According to Peter Browning's Yosemite Place Names, a must read if you attend lots of cocktail parties with Yosemite Park rangers, the Sardine Lakes got their name in 1860 from an unfortunate pack mule, laden with kegs of whiskey, which lost its footing and plunged down a slope into Lower Sardine Lake, taking with it another mule burdened with cases of sardines. No traces of mules or baggage were ever found. Perhaps the sardines escaped and founded their own particularly happy little refugee colony in the whiskey-laced lake. Why not? (No need to write in and answer that, by the way.) Just think how Gilligan's Island would have changed if the castaways had been marooned with endless cases of booze instead of practical stuff like radio parts and evening gowns! The plots wouldn't have all revolved around trying to get rescued, this much is certain.