Continuous public pathways take visitors along the banks of the river

The Upper Charles River Reservation extends from the Watertown dam to Riverdale Park in West Roxbury. Throughout the reservation, continuous public pathways take visitors along the banks of the river, winding through the communities of Watertown, Waltham, Newton and Weston. The reservation links the Upper Charles and its surrounding communities with the Boston and Cambridge pathway system, and, by restoring native plants to the river’s banks, has encouraged a return of local birds and wildlife.

The easterly stretch from Watertown Square to Prospect Street in Waltham is a narrow winding body of water bordered by a ribbon of lush vegetation.  Dams and arching bridges regularly punctuate this corridor. The westerly stretch, the “Lakes District,” is characterized by broad and placid water, undulating forested shorelines, small islands, and a series of intimate coves created by the damming of the river at Moody Street in Waltham.

The Lakes District, hidden in a densely populated region, preserves a natural and wild quality. Visitors can see a variety of bird and animal life:  great blue heron, black-crowned night heron, mallard ducks, mergansers, cormorants, kingfishers, warblers, sparrows, swallows, woodpeckers, muskrats, rabbits, raccoons, mice, painted and snapping turtles, snakes and frogs.

A tree swallow, one of the many varieties of birds to be found in the Upper Charles Reservation

The banks of the Upper Charles River Reservation were the primary focus of the first park land acquisitions of the Metropolitan Park Commission (the forerunner of the DCR). Historic parks such as Hemlock Gorge, Riverside, and Norumbega were created in the early 1900s, and soon became the most popular recreation sites in metropolitan Boston.

Riverside and Norumbega Parks were eventually closed in the early 1960s, following considerable pollution of the river, but from the 1970s an increased public appreciation of environmental issues led to a clean up of the river’s water quality and its banks; five new riverside parks were opened in the 1980s in conjunction with local towns.

A six mile section of the Upper Charles, from Watertown Square to Commonwealth Avenue in Newton and Weston, has been restored as a self-sustaining natural environment. A continuous pedestrian pathway now links the Upper Charles and its surrounding communities with the Charles River pathway system in Cambridge and Boston.