The scenery’s pretty but a bit flat

Two in a Red Canoe

Our Journey Down the Yukon

Megan Baldino and Matt Hage

Graphic Arts Books:

120 pp., $18.95

*

If made into a movie, this true account of a couple’s three-month paddle down the Yukon River would be a chick flick. On her first week as a TV news reporter in Alaska, Megan Baldino, an attractive self-described city girl, meets photojournalist and rugged outdoor guy Matt Hage.

Dating in Alaska apparently involves rock climbing and cross-country skiing instead of dinner and a movie. Soon the couple buy a $500 canoe, christen it Lucille and embark on a 2,000-mile trip down the river through Canada and Alaska to the Bering Sea. Along the way, they see gold prospectors, native subsistence salmon fishermen, the Alaska pipeline, moose, fox, bald eagles and a black wolf.

The scenery is grand, as is the gold-rush history and frontier lifestyle recounted here, but the story doesn’t quite live up to its expectations.

No misunderstandings, no love lost and regained, and the bears don’t attack. Call the script doctor.

-- Bill Becher