Nahani National Park
With landmarks bearing the names of Deadmen Valley, Headless Creek, Funeral Range, and Hell’s Gate Rapids, you might think twice before planning a trip to Nahanni National Park in Canada. The legends behind these names, though, make the park even more daunting.
Nahanni National Park Reserve in the Dehcho Region of the Northwest Territories of Canada encompasses 11,000 square miles of some of the roughest, most breathtaking scenery on the planet. In 1978, the park became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The park includes part of the Mackenzie Mountain Range, and the South Nahanni River flows through its center. In addition to its steep jagged mountains, the Nahanni National Park boasts geysers, deep canyons, caves, virgin forests, and waterfalls, including Virginia Falls, a 315 ft (96 meters) waterfall, twice as high as Niagara Falls. Something evil lurks in the depths of all this beauty, though.
The Dene people, who have inhabited this area for 10,000 years, consider much of the Nahanni National Park sacred, and many areas are closed to the general public, making the park even more mysterious. Rumors about tropical gardens and mythical creatures abide. The local Dene people believe a malevolent spirit haunts the valley and invades the area like fog. According to local tradition, a tribe of people called the Naha once inhabited the Nahanni Valley. Naha warriors often descended from their mountain homes to raid and pillage Dene settlements. Finally, the Dene braves decided to seek revenge, but when they reached the Naha encampment, they found it vacated. The Naha vanished, and no one saw them again.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, rumors of gold in the Nahanni Valley attracted prospectors to the area. In 1904, Frank McLeod and his brother, Willie, headed to the region from Edmonton, Alberta. Their arduous journey required them to travel by train, boat, and on foot while packing heavy loads. Finally, they reached Gold Creek in the Nahanni Valley, where they found a small amount of gold. Convinced the valley held more gold, the brothers returned the following year. This time, they did not escape the darkness lurking in the Nahanni Valley.
In 1908, Frank and Willie’s brother, Charlie McLeod, led a search into the Nahanni Valley, hoping to learn what happened to his brothers. When he reached their camp, he found two headless skeletons on the edge of the river. One of the men lay with his arm stretched toward his gun. This gruesome discovery earned the creek the name “Headless Creek,” and the valley the moniker “Deadmen Valley.”
The McLeod brothers were not the only victims of the Nahanni Valley. A Scottish engineer traveling in the area in the early 1900s disappeared and was never seen again. In 1917, Martin Jorgensen explored the valley to search for gold. He sent a letter home telling his family he’d “struck it rich,” but they never heard from him again. Five years later, searchers found Jorgensen’s cabin burned to the ground, and his decapitated skeleton sprawled beside the ruins. Like the McLeod brothers, Jorgensen’s head was nowhere to be found.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police confirmed reports of dozens of similar deaths of prospectors In the valley, and many who entered the valley disappeared without a trace. One of the strangest incidents occurred in the winter of 1922 when the body of a WWI veteran named John O’Brien was found on a mountainside near Deadmen Valley. He was hunched over a pile of wood with a matchbook in his hand, looking as if he froze to death while trying to light his campfire. Ominous happenings did not only occur on the ground. Numerous plane crashes into the mountains in the area earned the peaks the name Funeral Range
Were the McLeod brothers and the others killed by an evil spirit, or can their deaths be attributed to a more-earthly cause? Before their murders, a few hunters and trappers in the area reported a third man accompanying the brothers. Did this man murder the McLeods, or did something also happen to him? This third man reportedly arrived in Vancouver months later, carrying $8,000 in gold nuggets.
Albert Johnson, known as the Mad Trapper of Rat River, is another plausible murder suspect. Albert was a strange recluse who lived in a crude log cabin about forty miles from the Nahanni Valley. In December 1931, another trapper complained about Albert to the authorities. He said Albert was tripping his traps and hanging them on trees. Constable Alfred King and Special Constable Joe Bernard obtained a warrant and approached Johnson’s cabin. Johnson shot and wounded King and managed to escape. Johnson was eventually cornered and killed in a shootout, and officers found in his possession several gold teeth from the mouths of prospectors murdered in the Headless Valley.
Albert Johnson might have been responsible for some of the strange occurrences in the Nahanni Valley, but the episodes did not stop after his death. In 1945, miners discovered the headless body of their companion in his sleeping bag, and in 1962, an airplane pilot survived a crash and set up a camp near his downed plane. He had plenty of provisions and believed he would survive until rescuers arrived. He kept a journal of his ordeal and noted the many times he watched search planes fly overhead, but no one spotted him or his airplane. He kept his diary for fifty days, and then, the entries abruptly stopped. Six months later, someone discovered his plane by chance, but the pilot was not at his camp, and no trace of him has ever been found.
In the 1960s, geologists, naturalists, and other scientists began to study the Nahanni region, and many of these scholars returned to civilization with wild stories not easily explained by science. These researchers claimed they saw an enormous, solitary wolf-like creature some believed was an Amphicyon, an ancient carnivore called a “bear dog.” This species supposedly went extinct eight million years ago. Others thought the animal more closely resembled a dire wolf, a prehistoric relative of a timber wolf. The creature also fits the description of a monster from Inuit myths called the “waheela.” Was this waheela roaming the valley, killing humans?
While many of the tales told by those who survived a visit to the Nahanni seem far-fetched, no one can dispute the headless men nor the strange disappearances. To the indigenous people who live near the valley, the Nahanni remains sacred but mysterious. It is a place both revered and feared. Most of all, though, the Nahanni Valley demands the respect of those who tread there.
