The Horrifying Incidents of the Valley of the Headless Men

There is a place in Canada's Northwest Territories that is as mysterious as it is remote. It's a place that's known for its incredible beauty, while simultaneously having a reputation for something much darker. Some of the names of the areas in the region include Deadman Valley, Sunblood Mountain, and most infamously, the Valley of the Headless Men.

All of these names were supposedly inspired by the events that took place here. This is especially strange when you consider that not a single person lives here, and the only way into the area is by floatplane or by boat up a long winding river. It just seems impossible that so many incidents could have occurred in a place where there isn't anyone, and yet they have.

These are the strange incidents of the Nahanni National Park and the Valley of the Headless Men. As always, viewer discretion is advised. [intro music] The 19th and early 20th centuries were a time of worldwide gold rushes, causing many men to leave their families behind or uproot them completely and move to where the precious metal could be found.

In Canada's Northwest Territories, a region known today as the Nahanni National Park, was one of these areas where gold was discovered, but this area was far more remote than the others typically associated with the time period. Even still, the occasional prospector wandered through the region in search of a life-changing find. Like, for example, in the fall of 1904, brothers, Frank and Willie McLeod, had plans to visit the Nahanni in hopes of striking it rich there.

Accounts of where the men left from vary, with some claiming they traveled from as far away as Edmonton, while other sources say they left from as nearby as Fort Simpson. But either way, they traveled by train, then boat, and eventually by foot through valleys and forests and between mountains, before they reached what was known as Gold Creek. With nothing but a few primitive supplies, traversing the area through a brutal winter may not have been their smartest decision, but they did it anyway, and they were rewarded with exactly what they were looking for when winter was finally over.

The brothers didn't need to mine for long before finding gold, and they quickly returned home with it, but they knew there was more to be had, so either later that year or the following year in 1906, they came back to Nahanni. This time, however, they'd leave home and never be heard from again. After at least two years of waiting for Frank and Willie to return, a third brother, Charlie, decided it was well past time to search for them.

He then gathered a handful of prospectors, and they set off northward up the Nahanni River, which is supposedly a river almost unlike any other on Earth. The Nahanni River travels the length of the reserve, and in many areas, through incredibly deep canyons with sheer rock walls that are up to 3,000 feet (914 m) high in some areas. In fact, these are so high at some points in the day, the sun doesn't even reach the water.

Maybe even more incredibly, the water is also said to be as deep as the cliffs are high. After traveling through this incredible area for about 150 miles (241 km), the group stopped one night to make camp. While surveying the area, Charlie noticed a tree in the distance that appeared to be burned, and when he closed in on it, he came upon the remnants of a campfire.

At the base of this tree, there was a carving that looked like the initials "FM" and "WM", which were the initials of his brothers, Frank and Willie. These had to belong to his brothers; there was just no chance someone else with the exact same initials was in such a remote area. Charlie knew then that they were on the right track, and the group kept pushing up the river, discovering more and more campsites along the way.

After another 90 miles (145 km) of trekking through the eerily barren land, one of the prospectors cut his foot and had to remain by to clean and bandage the wound. After he was done, he set off at a fast pace to catch up to the others. When he finally caught back up to the group though, he came with disturbing news.

On his journey, he had come across another tree that appeared to have been burned, only this one had two skeletons lying beneath it. The search party then immediately turned back and was led by the injured man all the way to the site of the bodies, and what they saw was chilling. Just as the injured man said, there were two skeletons lying on the ground next to a burned tree.

They could also immediately tell that the bodies had been there for a while because there wasn't an ounce of flesh or clothing remaining, due to both having clearly rotted away over the course of years. Even stranger, one of the bodies appeared to have a shattered sternum, and the other was lying with an outstretched arm. There was also a gun just in front of the arm, so it looked as though the person may have been reaching for it.

Also, judging by the state of the campsite and how the bodies were lying, whatever happened to them happened fast, leaving them very little time to react. That, however, was far from the most notable thing about the scene. Upon arriving at the bodies, it was immediately apparent that both the skeletons were missing their heads.

