Inside Winter Song: Filming 200 Days of Wildlife in Montana’s Harshest Season

What does it take to film wildlife in one of the harshest environments in the country? In this episode, reporter Taylor Inman sits down with Hungry Horse News editor Chris Peterson to break down his stunning documentary Winter Song - a year-in-the-life look at a small river ecosystem in northwest Montana.

Over the course of more than 200 days in the field, Peterson and his son captured intimate, never-before-seen moments of wildlife surviving and thriving through brutal winter conditions, spring runoff, and the quiet rhythms of summer. From American dippers diving beneath frozen water to rare encounters with otters, wolves, and foxes, Winter Song reveals a side of Montana nature documentaries you don’t often see.

Peterson shares the realities behind the lens—hours of stillness, unpredictable wildlife behavior, technical challenges with gear, and the patience required to capture just seconds of usable footage. He also reflects on the deeply personal experience of making the film alongside his son, the evolution of the project from concept to PBS broadcast, and what it means to tell authentic, place-based stories in an era of polished, big-budget nature films.

If you're interested in wildlife filmmaking, documentary storytelling, Montana’s natural landscapes, or the raw process behind capturing nature on camera, this conversation delivers rare insight from someone who lived every season of it.

Watch Winter Song now on the Hungry Horse News YouTube channel.

Northwest Montana deserves strong news reporting. Your donation helps continue work like this possible. Learn more at dailyinterlake.com/support

Visit DailyInterLake.com to stay up-to-date with the latest breaking news from the Flathead Valley and beyond. Support local journalism and subscribe to us!  Watch this podcast and more on our YouTube Channel. Find us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Got a news tip, want to place an ad, or sponsor this podcast? Contact us!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Winter song is the name of the new Wildlife film created by Hungry Horse News Editor Chris Peterson. Along with his son, Chris spent 200 days between December of 2020 and December of 2021, hugged alongside a riverbank in Northwest Montana, captured the lives of the animals. At the Hungry Horse News Office, Chris talks about his creative process, and why he decided to continue creating the Wildlife documentary. So I'm here with Chris Peterson, the editor of the Hungry Horse News. We're in the Hungry Horse News office in front of this cool display we got back here in Old Mac. So we're here to talk about his new documentary, Winter Song, uh, that follows all of the animals in the river up here in Northwest Montana in a river in northwest Montana. Maybe you can tell us a little bit more about it.

SPEAKER_02 0:43

Originally uh I wanted to do a little just like a a nature film, like the old Walt Disney films, you know, like you watch on Saturday afternoon. And I decided to make it into a like year in the life of a small river in Montana and all the creatures that live there. Uh it took um more than 200 days um of filming, and um most of it was shot from 2020, the winter of 2020 to the winter uh uh well the winter of 2021.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

So just after Christmas um in 2021, but then they went back and filled in a whole bunch of uh footage afterwards. So I actually wrapped it up in like 2023.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

When you're approaching like making a nature documentary, what was kind of your order of operations going into it?

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Yeah, that's just it. You don't you don't yeah, you don't really have an I mean you the goal was to get 15 seconds of decent footage every day, 15 seconds, and you would spend five, six hours, you know, depending upon how long the day was. Now in the wintertime you only had an hour in the film. I mean, there I I say that you know, you spend hours on end staring into holes, and that was not a joke. I mean, because it was a cold winter, and most of the river was frozen over at one point, so there would be holes, and every once in a while something would go up its head out, like an otter. Yeah, like there's there's what there's a there uh there was an otter, beavers, but for the most part, you're just sitting there, yeah. Um, so that was the cool part too. And I really wanted to show, you know, we see all these films where it's you know it's it's all summer and beautiful and easy, but this this film really dives into some pretty significant snowstorms and that kind of thing. And uh there's a little bird called the American Dipper, which kind of threads through the entire story, and um, they're a little gray bird, they're the only songbird that swims on uh that flies underwater. They don't swim, they fly underwater, and uh they eat insects and bugs, fish, even uh fish eggs, which is Indophil. I got one eating fish eggs one day, and I was like, Oh, that's interesting. I would have never thought I did I didn't know he actually what it was eating until I got the footage back. Yeah, and I'm like, Oh, it's eating fish eggs, it's cool.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Yeah, you were able to capture so many cool little moments. What were some of the moments that you saw like that where you were just like, oh, that's making the cut?

