The 21 August 1915 Moving Picture World announced that L. Lawrence Weber, acting head of Popular Plays and Players, had "purchased the entire screen rights to all of Mr. [Robert W.] Service's poems," following the success of Edmund Breese in The Shooting of Dan McGrew (see entry), taken from Service's famous poem of the same title. Furthermore, the company would shoot the next two Service-inspired films, The Song of the Wage Slave and The Spell of the Yukon, in and around Fairbanks, Alaska. "Mr. Breese, accompanied by fourteen principals, will leave New York for Seattle, Washington, on September 5, and from thence they will sail for Alaska, to be gone three months, during which time the winter scenes called for by the original scripts will be staged. The sailing date from Seattle will be September 11, and they will arrive at Nome at the beginning of the winter season.....Mr. Breese will take with him two camera men and his own director." It is uncertain whether this Alaskan trip was taken.
       The 30 October 1915 Motion Picture News announced that filming "is already under way, but the final scenes of the picture will not be completed until the snow flies."
       According to the 15 April 1916 Motion Picture News, director Burton King, his assistant Dale Hanshaw, and cameraman Wallace C. Clifton drove north from New York City into "the Sleepy Hollow region. They found all the snow they wanted--more, for their automobile was stalled time and again and it required fence rails, planks, crowbars and jacks to get it out of the drifts." The 29 April 1916 Motography noted that King "has just been handed the scenario manuscript despite the fact that he has made more than a score of the most important scenes in the production.....One of the most pretentious settings is that of an Alaskan gambling house and dance hall."
       Chief White Hawk, "a genuine Sioux chief" from Pine Ridge, SD, appeared in this film after making his debut in The Lure of Heart's Desire, Edmund Breese's previous Service-inspired picture (see entry), according to the 10 June 1916 Motography.
       A dog team used in The Spell of the Yukon was furnished by well-known Arctic explorer Jacques Suzanne, according to the 27 May 1916 Motography.
       Variety gave Aaron Hoffman scenario credit.
       Because Breese's Robert W. Service films were being shot sporadically and sometimes together, trade magazine accounts were sometimes contradictory and confusing. For example, an early item in the 3 July 1915 Motography mentioned that Breese was "working in the final scenes of his second screen effort for the Popular Plays and Players," named as The Spell of the Yukon. Two weeks later, the same magazine cited a release date of 23 August 1915. However, as mentioned above, Breese and his company weren't scheduled to go to Alaska until two months later; also, The Spell of the Yukon was the third release of his Service-inspired series, not the second. The other films, in release order, were The Shooting of Dan McGrew, The Song of the Wage Slave (both 1915, see entries), and The Lure of Heart’s Desire (1916, see entry).
       The Spell of the Yukon opened on Broadway at the New York Theater.
       According to New York Clipper, "The exterior locations of the gold country are impressive and beautiful to a remarkable degree." The 24 June 1916 Motion Picture News noted that many lines from Service's poem were used in the subtitles.
       Service's collected poems were re-issued in 1907 under the new title The Spell of the Yukon.
       The National Film Preservation Board (NFPB) included this film on its list of Lost U.S. Silent Feature Films as of February 2021.