Connecticut Department of Energy & Environmental Protection

The Hidden History of America's Kettle Lakes and Ponds

Lakes are a beloved part of the American landscape, and kettles are the most common type. Formed by the meltdown of blocks of glacial ice, they span the northern part of the country from New England to the High Plains. Being self-contained natural wells, with no inlet or outlet streams, they are unique ecosystems. And for geologist Robert Thorson, they are a significant, but little appreciated, part of America's historical and cultural heritage.

Kettle lake bottoms take us back millennia, yielding mastodon bones, pollen grains, and artifacts that illuminate the lives of Paleo-Indians more than ten thousand years ago. As civilization began to spread across the continent, kettles provided essential freshwater for explorers and settlers, beavers whose furs enriched traders, and many other resources. In the early nineteenth century, Henry David Thoreau permanently linked Walden Pond -- America's most famous kettle lake -- to the transcendentalist movement. Later, kettles became sources of recreation for thousands seeking release from the rigors of work, all the more after the introduction of the Model T broadened horizons across the country.

Today kettle lakes are crucial links in our fragile freshwater system. Thorson explores how they were formed, how the northern ecosystem stabilized after the late-glacial transition, and the symbiotic relationship that developed between lakes and the plants, animals, and humans that lives in and around them. Each kettle lake tells a story, and in Thorson's hands their collective saga links our natural and human history. Threats to lake quality from overuse and climate warming give us vital insight into the ecological dangers facing future generations.

Robert M. Thorson is a professor of geology at the University of Connecticut and an environmental columnist for the Hartford Courant. He is the author of Stone by Stone and Exploring Stone Walls. He makes an annual summer pilgrimage through the northern states to visit his extended family and his favorite kettle lakes in Minnesota.