SPEAKER_02 3:27

I used a GoPro, which is cheap little for those that aren't familiar with GoPros, you know it's a just a cheap little camera, but it's waterproof. So the dippers were jumping into the creek under the ice and then popping back out with a fish. I'm like, well, I can and they were doing it in such a way so that you could predict when they would do it, you know, because they could what they would go to the same perch. So what I did was I scooted out on the ice and it broke, but that actually proved helpful because I went back and the dippers actually liked where I'd broken the ice.

SPEAKER_00 4:02

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 4:03

So, because there were fish under there that I had released, and they were like, you know, like they weren't they weren't alive fish, they were dead, they were dead. So I stuck the GoPro in a hole, and the dipper jumped in the hole, and that's how I got the footage on the dipper underwater poking around trying to catch a fish. Which was which was um it took uh several hours.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

It sounds like how did you stay warm out there? You didn't, yeah. You did you're just cold.

SPEAKER_02 4:35

Yeah, we were cold a lot, and you know what? Uh um, before I forget, my uh son who's autistic, um he he was a great help.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Is it fun to do this with your son?

SPEAKER_02 4:47

Yeah, because he's a he's a great companion. He's not um for one thing, he doesn't talk. He um he's non-verbal autistic, but that but that doesn't mean he uh but that's not why he doesn't talk, he just doesn't talk the whole lot. He's very quiet, and um, yeah, we have a lot. I think we have a good time.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Good for filming.

SPEAKER_02 5:08

It's great for filming.

SPEAKER_00 5:09

I would be terrible at it because I keep going, hey Chris.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Yeah, exactly. I'm tired, you know, it's not like a typical and he's not a kid anymore, he's 27. But um and he was it took a lot, let's just be it took a long time to get to where he is today.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

So it's it's yeah, so it is a lot of fun. I mean, he carried probably he's he's the assistant director in the credits, and he carried because he carried probably more than half of the gear. The the tripod alone that I used was 26 palms. Oh wow. So the camera in yeah, yeah, and he carried the tripod most of the days. Yeah, and then we would, you know, it's a having done um you know, film film photography for so many years, you know, still photography, uh video's a different animal. Yeah, completely different animal, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

Could you kind of dive into that a little bit? Like what about video? I mean, obviously there's a lot of differences, but what to you were the things that stuck out specifically?

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Well, the the real the big thing with video is that you don't move around anywhere near as much. I mean you just set up uh and sit there. And you really do kind of wait for the world to come to you. I mean, we can we we would definitely move around, but um, but not nearly, you know, like with stills you're there for maybe a couple minutes. With video, we'd be there for at least an hour. Yeah. Typically, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:37

Because it's all about what you can catch like in real time while you're out there, you know.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

So Yeah, ex well, yeah. Everything's coming to you like you. Everything kind of has to come to you. And the river would come in literally the river would bring stories to you. Like there were many times where you know something would float right into the right into the fray, whether it was a beaver or an otter or you know, or swim, you know, you know, it would either swim up the river or it would be floating down the river. And it was really uh kind of a magical experience, really. It's really pretty cool.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Well, I mean, yeah, like you said, it it was it's neat to see um a documentary kind of focus on the winter season here. You know, we have so many beautiful, you know, shots of you know the park and like other places in northwest Montana where flowers are blooming and it's sunny outside, but like the winter's a really special time here, and I think the animals come alive a little bit in a way where you know, like if the river is busy in the summertime, there's not gonna be a ton of animals around where like people are. So everything gets kind of quiet and nice. Yeah, did you notice that or was that or um am I wrong? Bobby.

