Valley of Headless Men – Creepy Nahanni National Park
Nahanni National Park located in Canada’s Northwest Territories is best described as “one of the last truly unexplored places in the world. Lying above the 60th Parallel, it is accessible only by air, water or a long overland journey from the village of Tungsten. As a result, much of the area remains unexplored, despite being declared a national park in 1976, and a World Heritage Site in 1978.”
The 200 Mile gorge has become infamous, due to a number of gruesome deaths and many disappearances, earning itself the eerie name, The Valley of the Headless Men. Anomalies first began in 1908, when the Macleod Brothers came prospecting for gold in the valley. Nothing was heard or seen of the brothers for a whole year, until their decapitated bodies were found near a river. Nine years later, the Swiss prospector Martin Jorgenson was next to succumb to the Valley, when his headless corpse was found.
In 1945, a miner from Ontario was found in his sleeping bag with his head cut from his shoulders. While skeptics of an unknown power at work in the Valley would put the grizzly mutilations down to feuding gold prospectors or hostile Indians, there are other strange happenings in the area which add to the valleys mysteriousness. The fiercely renowned Naha tribe simply vanished from the area a few years prior to the first deaths. Other Indians of the area have avoided the Valley for centuries, claiming an unknown evil haunts it.
The Dene people who lived in the Nahanni for at least 10,000 years prior to the arrival of European explorers in the late 18th century had long spoken of mythical creatures, hidden tropical gardens and rivers that should be avoided at all costs. There may be good reasons for that. At least four headless bodies have turned up in the Nahanni Valley since the early 1900s.
Just as ominous, yet harder to quantify, the general, eerie feeling you get in the Nahanni Valley, that something is off – and it’s looking at you.
Many parts of the valley remain unexplored, and there are tales the Valley holds an entrance to the Hollow earth. Others believe the Valley is home to a lost world, with lush greenery and a tropical climate, due to the hot springs generating warm air, as well as untapped goldmines and wandering sasquatches. While a haven for Bigfoot remains unlikely, one thing is for certain, something strange lurks in the Nahanni Valley.
There are at least five mysteries tied to the Nahanni Valley, but the most famous and likely the one you’ve heard, is the mystery of the headless bodies. That’s where the Nahanni gets its rather creepy moniker ‘Valley of the Headless Bodies’. People have vanished here, be they explorers, miners, plane pilots and others who simply dared set foot in this foreboding region.
More abstract, however, is the Nahanni’s reputation as being a place of evil, where men disappear after going downstream, tribes mysteriously vanish without a trace, giants that cook meals in the valley’s hot spring, and harbingers of doom when that spring is empty.
Frank and Willie McLeod: The First Headless Bodies
In 1904, brothers Frank and Willie McLeod left Edmonton, Alberta and came to the valley in search of gold. Making the journey in a particularly cold winter, with primitive gear, by train, boat and land, they reached Gold Creek and struck gold later that year.
With their fortune struck, they headed back to their home in Fort Liard.
But greed can get the worst of men at times, and the McLeod brothers, unsatisfied with their winnings, headed back to the Nahanni Valley in 1905 for a second expedition.
They never returned. And their fates were unknown until 1908, when their brother, Charlie McLeod, found their headless bodies on the edge of the river – with one of the corpses arms outstretched, still reaching for his gun
Their demise led to the location’s new name: Headless Creek. And the broader region in which it sits, now called ‘Deadman’s Valley’, hints at what happened to the McLeod Brothers some 100+ years ago.
Martin Jorgensen: Third Headless Body
The McLeod brothers don’t hold the distinction of being the only headless bodies found in the Nahanni Valley. In 1917, Yukon prospector Martin Jorgensen went missing shortly after he’d sent notice to his home that he’d ‘struck in rich’ while in the Nahanni. When searchers eventually found his body, they noted his cabin had been burned to the ground – and on a more gruesome note, like the McLeod brothers, he too was found missing his head.
The Nahanni Valley is rich in lore and tales of mythical, sometimes macabre creatures that feast on those who enter the region. The Nahanni Valley Monster is one of them. It’s actually a collection of creatures said to inhabit the Nahanni Valley, including:
Source: Wiki / https://www.abenakiextreme.com
