Nahanni National Park or Nahanni Valley is also known as the Deadmen Valley, Headless Valley or the Valley of the Headless Men after the mysterious disappearance of several gold seekers who were eventually found dead without their heads. Although no significant gold was found, legends of the haunted valley and the lost gold emerged after the Mcleod brothers' headless bodies were found in 1908.
This mysterious valley of the South Nahanni River which located in the southernmost part of the Mackenzie Mountains, Canada was among the world's first four natural heritage locations to be inscribed as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO in 1978 because of its picturesque wild rivers, canyons, and waterfalls.
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| Nahanni River. Image credit: Wikipedia |
The first human occupation of the area is estimated to have occurred 9,000-10,000 years ago. Evidence of prehistoric human use has been found at Yohin Lake and a few other sites within the park.
Many tribes were afraid to settle within the region as they believed it to be an evil, haunted place inhabited by various spirits, specters, and devils.
Others described a race of fearsome, hairy giants who dwelled in caves carved from the canyon walls. Led by a beautiful, pale-skinned chieftess, these primitive mountain men killed and ate anyone who trespassed on their territory.
Those who did come here, such as the native Dene Indians believed that the valley was an evil area pervaded by bad medicine- a malevolent, supernatural presence which hung over the place perpetually like its ever-present fog. They told of mysterious creatures lurking in the vast forests, and were plagued by the enigmatic, aggressive, and violent Naha tribe of the mountains.
This Naha tribe was said to consist of fierce warriors who wore masks and armor adorned with frightening imagery and were known to brutally decapitate their victims. Warriors of the Naha tribe were said to be larger than normal men and to wield strange and powerful weapons that no one had ever seen before.
The fearsome Naha tribe itself has become one of the area’s many mysteries, as the whole tribe is said to have suddenly and inexplicably disappeared from the face of the earth, and it has never been ascertained just what happened to them. They have seemingly just vanished without a trace.
In 1905, Frank and Willie McLeod embarked on a mission into the Nahanni Valley in search of The Lost Gold Mine, a legendary lost mine somewhere in the park. Unfortunately they never returned.
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| Frank and Willie Mcleod. Image credit: Nahanni.com |
In 1917, Martin Jorgenson set off into the Nahanni Valley on a quest for gold. Soon after Jorgenson sent out letters claiming he had struck gold, his cabin was mysteriously burned to the ground. The remains of his body were found among the ashes. Just like the McLeod brothers, Jorgenson’s body was found without a head.
In the winter of 1922, the body of a World War I veteran named John O’Brien was discovered on a mountainside not far from the Headless Valley, hunched over a pile of tinder with a matchbook in his hand as if he had frozen to death while trying to light a fire.
In 1945, Ernest Savard, a miner from Ontario succumbed to the same exact fate. His body was found headless in his sleeping bag.
Other men who entered the valley, like trappers Bill Epler and Joe Mulholland, simply vanished without a trace.
Around the same time in the park’s history, a series of unexplained plane crashes earned an expanse of mountains the name the Funeral Range, which borders the ominous Hell’s Gate rapids.
UFO sightings and other strange lights were also reported in the park, and to this day fringe bloggers obsessed with cryptids recount stories of Amphicyonidae—a predatory bear-dog hybrid that went extinct in the Pliocene period—prowling the valley, as well as signs of Bigfoot activity in forbidden parts of the park.
Certain areas within Nahanni are closed to visitors because of their sensitive ecosystems or cultural significance for the indigenous Dene people. But some say the restrictions are as much about containing the park’s supernatural forces as they are about keeping people out.
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