And as clear as it already may have been, in looking around the area for any clues as to who the bodies belonged to, Charlie made a crushing discovery. Nearly buried in the dirt were a wristwatch and a ring that unmistakably belonged to Frank. There was no denying that Charlie had found his brothers.

As tragic as it was though, the scene of the campsite was maybe even more confusing and disturbing. There were so many questions about where the skulls were, how the men died, and why the bodies were positioned the way they were. Unfortunately though, the answers to these questions remain a mystery, and in fact, these are not the only strange things that have happened in the Nahanni National Park.

So what is it about the Nahanni National Park that's given it almost a mythical status online in recent years? Well, for starters, it's kind of what the world would look like if people simply didn't exist at all. The area is just so untouched that if you didn't know any better, you might think you were visiting a completely different planet.

The nearest city is over 300 miles away, and the only way to access the reserve is either by floatplane or by boat up the South Nahanni River. As with the rest of the Canadian North, it's also filled with massive rocky mountains, waterfalls, lakes, and the infamous canyon walls measuring in excess of 3,300 feet (1,006 m). The reserve also covers more than 11,000 square miles, or 30,000 square kilometers, which is actually double the size of Northern Ireland.

This natural beauty though is contrasted with some seriously strange events, and these are reflected by some of the names certain eras have earned in the past 120 plus years. Like, for example, one look at the landscape and you'd never expect to find map markings like "Deadman Valley", "Sunblood Mountain", or "Headless Creek". The latter of which is the more recent name for what was once called Gold Creek as a result of the McLeod brothers' deaths.

The park is also designated a UNESCO World Heritage site, which are areas with cultural, historical, or scientific significance that are legally protected internationally, and it was one of the first four natural sites in the world to earn this distinction. This is because, in addition to its wide variety of landscapes and wildlife, Nahanni is special because of its importance to Native Americans, particularly the Dene people. Beginning around 10,000 years ago, the Dene settled along the Nahanni River and thrived as hunters, fishers, and trappers.

They learned and followed the migratory patterns of the wildlife and seemed to exist as one with nature. Maybe most notably though, the Dene were prolific storyweavers, and the lore they created around the reserve is so revered that more than a few areas of the park are completely off limits to visitors. These stories tell of mythical creatures, giants, secret gardens, and spirits that roam the vast landscape.

Legend also has it that the hot springs were used by giants to cook food, and the Dene would often leave offerings of tobacco to appease both the giants and the spirits of the springs. And along with this lore, the Dene people are big on superstition. Like, for example, wolves were avoided as game because they believed killing a wolf would be the same as if they were to kill the spirits of their grandmothers.

Additionally, firing a rifle at one would ensure that the shooter's gun would never again fire straight. The Dene also believed that their children would die if the men ever returned with an otter or mink, and they had a debilitating fear of the dead. And because of this fear, it was customary to burn down the homes and belongings of the deceased to cleanse the area of spirits.

Now, because of the depth of the Dene lore, it can be difficult to separate fact from fiction when it comes to another tribe that was said to inhabit the area long ago. In Dene stories, a tribe called the Naha were a cannibalistic, warhungry people that would live high in the Nahanni peaks, and organize attacks on the Dene by rushing into the lowlands. The Dene were terrified of the Naha, and based on the stories of bloodthirsty wars ambushing the peaceful Dene, it's easy to understand why.

But interestingly, oral history is all that remains of the Naha. The Dene people say that one day, the Naha just ceased to exist. In other words, they vanished from the area all at once, and this is a theme that continues through the modern day.

The second expedition of the McLeod brothers is just one in a series of similar mysterious and unsolved deaths that have taken place in the Nahanni. About a decade after their deaths in 1917, a prospector named Martin Jorgensen entered the Nahanni with similar dreams as the McLeod brothers, and just like them, Martin found exactly what he was looking for. He found some gold that was going to make him rich beyond his wildest imagination, but his dreams would never become a reality.

