Director Clarence Brown called the film " . . . the hardest film I ever made." He was in charge of 2000 people in weather that was -60 F in 50-mph winds at 11,600-foot altitudes.
In Alaska, four stuntmen were killed while filming the Copper River rapids scenes, including Jerome Bauten, Howard Daughters, and Ray Thompson, known as "Red," who trained horses for cliff dives. Of the four, two bodies were never found. This is according to the documentary Hazard of the Game (1980) and verified by two stunt men from the scene, one being future producer Paul Malvern. Clarence Brown said: "It was a tough picture. Oh God, it was tough."
When premiered as a two-part roadshow attraction at the Astor Theatre in New York City on 20 March 1928, Part 1 was 66 minutes, followed by an intermission, and Part 2 was 61 minutes. Two sequences were projected on a short-lived widescreen process called "Fantom Screen," a device on rollers by which the screen appears to double in size by rolling to the front of the stage, widens out, then reduces to normal size by retreating back again to its normal position. The transition is achieved while intertitles are on the screen, thus disguising the change.
About 100,000 people set out on the Klondike gold rush, but only about 30,000 made it to the area, and approximately 4,000 actually found gold. Some set up claims and then sold them instead of mining the gold themselves. The next year, in 1899, gold was discovered in Nome on the west coast of Alaska that was much easier to access, so the Klondike rush was over.
Lou Costello was Harry Carey's stunt double in the window scene. He later doubled Dolores Del Río in a scene in which she drove a wagon.