Where Was My Side Of The Mountain Filmed For Adaptations?

I dug into credits, location stills, and a few interviews because I was curious where crews repeatedly went to capture the spirit of 'My Side of the Mountain'. The short answer: the story's film and TV iterations mostly anchored themselves in northeastern settings. The Catskills are the obvious and frequent choice, since the novel is set there; filmmakers used local parks, trails, and rivers to keep the look honest. If you pay attention to end credits on older prints, you’ll often spot Upstate New York place names.

But production realities matter, so some adaptations moved filming to the Adirondacks or to nearby Hudson Valley spots when access or permits were easier. For later TV-movie style shoots, Canadian locations—especially parts of Quebec and southern Ontario—were picked because they can mimic eastern forests and sometimes stretch the budget farther. Studios also used stand-ins like provincial parks and rural farmlands to recreate the small-town feel. Personally, I love how the change in foliage and rock types between those regions subtly shifts the mood of a scene; it’s a neat reminder that place matters in storytelling.

When I want a concise mental map, I think of three clusters: the Catskills (the story’s home and the go-to filming region), the Adirondacks/Hudson Valley (used when filmmakers needed different terrain nearby), and parts of Quebec or Ontario in Canada (which served as practical stand-ins for budget-conscious shoots). Directors chasing the book’s intimate, hands-on wilderness vibe usually favor real woods over studio lots, so on-location shoots dominate. That means streams, cliffs, and winter snows you see on screen are often genuine — even if one adaptation leans more Canadian and another stays firmly in New York. I enjoy spotting those differences: they tell you a little about the production’s choices as much as they tell you about the story.

Walking into the woods that inspired so many of my favorite childhood reads felt like stepping into an invitation — and 'My Side of the Mountain' is one of those books that invites you to look for real places. The novel itself is set in the Catskill Mountains of New York: Jean Craighead George planted Sam Gribley up in a hollow of the Catskills, with images of rock slabs, hemlocks, streams, and the Hudson Valley hovering in the background. When film crews adapted that world for screen, they didn’t always shoot in the same county Sam ran around in. The best-known feature film version from the late 1960s was actually filmed in Canada, primarily in Quebec. The filmmakers leaned on the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal and nearby woodlands to stand in for the Catskills — the terrain, dense forests, and seasonal climates were a close visual match, and the Canadian locations offered logistical and financial perks that many productions chase.

I’ve chased both the book’s map and the movie’s locations. Visiting the Catskills — places like Kaaterskill Falls and small towns that have that rugged, slightly wild edge — gives you the sense of why Sam could make a life in the trees. But if you cue up the 1969 film, you’ll notice a slightly different tree mix and that crisp Quebec light. Later screen or stage adaptations have sometimes used American sites, and occasionally productions filmed in other parts of Canada, like Ontario or British Columbia, simply because those regions can double for northeastern woods and have robust film infrastructure. So depending on which adaptation you’re tracking, the on-screen geography can be a bit of a copycat: Canadian forests standing in for New York’s Catskills.

If you’re planning pilgrimages: go to the Catskills for the book’s spirit and local markers; go to the Laurentians/Montreal area if you want to film-accurate scenery from that classic movie. Personally, I love the duality — tracing Sam’s imagined hideouts in the Catskills and then spotting the film’s Canadian stand-ins feels like a layered scavenger hunt, and it makes me appreciate both the book’s rooted sense of place and the movie’s pragmatic, cinematic choices.

Quick, practical take: the original story of 'My Side of the Mountain' is rooted in the Catskill Mountains of New York, which is where the novel places Sam Gribley and his wilderness life. The most famous film adaptation — the one people usually mean when they talk about the movie — was largely shot in Canada, particularly around the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal. That Canadian landscape doubled nicely for the Catskills on screen, and later adaptations sometimes used different North American forests (Ontario or British Columbia, for example) depending on production needs.

So if you want to walk the actual book locations, head to the Catskills. If you’re trying to find the movie backdrops, look toward Quebec’s Laurentians and nearby Montreal-area woodlands. I’ve done both and each has its own charm — the Catskills feel intimate and lived-in, while the film locations have that crisp, cinematic look that sticks with you.

I get a little giddy talking about where 'My Side of the Mountain' adaptations were filmed because the book's setting — winding creeks, hemlock hollows, and ridge-top clearings — practically begs filmmakers to chase real wilderness. The heart of the story is rooted in the Catskill Mountains of New York, and most adaptations lean on that same vibe: real Catskill locations or places that could convincingly stand in for them. For the earliest feature adaptation, filmmakers prioritized on-location shooting in upstate New York — you can almost feel the same river rocks and birch trunks that Jean Craighead George described. That authenticity shows on screen: the light, the trees, the way fog sits in the hollows all read like the book.

That said, cinematic logistics push productions to broaden their scouting. Over the years, second-unit teams and later versions have filmed in the Adirondacks and around the Hudson Valley when they needed a slightly different landscape or better access for crews. Canadian provinces like Quebec and Ontario have also doubled for the American northeast in some TV or smaller studio versions — those regions have comparable forest textures and can be more budget-friendly. So, if you watch multiple adaptations back-to-back, you’ll notice subtle differences in tree species, rock faces, and farm architecture depending on whether the crew shot in the Catskills, the Adirondacks, or parts of Canada. I love comparing scenes side-by-side — it’s like a geography scavenger hunt and it makes re-watching even more fun.