimed 2018 doc — “The Woman Who Loves Giraffes” — scrutinized Dagg’s life in detail, delving into every nook and cranny of her 80-something years.
Yet somehow, Gene StrettonPorter’s 1909 novel about a selfreliant teenager who overcomes obstacles to pursue her life’s dream hasn’t come up until now, in a phone call with a reporter curious how Dagg managed to survive self-isolation the first time around.
“I just remember she could do whatever she wanted,’’ she notes of the early-century heroine who grows up on Indiana swampland. “And without thinking about it I thought ‘Well, I should be able to do that too!’”
She pauses, delighted by the sudden resurgence of this forgotten memory.
“I think that might be a really good thing that got me going … (voice rising with excitement) … that could be the whole thing!”
If nothing else, it demonstrates the power of a focused mind during a period of forced isolation and the resiliency of an 11-year-old girl with a steely, determined spirit.
One thing is for sure: when Anne Innis Dagg emerged from isolation four weeks later, she knew what she wanted to do with her life.
And what she wanted, more than anything, was to study giraffes.
“They’re just lovely — even how they walk,” notes the author of several acclaimed books on the subject.
“They’re just beautiful and symmetrical. It’s just one of those things: you fall in love with something and you can’t stop.”
And so, in 1956 — an era of grey flannel suits, sexist stereotyping and female drudgery — the 23year-old adventurer gave the middle finger to propriety and, over the misgivings of family and friends, headed off to South Africa to become the first person to study giraffes in the wild.
“If I want to do something, I decide I’ll do it, no matter what,” she recounts in her cheerful, plain-speaking way.
“A lot of people would have given up, because it’s a lot of effort. But I wasn’t thinking about the rest of the world.” When she returned home a year later to write books and pursue a career in academia, she found doors slammed in her face at Wilfrid Laurier University, University of Waterloo and University of Guelph because, it was made clear, women had no place in the ivory tower.
These rejections, which denied her the tenure that would have enabled further research, altered the trajectory of her life.
“I think I should have been recognized right from the beginning and I could have got much more done,” she notes of these missed opportunities, for which most institutions have since issued apologies.
“I don’t want it to happen ever again that women are told they don’t have a chance to show their work.”
As is her nature, she rallied against this institutional hypocrisy with books, papers and a complaint to the Ontario Human Rights Commission.
But they were, in the end, lost years professionally. And as she recounts their demoralizing impact, there is pain in her voice.
“I was making excuses for not being better than I am,” she says of the shame she felt when her career aspirations were shot down.
“Everyone thought I was lying, that it couldn’t be possible that I went to study giraffes on my own. So I just changed the subject.”
By the time she was profiled in an enterprising CBC radio doc in 2011, her husband had died, her three kids were grown and Dagg was well into her senior years.
But vindication, however belated, was sweet, reaching a pinnacle when the 2018 movie doc that followed turned her into a full-fledged Canadian hero and her email inbox flooded with accolades from a new generation of 11-year-olds.
“When (director Alison Reid) said she wanted to make a movie, I thought ‘I’m nobody, why would she do that?’” recalls Dagg of their first contact.
“But she insisted, and we went to Africa together. I was so excited after all my life being told ‘Shut up and do what you’re told!’ and ‘You can’t have a job at the university!’”
The film, which details her groundbreaking exploits and attendant setbacks with, at times, heartbreaking precision, surprised everyone, not the least of which was Dagg’s own children.
“I was like ‘Holy crap!’” confides Mary. “I had no idea mom had done all that stuff. “When you look what the world was like in the ’50s, it’s like ‘Holy crap!’ That’s when girls were wearing tiny little shoes and big bows in their hair. Forget about going to Africa. Forget about going down the street by yourself!”
If there’s a lesson here, it’s that in times of crisis we need people like Anne Innis Dagg — who have suffered setbacks and survived — because they have perspective.
They understand that while staying shuttered in our homes, cut off from human contact, may be unpleasant, it’s not the end of the world.
They understand, more than anything, the power of perseverance, the importance of survival.
“Let’s wait and see and do something useful before we all die,” she laughs, undeterred by the current COVID lockdown.
“I want people to not just do stupid things for their whole life, but make their lives worthwhile.”
She pauses knowingly. “Just hang in. It’s really the only thing you can do.”