THE WEIRS TIMES BOATING & RECREATION GUIDE — Spring / Summer 2012
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No matter how your favorite lake in New Hampshire was formed, there’s plenty to enjoy! “Where Do Lakes Come From?”
by Andrea LaMoreaux Contributing Writer, NH Lakes
No matter how your fa-
vorite lake in New Hamp- shire was formed, there’s plenty to enjoy! “Mom, I was wondering,”
began my three-year-old daughter a couple of weeks ago while we were driving past Lake Massasecum— the lake we call home. I had no idea what was go- ing to come next from my inquisitive, little scientist. “Where do…” she contin- ued. At that point, I began to panic. Was she going to ask the question that most parents dread—was she going to ask where babies come from? Please, no, I begged, I’m not ready to explain that yet. “Mom, where do lakes
come from?” Panic was replaced with relief, and then, quite truthfully, with disbelief—did she really
ask me, her lake scientist mother, where lakes come from? “Mom, did you hear me? Where do lakes come from?” I admit—I couldn’t have been more proud or happy at that moment. “MOM…DID YOU HEAR ME?” Ah, the patience of a
three-year-old. I needed to respond fast to capitalize on the teachable moment, but wondered how to sum up complicated geologi- cal processes, some that take thousands of years, in a way that a preschool- er might make sense of. “Well, lakes are big holes,” I began. “Really big holes in the ground that took a really, really long time to fill up with rain and melted snow.” “But, how did the holes
get there?” This, of course, was her next question. “Now, that’s a good ques- tion, a very good question.”
I responded, trying to buy some time. “Well, you see, the holes could have been made by the ground mov- ing, volcanoes erupting, or mud sliding around. In New Hampshire, most of the holes were made by huge chunks of ice mov- ing around.” “Hmm…ok.” She seemed satisfied, but not terribly intrigued by the explana- tion. As quickly as her curiosity about how lakes came to be was piqued, it vanished. The conver- sation abruptly transi- tioned into an interroga- tion about what we were going to have for lunch. A few mornings later, much to my surprise, she continued our “how lakes came to be” discussion. “Mom, you know what I think?” I hadn’t a clue, but knew that she was going to tell me. “I think Lake Massasecum was
dug out by a bunch of workers with shovels. It took about a week and then they left and dug out Lake Sunapee.” All I could do was laugh— can you just imagine New Hampshire’s approxi- mately 1,000 lakes and ponds being dug out by hand? What an undertak- ing that would have been! Of course some lakes have been partly constructed in that way, but most have had more exciting origins, exciting at least in geologi- cal terms. For those of you who
don’t believe that our lakes are just big holes dug out with shovels which then filled with water, and want to learn how most of them came to be, I invite you to read on.
Lakes are bodies of
water that have filled depressions (called “ba-
sins”) in low-lying areas on the landscape. There are a number of natural processes that can form lake basins which eventu- ally fill up with water from rainfall and snowmelt and carried in by streams, riv- ers, underground springs, and groundwater.
Most of New Hamp-
shire’s lakes were formed by the movement of glaciers approximately 15,000 years ago. As the glaciers moved across the landscape, tops of mountains and hills were scraped off and other ar- eas of the landscape were gouged out under the tremendous weight of the ice sheet which was, at times, a mile thick over New Hampshire. As a re- sult of this action, the face of the landscape was per- manently altered. When See LAKES on 15
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