Dam at the Second Connecticut Lake, New Hampshire

The Connecticut River flows out of the dam that forms the second Connecticut Lake, in northern New Hampshire. Though there is another, smaller dam on the river a few miles up the river, near the Deer Mountain campground, this is the first major dam on the river, as it emerges from its marshy headwaters at the Fourth Connecticut Lake, just a few hundred feet south of the Canadian border. From here it flows though a series of dams and reservoirs, hydro projects in northern New Hampshire, then at the 45^th parallel, it becomes the border between Vermont and New Hampshire, until it enters western Massachusetts, at Satan’s Kingdom, a few miles downstream of Vermont Yankee’s nuclear power plant. The Connecticut River is the Mississippi of New England, draining portions of five states and more than 11,000 square miles, twice the land area of Connecticut itself.