SPEAKER_02 7:47

Well, you know, um no, it was it's a different it certainly is different uh in the winter. Um but sometimes, you know, the days with the worst weather were often the best days to sh fill.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

So if it was even like in April and May, you know, the weather would be terrible. Um, because you know, you still have snow and glacier in northwest Montana. Um you know, well in the May.

SPEAKER_01 8:17

And there would be days where it would be just miserable, but everything was doing something cool, you know. Yeah. Like there's some footage of a fox, you know, hunting on a miserable day, and oh, I can remember it was not nice.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

So not nice for him. He was probably fine.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

Well, yeah, he was but but uh you know, um, it was so that kind of thing, and then in the summertime, uh it was kind of cool too because you know, all the critters have their kids. Yeah, so like the river router had a baby, which was pretty cool, and then uh, you know, the wolves had a pup, so that was pretty cool. And uh, you know, I was lucky enough to get a little bit of wolf footage. Um, you know, super lucky actually. And um yeah, so it was it was so summers were work even though there's more people around, it was still you know, go time for the wildlife.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Yeah. You've been shooting in glacier and around here for such a long time, you're really great at shooting wildlife. Like, I mean, do you just sit there and be really still, or like what's your secret there?

SPEAKER_02 9:32

Yeah, just sit, be still, patient.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

And you gotta remember we were using a a lens that was about uh uh equivalent of an A-powered binocular. So we're not on top of anything, you know, we're not even really close.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:50

A lot of time. Originally we started out with a uh Panasonic uh called the S1H and S1. I had both um at one point. They're they're really good video cameras, but they had a horrible lot of focus. And there's another thing called focus peaking, which tells you when you're manually focusing, and almost everything in a lot of well, not everything, but a lot of things in video, especially in 2020, were manually focused. So you have this thing called there's this thing called focus peaking, which kind of turns things uh a different color when they're in focus.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

So the edges of something will turn red. Yes, yeah, and it'll tell you if it's in focus, right? Well, the darker it got, the worse the focus peaking worked. So there was there was uh more than a little footage that was out of focus.

unknown 10:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

Just because it the focus peaking didn't work. So I there were days in um when I wanted to throw that camera into that river. Yeah, because you get back and it was be out of focus. Yeah, and like and probably could have used it, but I I tried not to if I didn't have to. It was a very big challenge. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:07

Did you switch to anything else or did that just like I switched to a Nikon?

SPEAKER_02 11:11

Okay, yeah. I bought uh spent another uh like almost ten thousand dollars on a Nikon. Yeah. Which has really good autofocus, very quiet, and excellent manual focus too, which is even more important. At one point in the project, I reached out to a um director or slash producer that I knew from Montana PPS and asked him if he'd be interested in it. And he said, Yeah, sure, we'll take a look at it. So I sent him like a rough cut. He's like, Yeah, you gotta, you gotta, you know, there were certain things I needed to change. Most importantly, I had to put myself in it, which was interesting because I had to, I had shot a little bit of footage of myself in the film in the beginning, and then he's like, No, you gotta change the story just a little bit more. So I had to go back and regrow my beard and then shoot the footage, which was kind of fun, and then I got it all done, and I got a guy to write the music, so it's original music, um, and then I got a guy, I have a uh uh uh a face for radio, and I have a voice for newspapers, and so they told me, they basically told me that no, your voice is not gonna work in this film. Um, so I got a local fella named Bill Dakin, he was a long time real estate agent here, and uh he was he's got a great voice. So Bill was a narrator, and then I took uh all the sound and the music and I made the film and then I took it to uh Toby uh Scott over in Whitefish, who produced Springsteen's work years ago, and uh you want a Grammy for that. Sent it off to my guy at PBS, he's like, Yeah, you hit it. Nice job. Nice, yeah, um, and then I heard nothing. So in November 2025, a friend of my wife's called up and said, Hey, tell Peterson, nice tongue. And I'm like, What? Well, it in the FLM, I briefly stick my tongue up at the camera. Oh, and yeah, and so she's like, Yeah, I saw your documentary on PBS. Cool. So they just aired aired it. They just aired it, they never told me they were gonna air it. I have yet to hear from PBS. So if they're out there, maybe whatever.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

