Belchertown is a small town of green commons and white clapboard houses, and its unusual claim is that it sits beside a lake that was made by erasing four towns. The Quabbin Reservoir, to the north and east, was created in the 1930s to supply drinking water to Boston, a hundred kilometres away. To build it, the state cleared the Swift River valley of its people. The towns of Dana, Enfield, Greenwich and Prescott were disincorporated, roughly twenty-five hundred people were relocated, houses were moved or demolished, and cemeteries were dug up and reburied elsewhere. The valley was filled over several years, and the reservoir became one of the biggest man-made water supplies in the United States.
The result is a strange and beautiful wilderness. The land around the reservoir has been protected for nearly ninety years, and without development it has grown back into dense forest. Bald eagles, reintroduced to Massachusetts in the 1980s, now nest here, and moose and coyotes roam the woods. Visitors are limited to certain gates and paths, mostly on foot or bike, and there is a rule against swimming or fishing from the bank. You can walk the old roads that lead down into the water, lined with stone walls that once marked farms and fields, and the silence is deep. A tower at the park headquarters gives a long view over the water and the forested islands, which are former hilltops.
The roads around Quabbin are quiet, curving gently through woodland and past farms, with a few straight sections and some tight bends where they cross small brooks. The reservoir's edge cannot be followed closely, because much of the shoreline is closed to vehicles, so you ride the rim in pieces, on Routes 9, 202, 32 and the local roads. Frost heaves, patched asphalt and deer are your hazards, with the deer especially active at dusk.
Belchertown has fuel, a few small cafés and a pretty central green, and the nearby town of Ware has a larger choice of shops. The best seasons are late spring, when the woods turn bright green, and early autumn, when the maples colour and the reservoir looks dark blue under the clear sky.