A log cabin, equipped with an enormous satellite, overlooks the mighty Yukon River. Frozen solid over the winter, the 1,979-mile-long (3,184-kilometer-long) river is born again every spring with a roar of breaking ice, leaving the villages along its banks susceptible to floods from ice jams.

(Text adapted from and photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "The Untamed Yukon River," July 1998, National Geographic magazine)