So, for a podcast episode four-part, month-long podcast series, I went absolutely buckwild. I’m talking… heavy duty research, in the rabbit hole. I’m building this write up of my research for people who really want to get their fingers into it and do some reading of their own.
On the podcast episode, I did a highlights reel of the Nahanni. Here I’m going to tackle things a bit differently, but seeing as facts don’t change (though stories do), you’ll recognize some of the information here. There are some things I have elected not to write about at this time, but plenty for y’all to dig into. I have also excised a lot of additional content though that doesn’t have much to do with my research, but I am giving you all the sources and links for if you, too, need to get into this.
Aaaand also, if you’re not into reading the whole thing, you can listen to the episodes on any podcasting platform. I got links!
Meet the valley.
Nahanni National Park Reserve (Nahʔą Dehé) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site globally renowned for its geologic landforms. An incomparable northern wilderness, Nahʔą Dehé harbours sheer granite spires, vast alpine plateaus and, at its heart, the South Nahanni, a Canadian Heritage River. This great-spirit water thunders at Náįlįcho (Virginia Falls) and has carved the deepest canyons in Canada. Natural labryinths of the North Nahanni Karst are among the most spectacular examples of this landform type and the Gahnįhthah mineral springs form Canada’s largest tufa mounds.
The tufa mounds are home to the horizon walker, Yamba Deja, who created Dene law. Visitors are welcomed to the land by the Dehcho First Nations, whose ancestors have called Nahʔą Dehé home since time before memory. Climbers, hikers, paddlers and visitors of all kinds find personal inspiration and connection to this rugged land and its people.
— Parks Canada trying to convince you to go and enjoy this place
The area was first declared a park in 1978, and then due to the hard work of First Nations conservationists, grew to expand the entire watershed in 2009 (11602 sq mi, or 30050 km²). A second, separate park was established in 2014 called Náátsʼihchʼoh National Park Reserve, which covers the headwaters and is managed by the Sahtu Dene and Métis people, and together these two parks effectively protect the entire watershed.
The reputation
The Nahanni has maintained a dark reputation since long before colonizers moved into the area. With the history known and the many mysteries surrounding the valley, as well as how dangerous the valley could be, it was often avoided by the local bands and families that lived around the area.
The reputation grew darker during the prospecting era, due in part to the sheer amount of deaths and disappearances. Of course, being that this is wild country and it isn’t unusual to become a victim of the elements or the wilderness itself, it isn’t strange that so many people have met terrible fates. Just look at the national park noted disappearances— the wilderness takes people. What is strange are the circumstances surrounding the stranger Nahanni deaths and disappearances, as well as the history passed down in the First Nations local to the area.
Just as many people were caught by interest in the morbid stories of the Headless Valley when it was happening, a true crime resurgence into the mainstream has dug back up the stories sensationalized within the past century. If you’re here, you’ve almost definitely heard about it from some podcast or YouTube video, or have seen a forum post lightly brushing over the huge history of the Nahanni.
The South Nahanni River
(By the way, when I say “millenia”, I mean millenia. As of 2021, a geologist named Elizabeth Turner has found fossils of sponge life from 890 million years ago in the mountains of the park, which is 350 years older than the oldest sponges found so far. You can check out a summary of her findings here, or check out the actual article here.)
The river boasts 13 hot springs (most famous being the Rabitkettle and the Kraus hot springs), a large system of around 250 caves, absolutely fucking incredible mountain views, and geographical formations.
Near the end, and the final challenge going downriver, is an area called The Splits. It separates the Nahanni Butte area from the greater Valley and is made of lots of little channels with islands in the middle.
The Four Canyons
The four canyons are the major characteristic of the Valley. I mean. They are the Valley. The four canyons make up most of the length of the river that resides in the Nahanni National Park Reserve, many of which have their own distinct shape.
The First Canyon boasts both the Lafferty’s Riffle and George’s Riffle, challenging bits of white water that capsized boats in the past. The walls of this canyon are 1000m high, made of dolomite. It’s between First and Second Canyons that we enter the Deadmen Valley, where the McLeod brothers tragically died.
