While this movie version is set in the Pacific Northwest, due to available forested filming locations, the original story by Gene Straton Porter (Freckles) was set in Indiana. Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were all heavily forested, swampy land, most of which was logged and drained for farmland in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Porter was a conservationist, and used the medium of fiction to preserve and promote the land she grew up in. She also wrote a follow-up story, "Girl of the Limberlost."
In the book that this movie is based on, Freckles has red hair and is believed to be of Irish ancestry.
Sarah Chalke's debut.