An Obsessively Dedicated Woman
Christmas 1985 was one to remember, especially for those at the research site Karisoke. For 18 years, the isolated camp that sat 9,000 feet up high in the misty slopes of Rwanda’s Mount Visoke was home to an eccentric (or weird) and obsessively dedicated woman.
Photo by Peter Breining/San Francisco Chronicle/Getty Images
Dian Fossey was an American primatologist who set up camp in Rwanda, making gorillas her life’s work. She was 53 that year and had spent decades studying a rare mountain gorilla in its rain forest habitat. She grew more and more hermit-like with the years, but on this Christmas, she felt a bit more social.