Not long after sending word home of his find, Martin's body was discovered outside a cabin he had built, or what remained of it anyway. Horrifyingly, Martin's body was without his head, and the cabin had been torched and burned to the ground. Several years later, another group of prospectors in the 1920s suffered a similar fate, only this time, their bodies were found strapped to a tree, and each had been set on fire.

And each of the bodies was again headless. Then in 1927, a man known as Yukon Fisher was said to have been evading arrest by hiding out in Nahanni. Like the others before him, he discovered gold, but not long after, his skeleton was found headless, rather close to the site of where the McLeod brothers were found.

Then in the 1930s, another man named Phil Powers was discovered dead in the charred remains of his cabin. And while the RCMP officially declared the cause of the fire as a malfunctioning stovepipe, speculation was rampant that something far more ominous was going on. The last time a headless body was discovered in the Nahanni came in 1945, when an Ontario miner was found in his sleeping bag, appearing as if he had no time to react to whatever took his life.

Because of all these strange incidents, while the general area where all of these bodies were discovered is called 200-Mile Gorge, its unofficial name is the Valley of the Headless Men. In addition to all these bodies being found, and similar to how the national parks in the United States have earned a reputation for strange disappearances, the Nahanni has several as well. Like, for example, in the 1920s, a woman named Annie Laferte joined a hunting party that was heading into the Nahanni, which was definitely not customary for the time.

Annie, however, was a proven and experienced hunter, so despite the hesitancy on the part of the men she wanted to join, she was eventually welcomed in. During a hunt one day, however, Annie suddenly and mysteriously disappeared without a trace. The hunting party then turned into a search party, but initially, they never found Annie.

It wasn't until later that a Dene chief reported seeing a naked woman climbing up a mountainside in the distance, on all fours, almost as if she was an animal. This is the last time Annie was ever seen, alive or otherwise. Years later, in 1929, a man named Angus Hall was also in Nahanni with other prospectors, when he decided to go ahead of the others.

However, after separating from them, he was never seen again. Even more strangely, the two men with him also disappeared soon afterward, and their cabin was eventually discovered after it was mysteriously burned down. Many similar disappearances to these have been reported to the RCMP, and even all the way through to the present-day, people still enter the park and simply vanish.

As the early 20th century wore on, things only got stranger and stranger though. When several plane crashes occurred, the area where the aircraft went down earned the nickname Funeral Range, which just so happened to be located along a region of the Nahanni known as Hell's Gate Rapids. Then, in 1962, a pilot named Angus Blake MacKenzie crashed in the Funeral Range area and survived for at least 42 days before he also vanished, leaving behind only his journal.

Another plane that same year crashed in the same area, and the body of one of the passengers was found in the wreckage. The pilot and two other passengers, however, were never seen again. While these mysterious deaths and strange disappearances are already enough to give the Nahanni National Park Reserve its foreboding reputation, the region's known wildlife is mostly predatory with grizzly bears and timberwolves, sitting at the top of the food chain.

But there's some anecdotal evidence that even they might have some competition. With how remote it is, this is one of those areas where sightings of various cryptids have been reported. For those who aren't familiar, cryptids are a class of animals or beings that people claimed to exist, but there's no supporting evidence to suggest their existence.

These sightings include things like bigfoot or the vicious amphicyonidae, which is a dog-bear hybrid that went extinct in the Pleistocene period. And because many of the areas within the reserve are actually restricted as off limits to visitors due to either sensitivity of the ecosystem or the cultural and historical importance to the Dene people, this has led many people to believe there's something more mysterious being hidden. And considering all of this, it's probably not surprising to learn that in the late 19th century, sightings of strange lights and unidentified flying objects in the sky, have been reported in the reserve.

So the next question is, what's really going on in the Nahanni National Park Reserve? The truth is anyone's guess, but theories vary wildly. In communities that surround the park, which, again, are few and far between, Many locals chalk these strange disappearances, deaths, and sightings up to coincidence and the unforgiving landscape within the reserve— and there's some credence to this theory.

