This movie was filmed "in sequence," that is to say, all of the scenes were filmed in the order in which they appear on the screen.
It took over four years to find financing for the film. No American studio was interested in doing it because it was about religion, so eventually the finance was drummed up from European and Canadian sources. Even with Oscar nominee Bruce Beresford expressing a desire to be at the helm, the Canadian investors were still very hard to convince until Beresford's previous film, Driving Miss Daisy (1989), won the 1989 Oscar for Best Film. The success of Dances with Wolves (1990) was also instrumental in helping the film to get made.
The ferocity of the torture scenes prompted accusations of racism from Native Americans. Prominent among the critics was Ward Churchill, who wrote an article that was heavily critical of the film. However, Brian Moore, who had done extensive research on the subject, had actually toned down the documented violence for both his book and his screenplay.
The length of the river journey was approximately 1500 miles or 2414 kilometers.
One of two movies adapted from novels by Brian Moore that debuted theatrically in 1991, the other being Nicolas Roeg's Cold Heaven (1991). Moore penned the script for this film, but not Cold Heaven.