Fish Lake
"People loved fishing in Fish Lake. Honestly, you didn't even need to bait your hook, just throw it out and then there would be something at the other end. Not like how it is now."
Geography
This is a freshwater lake large enough for people to go sailing on. There are banks for fishermen, and a marina where people were able to park their sailboats. There was also a campground nearby where people could rent canoes if they wanted, have picnics on the benches provided, and even park their cars at campgrounds. Trailers were popular during this time period.
The sandy shores can sometimes turn a bit rocky, but the beauty of the trees lines the shore. There are a few islands out in the middle of the lake, but these are not places commonly gone. Golden sunsets are reflected in the lake, and the water is a beautiful blue, then deeper blue once it goes off into deeper waters.
Ecosystem
Most of the trees around the area are pine trees, with a bit of cedar, and there are a lot of meadows surround the lake, which have lead to a growing number of people coming to picnic in the area (even with a warning of snakes being in the area).
Trout are plentiful (a lot of rainbow trout), and there are also a lot of bass in the river as well. When the area was found to be a good place to bring the family for a weekend, a lot of men found the area to be great for sport fishing and sailing.
Bigger wildlife lives around the around (racoons, deer, coyotes/foxes, wild cats), but they tend to use the lake for food only around spawning time.
Ecosystem Cycles
The area perfectly shows off the "four seasons," though in winter the main body of the lake doesn't freeze. The trees around the area will turn richly orange and red during the autumn, will go bare in winter, and will have their leaves come back in spring.
The deer in the area are migratory ones which will come back around during the seasons, and the fish in the lake go through their periods as well.
There were hunting and fishing licenses for the area to limit the number of deer and fish that a person could shoot/fish in one season. (Now that the world has ended, there is no one to keep an eye on numbers, and it's possible that the deer/fish might be overhunted, if they haven't been scared or scarred by the humans' nuclear war).
Natural Resources
The natural resources of the lake are in abundance (as compared to Junktown). There is wood from the nearby trees, fish and other items to eat from the lake, and when the trees are plucked from the earth there is good soil to grow food.
While Junktown has packets of seeds for vegetables, most of the people living at Fish Lake rely on the vegetation in the area and on the fish they capture in the lake.
If there are any brave traders making the route between Junktown and Fish Lake, they would be able to carve out a pathway. At the moment, there is not enough information passing between the two groups and such a trade route has not been established.
History
The area (and the surrounding town), didn't exist three decades ago. Instead, when motorized vehicles became popular and more "non-wealthy" people had access to them, this wilderness was "discovered" and became the tourist attraction it is today.
There were a few surrounding towns that came into existence purely because of Lake Fish and the nature that brought people into the area on weekends to relax. Franklin, at first, was one of those places, but over time the area grew as a town as well, eventually boasting a mall that brought more people in a different tourism wave. (Men would go to the lake for fishing/sailing, woman would go to the mall for shopping - kids, depending on gender/parents, would go to both places).
The nuclear war changed all of this and ended up trapping a large amount of people in an area that might not have enough of a deer/fish population to continually feed this group of people.
Tourism
This area was very big on tourism pre-war. There were roads leading to it, there were campgrounds, and there was a bustling marina holding sailboats for use on the lake. People came from a variety of places to swim, relax, and enjoy themselves on their weekends.
[This is where Gail's husband went, to sail, when the bombs dropped.]
Type
Lake
Included Locations
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