The second canyon has sheer cliff faces that rise up 4000ft (1220m), posing a challenge to would-be hikers.
It ends at the Gate, where the rock walls rise above people paddling between its walls.
The third canyon goes through the Headless Range and connects with the Flat River tributary that is often referenced in many of these incidents. It’s a V-shaped canyon with soft limestone, slate, and sandstone walls.
The fourth canyon ends at Virginia Falls. It’s also home to the ominously named Hell’s Gate, or the Figure Eight rapids. When you look up the Nahanni, chances are most of what you are seeing belongs to the fourth canyon, looking up at the Virginia Falls.
There is a lovely way to view the river from a hiker’s point of view using Google Maps, which allows people to take virtual hikes along the river. Click!
Timeline
Geology and ecology out of the way, I know why most people are probably going to be looking at this: the whole Headless Valley thing. Or maybe all of you are here to enjoy this amazing research I did and expand on it. You can cite me. I’m citable (cite-able?). Look at my sources. I couldn’t find a timeline to refer to everything, so I’ve made one myself.
I’m going to be running through these major events chronologically (as chronologically I can, some events not quite pinpointed to the precise year) regarding the major and mysterious events surrounding the Nahanni Valley. Consider this your cliffnotes version. The TL;DR before the big stuff.
(sorry it is so long. We are covering 200 years of history.)
Pre-European contact
The Naha people disappear, believed to have possibly migrated down into the present-day southern United States.
1823
First noted contact by an expedition from the Hudson’s Bay Company, where a group led by White Eyes spoke to a group headed by John McLeod. Note that the Dene people have been trading for some time with individuals.
Further reading on the expansion of the HBC’s trading into the Nahanni can be read in the paper Rivers of Conjecture: The Hudson’s Bay Company and the Exploration of the Far Northwest 1823-1851.
1897
The Klondike Gold Rush begins.
1898
Prospectors attempting to use the Nahanni Valley as passage to the Yukon for the Rush don’t make it out.
1905
Brothers Willie & Frank McLeod leave with companion Robert Weir to go prospecting up the river.
1908
Willie & Frank McLeod are found by their brother Charlie McLeod in what is now known as Deadmen’s Valley, heads removed.
Robert Weir has gone missing.
1910
Martin Jorgenson begins his journey to search for the Lost McLeod Mine.
1913
The remains of Martin Jorgenson are found without a head, and his cabin burned down.
1914-
1918
WWI.
1921
Experienced woodsman John O’Brien is found frozen to death in front of dead campfire, matches in hand.
1922
Nahanni Gold Rush (small).
1926
May Annie Lafferty disappears during a hike, reappearing in one eyewitness account as a feral woman in the woods.
1927
RM Patterson makes the trip upriver, detailed in RM Patterson’s book, Dangerous River.
1929
J.M. Gilroy, Andy Hay, and Angus Hall go prospecting in the valley. Angus Hall disappears.
1931
Phil Powers goes missing.
1932
Phil Powers’ burnt cabin and charred skeleton are found.
1935
Bill Eppler and Joe Mulholland disappear after being flown into the Cirque of the Unclimbables. Come spring, Jack Mulholland goes looking for them. Discover a burnt cabin.
1936
May
Signs of men living along the river are uncovered and attributed to the missing Eppler and Mulholland.
1939
WWII.
1940
William Gilbertson found dead in his cabin.
Holmburg disappears.
Gus & Mary Kraus begin living at what is now called the Kraus Hot Springs.
1945
The body of Ernest Savard is found.
1946
Frank Henderson and John Patterson set off for the Nahanni. Patterson goes missing.
1947
Vancouver Sun journalist Pierre Burton, Sun photographer Art Jones, pilot Russ Baker, and plane mechanic Ed Henratty set off on an expedition through the valley looking for the fabled tropical valleys. Return unscathed.
1949
The body of Shebbach is found, and it is revealed the man starved to death.
1957
The body of Leonard Bunchnik is found.
1958
Mel and Ethel Ross travel up the Nahanni and film their travel documentary, Headless Valley.
