In a canoe in the James River, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine made an easy paddle stroke and recalled how he landed in Richmond.

Today’s James River Journal installment marks an end to the series. Photographer P. Kevin Morley and I began the journal—a story a month for a year—last November. Among the things we’ve learned: Some people love fishing even on a rainy December night as a big storm approaches. You can eat an oyster straight from the James and survive.

When the temperature hit the mid-70s the other day, James Wilbur and his two sons headed straight to the James River. They body surfed in the rapids until the October water chilled them.

Rex Springston traces his love of rivers back to his childhood adventures in the Elizabeth River in the Virginia Beach area. He recalls spending a lot of time in the river with his young buddies—“a gang of little Hucks and Toms”—swimming, plucking jellyfish from their arms, and even rowing a boat to a miniature golf course upstream.

A look at the last installment of the series.

Pollution, coupled with humankind’s compulsion to tinker with nature, has drastically changed the makeup of the James’ inhabitants.

There is nothing quite like grabbing your mask and snorkel, plunging into the refreshing James River and coming face to face with a huge catfish.

Quick tips for snorkeling in the James River

The James River begins behind Charlie Gibson’s house. That would be in northern Botetourt County, beyond the Blue Ridge Mountains, about 240 miles west of Richmond as the river flows and about three hours by car. There, the pristine Cowpasture River joins the far-from-pristine Jackson River to create the James. In Hampton Roads, where the James ends, the mighty river is flat and 5 miles wide. In Richmond, it is full of boulders and roaring rapids. A short walk behind Gibson’s house, it is a rippling mountain stream, lined by sycamores and mimosas and serenaded on a recent morning by song sparrows.

A strainer in the James River is sort of like the one in your kitchen. Except it can kill you. To veteran paddlers and rescue experts, strainers are logs in swift water at or near the surface. They can upset a small boat, or catch—and drown—a swimmer. “It’s like a strainer you use for your spaghetti,“ said Anne Catherine Jensen, a senior guide with Riverside Outfitters, a Richmond company that offers trips on the James. “The water will go through, but you won’t.“

Richmond’s James River Park, a collection of wild lands and islands, is in its most popular season. A day at the river involves family, friends, little absurdities, new life and, sometimes, death. This is the story of one of those days.

Something bright flashed near the surface of the murky James River. Will McCahill swung at it with a net and caught a piece of living history. “Gentlemen, this is what it’s all about,“ said boating partner Chip Augustine, eyeing a handsome 18-inch fish with silvery, iridescent scales.

Life in the wild is no picnic—unless you’re a snake in a bird’s nest. As a small crowd watched, a black rat snake ate three of the seven eggs in a mallard’s nest along the James River Sunday afternoon. “Pretty cool,“ said Kiersen Mather, 9, of Chesterfield County after the snake finished. The snake, which appeared to be more than 4 feet long, was first seen crawling across the shady, sandy north bank of the river’s Pipeline Rapids section near Shockoe Slip.

It’s springtime along the James. Birds are singing, bugs buzzing. You probably heard about it. But do you know: Why the butter butt is leaving? What spring wildflower has Virginia in its name? What harbinger of spring mimics Beethoven? For answers to these questions and others, try our Spring Along the James Quiz.

Once inhospitable because of pesticides, a nearly 40-mile stretch of the tidal, freshwater James now harbors one of the country’s top concentrations of eagles, herons and other fish-eating birds.