Islands in the lake: The tragedy and beauty of Lake Berryessa

If you look at a map of Lake Berryessa, a 23-mile-long body of fresh, blue water in the mountains east of Napa Valley, you’ll notice that its 165 miles of shoreline are jagged, broken up with with deep, meandering inlets and island archipelagos.

Those strings of islands include tiny, hump-backed Goat Island, which used to be a small hill overlooking the former Berryessa Valley. Up until the 1950s, this valley was an agricultural jewel, home to rich soil, family farms, orchards, a famous stone bridge...