She’s studied lichen in Canada’s High Arctic and gone up the Amazon by boat with a Scottish charity.
But for Anne Carstairs home is where the heart is – and that’s Crossmichael.
A botanist by profession, Anne has lived in the riverlands beside the Dee for almost four decades.
Much of her life has been devoted to helping others through voluntary work – with the Guides, the Red Cross, the church and the Vine Trust.
Now retired, Anne retains a keen interest in plants and a love of wild places – fascinations which began in childhood.
Anne tells me she grew up in Bearsden outside Glasgow and attended Laurel Bank School in the city, then St Andrew’s University, graduating in 1974 with an honours degree in botany.
And she wasn’t long in heading over the Atlantic to Canada with the aim of broadening her botanical qualifications.
“I had always been fascinated by the Arctic and read many books about it when I was at school,” she says.
“So in my final year at St Andrew’s I wrote to all the Canadian universities asking if they were doing anything in Arctic research.
“I got a phone call from a lecturer at McGill University in Montreal, Walter Oeschel, who was on a visit to Sweden at the time.
“He asked if I would be interested in doing a degree that would take me up to the sub-Arctic – and I accepted. As soon as I graduated from St Andrew’s I left for Canada. I arrived in Montreal in July and headed straight up to Schefferville on the Quebec-Labrador border, where McGill operated a research station. At 54 degrees north Schefferville is actually south of Glasgow by latitude but has a sub-Arctic climate with long, very cold continental winters and short summers.
“It is a long way from the sea – Glasgow is the opposite and has a pretty mild maritime climate because of the Gulf Stream.”
Anne spent two summers at the remote settlement, which lies in the heart of lands once occupied only by First Nation peoples until European settlers arrived.
“Schefferville was originally an iron ore mining area,” Anne explains. “They call it a town but it’s not very big. There were a lot of open cast mines around and there’s a Native American population, the Cree people.
“I had to take my Canadian driving licence test because I was going to be there for more than a year.
“I took it in Schefferville because they said it would be a lot easier than in Montreal. I passed my theory and sat my test in a police car. It turned out my French Canadian instructor had been stationed on the Clyde during the war. He was much more interested in how the Clyde was doing now than my driving.
“But it couldn’t have been that bad – I passed!”
The station manager and his wife ran the university research station at Schefferville where Anne’s time was taken up with a physiological study of ground lichen eaten by migrating caribou scraping through the snow for sustenance.
“My study involved aspects such as temperature, water content, light and soil conditions and how they affect the growth rates of the lichen,” Anne tells me.
“The lichen is indirectly very important to local peoples because they depend upon the caribou for food and clothing. The caribou migrate every year and if they can’t find enough to eat they are going to starve.
“This lichen - cladonia alpestris - carpets the ground in the sub-Arctic much as grass does in Scotland. It’s a life saver for the caribou and is very vulnerable to disturbance which causes it to dry out and die. It becomes very brittle and years worth of growth are lost.”
Entranced by the Canada’s northern climes, Anne headed even further north the following summer, 1976, to the Arctic Circle.
“The Canadian Government then had a Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development,” she recalls.
“They decided it would save money to open two research laboratories in the high Arctic.
“One was at Igoolik, an Inuit settlement on a small island near the Melville peninsula, far to the north of Hudson Bay.
“The new manager was going round all the Canadian universities trying to sell the facilities at Igoolik as a research base.
“He came to McGill and Dr Oeschel suggested I come to the presentation. I was the only graduate student there and when he said he needed somebody I said I’d do it. I was at Igoolik for six weeks and it was fascinating.
“There was 24-hour daylight and the colours in the vegetation were amazing. All the flowers have to complete their life cycle very quickly. There was not much vegetation, just tundra, with a lot of bare rock and snow still lying in pockets. The sea ice was still there and it was fascinating to walk on.
“It was as if you were walking on the sky – the ice was the same blue colour.”
Central to Anne’s project, was recording how environmental conditions affected where and how different lichens were able to grow, despite the extreme climate.
She also encountered indigenous folk on occasion – and the language barrier presented a bigger challenge than her scientific work.
“I met Inuit people and learned about how they lived,” she tells me.
“Once when I was taking measurements with my equipment out on the tundra an Inuit came along and was intrigued to know what I was doing.
“Inuit is a very guttural language and sign language was about as much as we could do.
“It was difficult not being able to communicate with somebody.
“We came from such different backgrounds. The Inuits’ diet was seal, caribou and fish, mainly Arctic char. I did gather some Arctic sorrel – I recognised it from the plant growing here in Scotland.”
After 30 months in Canada and a new botany degree under her belt, Anne returned to Scotland and landed a job with the Nature Conservancy Council (NCC).
Soon she was doing what she loved best – tramping about in the wilds and getting paid at the same time.
“I worked for two years on an upland project and it was a great job,” she explains. “I was walking the hills to make sure the boundaries of special scientific interest (SSSIs) were contiguous with the actual protected vegetation surveyed on these sites.
“Some rare plants are akin to vegetation types in the Arctic – low growing Arctic alpines, for example, which are confined to a very few places on mountains in the Highlands.”
Following a stint based at Balloch, Anne moved to Dalbeattie in 1984 to start work as regional manager for the NCC.