PBS. Have you heard any anything else from anybody about that that saw I run into people who saw it, yeah, and they're like, Hey, I saw your movie on PBS.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

That's cool. I saw you on PBS, and they and they say, but I wasn't sure because that's not your voice. But that was fine. After a PBS thing, we threw it up on YouTube and it's gotten you know a few hundred views that remain. Yeah, but I don't care. I'm on to the next one.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

Is this your first like documentary you've made?

SPEAKER_02 14:14

I've done a bunch of different still projects. I did a project where I photographed the park back in 2009 for the centennial. For glacier centennial, I photographed a park 100 straight days, and um that was an undertaking. Um, so I photo in 2009 I photographed the park for 100 straight days for Glacier Centennial, so it'd be ready for 2010, which is the Centennial of Glacier, and um that went viral that got like seven and a half million views, then a couple other like uh coffee table-ish type of books.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

But you've been working on a new film. What's the new film about? When did you start it? Tell me all about it.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Oh, the the new film is about a ranch in the Flathead Valley that's under a conservation easement by a local family that has five and six hundred UL trees. Probably 25, 30. Wow, yeah, ranging from the Ponderosa Pines are between three and five hundred years old, with you know, even some, you know, like young ones like 200. And then there's uh there's one Douglas fir that's 600, we estimate. Yeah. So it's it's uh kind of a how the family came to the valley and became like the first conservationist type, you know, uh landowners in the valley, and then you know what lives there. So it's it's nature and it's history, and and um just it's just a really cool place. Like this film, we don't really tell people exactly where we are, but a lot of people drive by it every day.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

No idea it's there.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Oh, that's what I was gonna ask. I was gonna pry about where it might be, but uh we'll keep it secret. Have you stopped filming for it? And now you're editing or like reaching.

SPEAKER_02 16:05

I haven't exactly stopped. No, um, we'll probably do some a little bit more, but I would say the bulk of it is is shot. Um probably do a little bit more uh but like in the glacier one. Um this one maybe not quite as many days, but I want to say 80 days in the field. Okay. So I really like to I really like to get into the like you know landscape and really experiment experience it, you know, through the entire year, through an entire season. What was really cool about this one is that uh they allow hunting on the property because it has like trophy, yeah, animals. Um and so everything uh was very skittish, and so you had to it's to a certain degree, which was really interesting. Um so a lot of times I would have to like sit in a blind, and I spent spent quite a few days in blinds, um, filming with Hunter, my son. Yeah carrying the stuff again. Right? So that was pr that was pretty cool. But there were also magical days just like in the first one where like uh there was one really cool day where I was photograp uh filming um uh this Tom Turkey chasing around a hen in the spring. It was kind of lightly raining, and uh whole herd of Elk King right around me and laid down.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

How cool.

SPEAKER_02 17:41

And I am not I'm not in a blind, I'm just standing there. Wow. And I was like, wow, this is this was that was really cool. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

So you know, sometimes something just sitting there, just yeah, that's what I enjoy the most about it is just hanging out.

SPEAKER_02 17:59

I'm I'm kind of past the days, you know. I I think when you're when you first start out as a nature wildlife guy, you know, you don't really have that patience that you have to have. And I think um you really learn, and I learned this actually through um doing um the citizen science at Glacier National Park, believe it or not. And it wasn't so much to do photography with them, you have to the protocol is you have to sit there for an hour, you do your observation. Well, what you learn after doing it for 20 years is that a whole heck of a lot goes on in an hour if you just pay attention. And so I think I brought that kind of value to a filmmaking. The first ten minutes are usually junk because nothing happens. Um, you know, it takes even like the little songbirds, you know, they kinda gotta get used to you, and then they start hopping around and singing.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Winter song is now free to watch on the Hungry Horse News YouTube channel.