Particularly in the first half of the 20th century, much of the Nahanni was unexplored and unmapped, meaning that many of those who wandered into what is now the reserve had little to nothing to guide them out. And some of these areas are so remote and inhospitable that decades would pass before a full and accurate map of the reserve became available. In addition to the terrain and the many potential dangers it presents, visitors also have to contend with the conditions in the Northwest Territories.

The warmer months aren't that much to worry about, but the winters are downright unforgiving for multiple reasons. Obviously, with the reserves sitting in relatively close proximity to the Arctic Circle, the temperatures during the winter months are frigid, to say the least. But, there's something just beneath the surface of Nahanni that makes for both an eerie and dangerous set of circumstances.

In addition to the mountains, rivers, and valleys, Nahanni also has hot springs, if you recall. And during the winter months, the heat from the water mixes with the Arctic air and covers the region in a thick fog. Visitors who find themselves in the reserve during this time of the year can very easily become disoriented and hopelessly lost.

But this alone isn't nearly enough to explain why so many bodies have been found in the region with their heads missing. For answers to this, several theories have been presented— two of which have to do with what the headless men were searching for, which was gold. It's been suggested that those who were found dead encountered rival prospectors who were hostile and attacked them, trying to steal their gold, or they were betrayed by those who they thought were friends, hoping to keep all the gold for themselves.

Another theory that's been put forth is that maybe the Dene people were responsible for these deaths. While they were known to be a peaceful tribe that was friendly to outsiders, there was some discontent with the prospectors looking around the area for gold. Because understandably, if word got out that there was gold in the Nahanni, it would bring more and more miners and change the landscape forever.

Another theory that's been suggested also involves Native Americans, but instead of the Dene, it's been suggested that it was instead the Naha. People have suggested that maybe they never disappeared from the area. And according to the Dene, the Naha claimed the land as their own and treated outsiders as invaders, which they did not take kindly to.

And while, again, there's no physical evidence that the Naha ever existed, it does appear that the headless deaths stopped around the same time the Dene claimed the tribe disappeared. The final theory is one that always surfaces in these cases, which suggests cryptids or UFOs, but unfortunately, these are even less substantiated. Officially, RCMP authorities have essentially ruled each of the headless deaths as animal attacks.

The only thing that is still up for debate from that perspective is if the animals were the cause of death, or they were simply scavengers after the people had already died. Whatever the case, there is actually another explanation that doesn't attempt to explain the deaths, but instead calls into question the validity of the stories. Some have speculated that all the lore behind the Nahanni National Park Reserve might just be an overblown misunderstanding of the events.

An article published by the Vancouver Sun in 1947 sought to set the record straight about the reserve. In it, a nephew of the McLeod brothers, who was also named Willie, was interviewed and claimed that when his uncle's bodies were discovered, they were actually found with their heads still attached. There was apparently also a third man with them on the expedition named Robert Weir, and for a while, he was one of the many who were thought to be missing under strange circumstances.

But in fact, his body was actually found. And when it was, it was clear that he had died of starvation and not at the hands of some mythical or mystical being. The nephew even eventually journeyed to the Nahanni himself and spoke with several Dene people who seemed to have an answer for it all.

He claims that they told him that his uncles ran across a member of their tribe who was known not to be sound of mind, and that the McLeod brothers were killed and eaten by the man. And obviously, as horrifying as that was if it were true, it's far different than what's been portrayed. This article, however, offers very little outside of second-hand reporting and unsubstantiated claims, leaving in doubt what truly was behind the series of headless bodies in the Valley of the Headless Men.

What is known is that there is a massive, untouched area in Northern Canada where many strange things have happened or have at least been reported to have happened. Whether these reflect a rate similar to that of the national average or if there really are an abnormal number of strange disappearances and deaths, is hard to say, but they certainly make for an interesting story. To be upfront about these stories, I went into it quite skeptical about the events, at least as they've been previously portrayed.

But after going through it, there seems to be quite a few strange incidents that have occurred here, even if they aren't of supernatural origin. There seems to be some combination of remoteness, gold in the area, and local legend that have combined to give it the reputation it has, if the stories are to be believed. Anyway, if you made it this far, thanks so much for watching.

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