Originally a stagehand wore the chicken suit from Jim's hallucination. But when he couldn't mime Sir Charles Chaplin's walk and manners, Chaplin himself donned the suit.
The 600 men playing prospectors were real vagrants from Sacramento, California who were brought in by train and hired for one day's pay.
The "dancing rolls" sequence was so popular with audiences that, in some cases (such as the film's Berlin premiere), projectionists stopped the film and replayed the scene.
An actual American Black Bear was used for the scene where "The Lone Prospector" encounters the beast. This was unusual for the time, when it was normal for very phony-looking costumed men to play large animals.