1962
Angus Blake MacKenzie disappears.
Kenneth Stockwall flies in Victor Hudon, Gunther Goertz, and Henry Busse. The remains of the plane and Hudon’s body are found later in the year.
1963
June 22. Martin Wuethrich, Fritz Weismann, and Wolfgang Mihncke go missing.
August. Wuthrich’s body is found at the Figure 8 rapids, believed to have passed prior to being in the water. Companions never found.
1978
Declared the first UNESCO World Heritage Site, noted to be valuable in its preserved natural beauty.
Located along the South Nahanni River, one of the most spectacular wild rivers in North America, this park contains deep canyons and huge waterfalls, as well as a unique limestone cave system. The park is also home to animals of the boreal forest, such as wolves, grizzly bears and caribou. Dall’s sheep and mountain goats are found in the park’s alpine environment.
— UNESCO’s description
1980
Spiegel magazine finances a trip for former paratroopers to stay for one month. They disappear after a few days. Rescue team also disappears.
I found no source for this information except for those referencing the forum post that generally pops up when you search for the Headless Valley, so I can’t really throw my backing behind this information here.
1987
The South Nahanni River is declared a Canadian Heritage River.
2005
Frederick Hardisty and David Horesay go missing and are found deceased along the North Nahanni. See article.
2009
The Nahanni National Park Reserve expands to include the whole watershed.
2012
Parks Canada and the Sahtu Dene and Metis of Norman Wells and Tulita agree to establish Nááts’ihch’oh, located within the Sahtu Dene and Metis settlement region, including part of the headwaters of the Nahanni River.
Pre-European Contact
Prior to European contact, the local Dené bands enjoyed a mostly peaceful, nomadic lifestyle that followed the movements of animal migration routes. The different family bands would meet up on several occasions every year to trade and celebrate.
A major exception were the raids from other bands, notably the Cree people southward and the Naha people in the mountainous area along present-day South Nahanni River. That said, a major event passed down in oral tradition among the Dene notes that the Naha simply… disappeared.
Along with the more peaceful Dene, the local oral history contains many references to the Naha tribe, a mountain-dwelling people who used to viciously raid settlements in the adjacent lowlands. When the Dene in the valley finally decided to strike back at their Naha rivals, they sent scouts to find the Naha settlement in the mountains of current Nahanni National Park Reserve. They found it by going through horseshoe canyon nearby Tło Dehé (Prairie Creek). It was a secluded, difficult to access location. The Dene returned home and fetched their warriors and then lay in wait until nightfall, preparing their attack. In the middle of the night they surrounded the Naha settlement on all sides, sneaking closer and ready to strike. Once they were right alongside the teepees, they hurriedly threw open the tent flaps, weapons at the ready and…no one was inside. Silence. Fires were smoldering, sleeping bags were laid out, but there wasn’t a single human around. They had disappeared completely. Eventually word spread from the far south desert-country that a group of people had suddenly appeared and started living down there. Present day similarities between local Dene dialects and the Navajo language in the southern United States has led to speculation that the Navajo are descendants of the missing Naha.
Parks Canada, Culture and History
Now, while I have been digging around, I remembered that I came across this little factoid before while reading out and about before. There have been comments from Navajo people around the internet speaking about a “Navajo of the North”…
The Dene language groups (also called “Athabaskan”, assigned by Albert Gallatin in 1836 classification of the languages of N. America) are notably concentrated in the northwest of the North American continent, where our Dehcho bands are located and extending back toward the Bering Strait.
You can see that there are pockets that descend along the west coast and a fairly large concentration of related language families along the Mexico-United States border. This is where the missing Naha are theorized to have traveled after their swift disappearance.
Transitioning period
In the 1800s, Dene people began to establish permanent settlements close to trading posts, many of which were established by the Hudson’s Bay Company. Trading with the company made trapping a much more common practice for the Indigenous population, as HBC was a major fur trading business that was expanding into the North American lands to secure more trading opportunities. Even unsettled groups that still moved about would come down the rivers to trade furs.
