By Jordan Massey
The Wintering Grounds follows the journey of a kayaking community that travels to Columbus, GA, and Phenix City, AL, during the winter months to develop their freestyle kayaking skills along the whitewater rapids of the Chattahoochee River. Shooting for the project began after producer Paige Swift enlisted the help of Emmy-nominated cinematographer Jeff Springer following a meeting in a Dollar Tree parking lot with former National Champion and unofficial “mayor” of this community, Stephen Wright.
“These people go all over the world,” said Swift. “And what he told me was that this was the only place on the entire planet where you can come to an urban area and train on a rapid of this size in the wintertime.”
Swift says that Springer was blown away when he arrived in Columbus. “Not just by the story, the people and the counter-culture of their community, but the footage,” she added. “Shooting 4K on that rapid when it’s up and watching people do Olympic-level gymnastic moves in a little boat was just gorgeous, gorgeous footage.”
The team filmed for about a week in December 2019, after Swift and Wright secured funding through a meeting with local stakeholders. Wright told community leaders that visitors come from across the country and around the world to experience what the documentary calls the “southernmost whitewater in the U.S.”, drawn by both the Chattahoochee River rapids and the region’s southern hospitality.
Springer then returned to Columbus the following February to film for another week. It was around this time that Swift brought on sound mixer Mike Filosa, an Emmy-nominated film-industry mentor based in Atlanta. Swift also hired local filmmaker Joseph Berger to assist with B-camera and drone footage.
A local kayaker lent the crew a trailer parked in the Wintering Grounds lot, which Swift says became their de facto production office, a place to transfer cards, review footage and handle other on-site tasks. It doubled as sleeping quarters for the director. “Had no power, no heat, no water, nothing,” Swift said. “But he’s a trooper like that.”
Most of the documentary was shot on location in Columbus, GA, and Phenix City, AL, though Springer also captured footage in Colorado to contrast winter conditions elsewhere in the country. The film also incorporates 2019 World Championships footage provided by the International Canoe Federation, shot in Sort, Spain.
“It’s hyperlocal to this state and again, just to reiterate, this is a unique feature globally,” Swift stated. “In fact, one of the largest waves in North America shows up here when the water levels are right. They call it the Southern-Fried Stakeout. It’s a 15-foot wave; it’s pretty big.”
The Wintering Grounds has been an ‘Official Selection’ in numerous film festivals across the U.S., including events in Alabama, California, Colorado, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Tennessee, with additional international screenings in other countries such as Canada, Croatia, India and Italy.
In addition, the documentary was a special edition for Mountainfilm International ON TOUR and the Paddling Film Festival World Tour, and broadcast on PBS affiliates WNMU-TV in Marquette, MI, and WABE-TV in Atlanta, GA.
“Honestly, for a very underfunded short documentary, the film did really well on the film festival circuit,” said Swift, adding that the final cut of the project was selected by Mountainfilm to premiere in Telluride, CO, and featured in its 2025 international On Tour Program, with multiple screenings worldwide
“You know, it was an interesting story. I looked into it, I happened to have a professional relationship with an excellent filmmaker who specializes in documentaries,” said Swift. “I mean, I was his production assistant. I chased Jeff around all over that parking lot, over riverbank rocks, and from location to location […], you just have to pick up the camera and run-and-gun. You never knew what the water levels were gonna be, who was gonna be in town or what was gonna happen from day to day, hour to hour.”
Swift and Springer ate a lot of the post-production costs, but Swift stated that a handful of local supporters helped drum up the rest of the money that got the documentary to completion. “We were in the middle of [filming] when we ran out of funding. It was a wild ride, but fortunately, the crew believed in the film and stuck with me,” she added.
According to Swift, although slalom kayaking is an Olympic sport, freestyle kayaking is not, adding that many of these athletes don’t make any money from competing to offset related expenses, and many live in their vehicles full-time. However, when asked if they’d like to see freestyle kayaking featured in the Olympics one day, the answer was a resounding no.
“They’re not interested in that, and I thought that was pretty cool, because they said the Olympics can bring with it a lot of toxic competitiveness and can ruin camaraderie,” said Swift. “To me, that is such a resistance to being a sellout, and I think that’s really cool and rare, you know, especially in athletics.”
Although Swift does not have any plans to begin production on another documentary in the near future, she stated that she does have ample ideas, including the worldwide evolution of kayaking as a sport, if provided the appropriate funding to produce them.
However, she’s still very proud of the impact The Wintering Grounds has had, drawing attention to the unique rapids and a seldom-recognized sport like freestyle kayaking, since their film has been viewed hundreds of times with screenings nationally and globally. “You cannot buy that kind of marketing,” she added.
