In real life, Farley Mowat's research in the Caribou changed the way humans understand the wolf species.
Head animal trainer Debbie Coe's advice and warning to the cast and crew was to never look a wolf directly in the face as eye contact represents a challenge in the wolf mindset.
Smiling timber wolves were a problem during filming. The smileys were not actually grimaces but wolves panting. To stop the unwanted look on the camera, animal expert Debbie Coe brought a female Alaskan Malamute to the set, which soon changed the look of the wolves from a smile to a fierce intensity of a mating stealth look.
Nearly a third of the movie's budget went into filming the scene of Farley running with the caribou. Several helicopters flew overhead, herding the caribou, before the wolves were released. The filming took twenty hours a day for a month.
For a period of around four months during principal photography, lead Charles Martin Smith was the only actor on the set.