This study was conducted with the support of a grant from the Russian Science Foundation No. 15-18-20047 "Landscape Ontology: Semantics, Semiotics, and Geographical Modeling". The research involves interdisciplinary approach (linguistics, psycholinguistics, cultural studies, history, ethnology, sociology, and geography). The research methods include the method of free and directed associative experiment, the method of semantic gestalt, and the method of questioning. In the article, the authors reveal the image of water elements among residents of Yakutia on the basis of the associative thesaurus of the Yakut language, as well as a social survey among the population of Yakutia. As a result of the study, it was found that in the modern population the image of water elements is closely interconnected with the geo-landscape and climatic features of the studied region. The image of the river in the consciousness of the Yakuts appears as the main landmark in space and has movement and dynamics in time. The image of the ice drift follows from the representations related to the climatic conditions and landscape features of the region, which affect the spring (seasonal) natural elements, as well as the life cycles — dismissal of the past and the beginning of a new life, characteristic of southern Turkic culture. The image of ice drift in the consciousness of the Yakutsk  residents is expressed through the prism of the spontaneity and danger of the river as a whole.