“My office was in Dalbeattie, on High Street above the Royal Bank,” she says.
“I was out and about liaising with land owners and managers on how best to manage their land for wildlife, in particular looking after SSSIs.
“I took ill in January, 1989, with ME, known then as post viral fatigue syndrome. Before that I was aware there had been something wrong for three or four months – then I took the proper flu which really floored me.
“Afterwards I got tired very easily even after only a little exertion. In 1992 I took retirement through ill health and had seven years of not doing very much.
“I had great support from family and friends through that time and that made a huge difference. They really helped me with my recovery.
“I gradually got better – I’m perfectly fine now and I suppose I’m still making up for lost time!
“I was very fortunate because I was able to get back to full health again. For a lot of people I don’t know if that ever fully happens.”
Guiding, I discover, has been a fixture in Anne’s life from childhood – and her enthusiasm and commitment to the organisation has never dimmed.
“I have been involved with the Girl Guides since I was seven – all my life really,” she smiles.
“Even when I was ill I did not stop other than for one term and still managed to attend guide meetings - although someone had to drive me there.
“I’ve been a leader for more than 45 years and was commissioner for the Stewartry from 2003 to 2008. Castle Douglas Guides are celebrating their 100th anniversary this year.
“I look forward to seeing many former guides as possible later in the year because I have seen so many in my time.”
Getting kids outdoors to learn new skills and enjoy group activities is hugely important, Anne believes.
“I always loved camping and I was the Guides’ Scottish outdoor activities advisor for three years,” she says.
“I’ve taken Scottish Guides on international trips to Iceland and Norway, done two minibus trips to Europe and visited three of the five worldwide centres for the Guides in Switzerland, Mexico and London.
“I love seeing the youngsters progress through the Guides.
“Guiding is also about doing things in the community and becoming responsible for themselves and others. These are the kinds of things we can teach them.”
Anne’s desire to help others extends abroad through her work with the Vine Trust which helps vulnerable children and communities in Peru and Tanzania.
The Scottish charity has two boats on the upper reaches of the Amazon and one on Lake Victoria which provide transport for a health care project spanning two continents.
Anne’s been out to Tanzania five times and Peru twice, her last trip to the African country just before lockdown in 2020.
“The Vine Trust takes dental and medical care teams in to remote communities,” she explains.
“We have also built homes for street children in Peru and for vulnerable children and families in Tanzania. There’s a new project called Village of Hope at Kakunzu on the shores of Lake Victoria.
“We have helped build 140 homes and the first Village of Hope residents are now there, which is super. They moved in during the pandemic. The people are always smiling and are always very welcoming to us.
“It’s difficult sometimes to figure out whether they are rushing to see you because you have a white face but I don’t think that’s it – they are simply truly welcoming people.
“In Peru, many of the street kids were from Lima. We helped to build five or six houses in different parts of the country.
“These children were subjected to the most awful brutality from the police. Eventually the Peruvian government woke up to the scandal to the extent that now it is not such a problem.
“The Vine Trust helped them make that change.”
Meanwhile, Anne continues to raise funds for the trust’s work – thanks to her skill in the kitchen.
“Every year in January I make gallons of marmalade and sell it to family and friends – anyone who will be prepared to buy it.
“It’s just sold locally and all the proceeds go to the Vine Trust.
“People seem to enjoy it – it’s my grannie’s recipe. Folk always come back for some more the following year. This year I have just sent out a cheque for £460 – all thanks to the support of folk round about.”
Anne explains the trust’s ethos is one of collaboration rather than mere provision – with an emphasis on finding local partners to take on projects.
“The Vine Trust enables local charities to do the work,” she says.
“Our strapline is ‘connecting people to change lives’. That cooperation changes our lives just as much as it changes the lives of those we are trying to help.”
Anne is involved in the Food Train in Castle Douglas – and for 24 years was a Red Cross volunteer and centre organiser for the Stewartry until the charity closed down its base in the town in 2019.
“I had a really good time – we were all volunteers and provided a lot of services to the community such as first aid, therapeutic care and lending out wheelchairs and other aids,” she says.
“We did a lot of fundraising and raised a lot of money here. Per head of population we raised very much more than they did in Glasgow. That was thanks to the great team we had and the generosity of folk in the Stewartry.”
For relaxation, Anne spends much time in her garden which is both a kitchen larder and visual delight.
“I love my garden – I find it very therapeutic,” she says,
“A lot of the alpine or Arctic flowering plants I came across at various milestones in my life. I have a vegetable garden too with fruit bushes – red and blackcurrants, raspberries, strawberries and gooseberries.
“And there’s Worcester-berries which are a cross between a gooseberry and a blackcurrant. It comes from a cutting from my parents’ garden and the fruit makes lovely jelly.”
Anne, an elder with the local Church of Scotland for more than 30 years and the present session clerk, may have seen much of the world – but Main Street in Crossmichael will always be home.
“Crossmichael was where I found my house when I came down for my job almost 40 years ago,” she smiles.
“I visited the local shop and the church and the people were very friendly and welcoming. I decided Crossmichael would suit me fine.
“I know I was not born and brought up in Galloway but I feel I belong here.
“I would not want to live anywhere else and have made so many friends here.”
