I had been hoping to find some folks under twenty-five down here with whom I might discuss the potential of the coming tourist economy or tourist experience. It is a rather huge change to your hometown, after all. But there was no one, not even working in the kitchen of the concession or malingering in the empty wind-swept parking lot, under forty-five to be found.

One by one, pair by pair, the cyclists and millipede drivers ordered food from the concession window and took seats. Bratwurst and Kartoffelsalat and Bier appeared, and slowly the scene began to order itself around the rigid yet slumberous orthodoxies of German domestic tourism. Thus was the nascent and humble promise of this place perhaps revealed, at least in part.

A woman sunning herself outside the bike rental office seemed surprised to see me. She seemed surprised when I asked where the campground was. “It’s not done yet,” she said. “Sorry.” Finally she seemed surprised when I asked if I could pay for the bike with a debit card. “We don’t even have phones yet.” She gave me a brief overview of the shore trails I should and shouldn’t ride. I asked about the island just off the peninsula in the middle of the lake. Much of that area was circumscribed by yellow lines on this map.

“It is a nature reserve,” she said. I asked what was there for me to see. “Not much.” She apologized again. “But go look, you know. There isn’t that much else.”

I heard the wind, looked
at the island, the almost
preposterous blue of the sky, and, for a moment, I began to feel like I got it, like I understood.

The hills surrounding the lake were irregularly grown in early succession forest of birch and Scots pine and hawthorn, a junky and flammable-looking forest. Some areas of pine were planted in rows of homogenous age, while others seemed to have come back from seed. I followed the paved bike path on its wending course high along the hill. The view had potential, but just then it let on to lower gravel service roads, grass like bad hair plugs, and various zones of fencing. “No Trespassing” signs dotted the way.

I sat on the stones under a steel overhang, ate, and looked through my brochure. It contained a cutaway view of the valley which helped one more easily visualize what it looks like when 2.8 billion cubic meters or earth are moved or removed, 1.4 billion cubic meters irregularly replaced, and almost 450 million cubic meters flooded. The entire geological record had been reordered back to about 190 million years ago, roughly the extreme end of the Triassic. The Tertiary lay, at one time, above the Triassic and contained all the brown coal in the area, as well as a thick burden of silt, gravel, and clay. Above that, comprising glacial till and topsoil up to about 250,000 years old, lay the Quaternary. Notice the past tense. For the foreseeable future, 250,000 year old dirt and gravel will lay under seven million year old coal remnants and under fifty million year old silt and clay. In other words, The Quaternary lies where the Tertiary was because the Tertiary was removed, half of it burned or made into plastics and chemicals, and the other half mounded for storage before being returned to the mine pit.

I coasted down the hill, out of the young forest, to a wide barren shore zone. There was a deeply eroded brown and red island to my right, a heap of pink granite to my left, and before me, a caterpillar-tread-scoured beach into which was driven a metal angle iron leading via anchor chain to a small rusted pontoon barge. I drew in the anchor line and jumped aboard the pontoon. I stood there, floating on the water, savoring the near absolute silence, a thing of great value in Western Europe. I heard the wind, looked at the island, the almost preposterous blue of the sky, and, for a moment, I began to feel like I got it, like I understood. I am on the Baja, alone, on a beautiful day.

Then I got the rest of it: the barren sandy island and promontory to my right were part of the nature preserve — were the nature preserve: wind-scoured, water-gullied, practically lifeless. That signage can precede the signified is somehow unsurprising for something like a campground or even a marina. But for a nature preserve? “Coming Soon”?

Several people suggested that Frau Stadler of the Development Association could help me learn more about the project’s structure and official standing. I traveled to Braunsbedra on the southern shore to see her.

From the moment I entered her office, she began loading me up with pamphlets, books, whole drawers full of brochures and maps as in some grand and well-rehearsed gesture of dismissiveness. I asked if I might come back at a better time. She said no, sat down finally, and said she was glad to help.

What it was was an inability for one person to hold all the aspects of a large economic renewal project in her head at one time. The brochures were like an admission of a volatile mix of excellent preparation, insufficient staffing, an organizational model based on hope, and plain old clerical chaos. I excavated to The Lake Catalog: 2010, which outlines and promotes all the area’s flooded coal mines, from its smallest, to the Hostage Valley, by far the largest. I laughed at the very name Lake Catalog, and she huffed a laugh, too.