Crissa's Mate

Prologue

For Crissa Palmer, it was no ordinary summer trip. To be able to travel to East Germany to continue her study of wolves while just a senior in high school, was something she could not pass up. Being born and raised in British Columbia, she was since a child an animal lover. It was no accident that her extra-curricular activities put her in the path of many conservation efforts, and work to study endangered species. It was no accident also that being an inveterate dog-lover would carry over to an interest in the magnificent Timber Wolves of North America—commonly known worldwide as the Grey Wolf.

Planning on attending the University of British Columbia in the fall, and earning admission as an exceptional student, afforded her the reward of a magnificent summer. Her parents offered to pay for a trip to Europe where she could relax in several capital cities along with other members of her graduating class. But for Crissa, this just all seemed too decadent. A working trip to study something close to her heart was more in line with her shy character and refusal to occupy herself with anything that smacked of a meaningless leisure activity. Her parents tried to get her more focused on a relaxing summer but she was resolute to make a trip to Europe more practically aligned with her future studies—Biology, and particularly animal behavior.

It was not surprising then, that she discovered on the Internet just before graduation that the University of Alaska was funding an expedition to Germany over the summer to study the European Gray Wolf. It seemed their steady migration into Germany from Poland over the past decade, left many questions for researchers. The study caught Crissa's attention as this animal was a cousin genetically to the Western or Timber Wolves found in Alaska and Canada. Most recently, animal researchers were not certain of their behavior patterns in relation to their ancestors, who for 800,000 years had occupied the deep forestland of Central and Eastern Europe. How they were coping with this new environment of Germany's dense mountains of the Lusatia region, was of particular interest to science. It was also yet to be determined which of the some twelve sub-species of Gray Wolf were migrating into the new habitat from Poland.

Wolves had always been of keen interest to Crissa for their adaptability, their clannish behavior, and their distinction of being one of the world's most intelligent and communicative species. Just how different this Old World wolf was to its New World cousin on the Crissa's continent was of interest to the vivacious eighteen year old.

When after writing to the Biology department head at the University of Alaska, and getting the green light to be a volunteer member of the of expedition into Eastern Germany, Crissa was simply ecstatic. Her parents had a difficult time refusing her summer plan as they had been so proud of her high school achievements, and the fact that her university first year would be ready and waiting for her upon her return to Western Canada.

Crissa looked in the mirror, that evening before her morning flight from BC to London and then on to Frankfurt, Germany. She saw a girl on the edge of womanhood, eager to depart and start a new chapter in her life. Her sandy, already sun-streaked hair was pulled back into her ubiquitous ponytail and her wide beautiful smile was too enthusiastic to hide. This smile when in full force could be misinterpreted. Too many people, especially attracted boys, took it as an overly warm greeting, possibly hinting at more. The curvaceous teen was, in fact, just the opposite, as her character, with regard to outgoing behavior, had always tried to blend itself into the background when males were present.

Nevertheless, she had learned that aside from the professor coordinating the trip, there would a mixture of four males and four females—all already in college at one institute or another. One couple, she learned, were already graduate students, doing their Master's Thesis on the social behavior of wolves. The other five students—three guys and two girls, were undergraduates from Canada and Alaska. Crissa knew at eighteen, and just out of high school, that she would be the youngest on the expedition. It was a bold undertaking, this summer trip to Europe without family, yet one she knew she needed, both for her interests academically, but also for her independence and readiness for real adventure in her life. That she would find it—and a lot more, would be an understatement.

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