With just Charlie Brown and Snoopy, this Peanuts special has the lowest number of major characters, as well as the lowest number of spoken lines.
The final Peanuts animated special until 1992 to use the famous "Linus and Lucy" theme.
This cartoon was inspired by an article Charles M. Schulz read about husky dogs at the North Pole. He wondered what would happen if an overly civilized dog like Snoopy were suddenly forced to survive in the Arctic with sled dogs.
The first Peanuts TV special focused primarily on Snoopy.
At the time this was the first animated special done almost completely in pantomime.