Mississippi: Earth's Great Rivers

The Atachafalaya swamp is the largest in America, a huge, eerie meandering thing of sinister beauty, like a crazy gothic nightmare. It’s at the heart of the Deep South, just one stage of the immense Mississippi river.

In the final episode of this beautiful series, narrated by David Oyelowo, cameras lead us from the Mississippi’s unlikely beginnings in the frozen Rockies in Wyoming, 3,500 miles upstream. Here, savage winters can last for up to five months and the waterfalls freeze, making them ideal for ice climbing (it looks terrifying).

As the ice melts we glide down river, meeting the fabulously named hellbender salamanders, and watch a coyote try to fish for trout. He’s not very good at it.