The film was shot in 61 days in Alberta, Canada, approximately 2,000 miles away from its setting.
Hold the Dark became the first film directed by Jeremy Saulnier without also having written the screenplay. Instead, Macon Blair, the lead actor in Saulnier's Cenizas del pasado (2013), penned the script. "I knew very little about Alaska, and I thought error checkers would catch any mistakes I made," Blair remarked, "But I think Jeremy was more interested in crafting a dark fantasy film than a realistic depiction."
While the original bison population was hunted to extinction, 100 Wood Bison from Canada were introduced to southwestern Alaska in 2015. However, the events of the film occur in 2005, ten years earlier. Other than a small, artificially maintained herd by the Delta River, there are no free-roaming bison in the Alaska wilderness.
Near the beginning, Russell Core (Jeffrey Wright) drives past a North American bison, which has been extinct in Alaska for over 100 years. Although there is a small, artificially maintained herd of bison by the Delta River in Alaska, this is nowhere near the film's setting.
Not a single scene or frame was filmed in Alaska. Instead, filming took place in and around the areas surrounding Calgary, Drumheller, and Kananaskis Country, Alberta, which were used to substitute for Alaska. Principal photography began on February 27, 2017, and concluded on April 26, 2017.