A Valley Jewel A canoe trip below Friant Dam hints at what the San Joaquin once was. A hairy orb-weaver spider quivered in a web at my feet, oblivious that it had inhabited my canoe and given me a galloping case of the creeps. This brownish spider fits eloquently into the ecology along the San Joaquin River below Friant Dam. It munches bugs.
Birds munch it.
This guy had fallen accidentally from an alder or a willow tree into the canoe I was paddling with guide Frank Creager, who was more concerned about the river than our guest. Dave Koehler, executive director of the San Joaquin River Parkway Trust and Conservancy, guides his canoe through a culvert near a gravel pit owned by Cal-Met. The parkway trust is trying to preserve a 22-mile stretch of the river downstream from Friant Dam to Freeway 99. I had quickly come to respect and listen to Frank after he described his love of turning cartwheels with kayaks in whitewater. Having no wish to provoke a demonstration of these skills, I would paddle as though my life depended on it.