Episode list

Although the Mississippi is often associated with warm Dixieland, its huge basin starts in vast northern territories and freezes with plenty of snow and ice. It provides rich but unforgiving, largely rather pristine hunting and fishing grounds for bears, wolves, lynxes, eagles, otters, owls and humans. When it all melts in spring, huge floods are inevitable.

After an exceptionally long winter when record amounts of snow fell, the thaw in spring inevitably means unprecedented floods in the immense Mississippi basin. Many species adapt rather well, some even benefit, like Carolina ducklings who gets an easy wet landing after their maiden flights, but for many flooded or drifting nests, flooded feeding grounds etcetera mean misery, just as for the human inhabitants.

Joined by the Ohio, which carries a lot more water still, the Mississippi starts diving its water over a wide Delta area. Even spread out, the exceptional flood makes many victims their among wildlife, human habitation and infrastructure. Even when it seems harmless, dissolving in the Gulf of Mexico, the amassed fertilizer it dragged along causes massive fish mortality and algae bloom.