Scituate Reservoir

By the early twentieth century, the growing city of Providence had outgrown its water supply and needed a large, clean source. Engineers chose the valley of the north branch of the Pawtuxet River in Scituate, a rural area whose forested hills could gather and protect a great volume of water.

Building it meant erasing what was already there. The project required flooding the village of Ashland and other settlements in the valley, so the state acquired the land, and homes, farms, mills, shops, schools, and churches were torn down or moved. Even the dead were relocated, with cemeteries disinterred and graves reburied on higher ground before the waters rose.

The Kent Dam, later known as the Gainer Memorial Dam, closed off the valley in the 1920s, and the river slowly backed up to form the reservoir. When it filled, it became the largest lake in Rhode Island, a made landscape that quickly came to look permanent and natural.

Ever since, the reservoir and the thousands of acres of forest around it have been kept as a protected watershed. That protection is why the shoreline is undeveloped and off-limits, and it is also why the surrounding countryside has stayed so rural: much of the land is owned to keep the water clean rather than to build on.

Because contact with the water is forbidden, the reservoir is a place to see rather than to enter. The best experience is from the roads that cross and skirt it, especially the causeway on Route 12, where the water opens out on both sides and the far shore dissolves into forest.

Several roadside overlooks and pull-offs give long views across the arms of the lake, and the drive through the surrounding towns of Scituate and Foster is a scenic outing in itself, past stone walls, old farms, white-steepled villages, and second-growth woods.

The reward is stillness. On a calm morning the reservoir lies mirror-flat, reflecting the sky and the wooded hills, one of the most peaceful landscapes in a small and crowded state.

The protected forest around the reservoir functions as a natural filter, and it doubles as a large block of undisturbed wildlife habitat in a region that is otherwise increasingly developed.

Bald eagles and osprey hunt the open water, herons and waterfowl work the coves, and the surrounding woods hold deer, wild turkey, fox, coyote, and a full range of New England forest birds. The very restrictions that keep people off the water leave the wildlife largely undisturbed.

The result is a rare thing in Rhode Island: a large, quiet, mostly wild landscape, kept that way not for recreation but to protect the water that most of the state drinks.

Spring greens the watershed forest and swells the streams that feed the reservoir, and returning osprey and eagles become easier to spot over the water.

Summer is lush and quiet, best appreciated in the early morning when the lake is still and the light is soft over the far shore.

Fall is the reservoir's finest season, when the hardwood forest ringing the water turns gold, orange, and red, doubled in the reflection on a calm day.

Winter strips the landscape bare and can freeze the coves and edges, a stark, silent time when the scale of the reservoir and its wooded frame is most apparent.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.