We can go on for years about how the Hudson’s Bay Company shaped Canada and how it was the main colonizing force across the north of the North American continent, but people far better equipped than I have done a much better job. Here’s a few little notes on it for people who are going to dive into that rabbit hole:
- How the Hudson’s Bay Company shaped Canada’s history— and it’s borders
- The Untold Story of the Hudson’s Bay Company
The practice of trading tipped the balance between different native bands, to the point where an entire portion of the Dehcho region’s people were dubbed the “Slavey” people because of the increase of Cree raiding on the population using guns instead of traditional weaponry. Considering I think that’s a fucked up name, and they don’t use that name to refer to themselves, we’re not going to use that term, thanks.
The area was a classic demonstration of the HBC’s effect on First Nations populations, bringing about a lot of inter-marrying between cultures and an acquaintance with the land that relies on these relationships heavily.
Gold n Shit
What does the Klondike Gold Rush, based in the Yukon, have to do with the Nahanni Valley? Well, check this map out:
That’s the three main routes that potential prospectors (STAMPEDERS) were taking to get to the heart of the Klondike Gold Rush, Dawson City.
And for those people who haven’t been studying a million billion maps of the Nahanni and don’t yet have the shape and placement memorized, I’ve got this for ya:
It is awfully tempting to try to boat up this river in the hopes of getting to Dawson City, considering the All-Canadian route was so fucking long.
The Canadian routes caused considerable grief to argonauts. The Edmonton Trail was highly touted in Edmonton by those who believed that this Canadian route would protect travelers from exorbitant transportation charges and “get-rich-quick” merchants in Seattle, Skagway, or along the Yukon. It was easy enough to trace a line on the map showing a pleasant water route via the Peace River, Athabasca River, Lane River, Great Slave Lake, Mackenzie and Porcupine rivers to reach Fort Yukon on the Yukon River. Of course, the distance of 2,600 miles was a notable impediment. An overland route was also offered from Edmonton. This involved a trek of 1,446 miles for travelers across Peace River, to Fort St. John, along the Finley and Kechika rivers to Watson Lake, thence along the Pelly River to Fort Selkirk.
—National Park Service
From 1897 forward, gold fever was something passed around like the common cold. Or perhaps I’m biased because I’ve been knees-deep in frontier stories, just watching people spend literally their entire lives in search of gold. Or. Well. There were 100,000 people going up north just for the chance to prospect. That’s like if the entire population of Albany, NY decided to go mining in Canada. The logistics nightmare is absolute nuts.
Gold lust was what primarily drove men into the Nahanni, which had its own gold rush in miniature during 1922.
The Lost McLeod Mine
The chase for gold started in the Klondike years, but the gold that called people to the Nahanni was part of the fabled Lost McLeod Mine. Métis brothers Willie and Frank McLeod made several trips along the river in search of gold, ultimately branding the mountains with their legacy since their untimely deaths.
The pair was part of a large family based in Edmonton who embraced the native side of their heritage— many people attributed to them a wealth of experience moving and surviving in the bush.
Their search started in 1903, when their brother Fred McLeod informed Willie about two Nahanni men who came from the valley and paid him in gold nuggets. Fred worked at the time with HBC at a trading post, and seeing this only a few years after the mass pilgrimage to Dawson City certainly got his attention. Willie felt the same; he grabbed his brother Frank from his post in Fort Nelson and they both went running off into the valley. They came back with plenty of gold, some of which they saved, some of which they made into a gold watch chain for their brother Fred, and some of which ended up being gambled away.
The quick dissipation of their gold led them to try again. In January 1904, the two brothers grab another brother, Charlie, from Edmonton. After this, everyone I’ve read expressed confusion as to why they had to go and take the most convoluted path possible:
- Starting in Edmonton,
- They took a train to Vancouver,
- a steamer to Wrangell, AK,
- freighted to the frozen Stikine,
- used a dogsled from the Stikine River to Telegraph Creek, with two brothers focused on breaking the trail ahead of the dogs in snowshoes,
- where they headed past the Dease Lake,
- down the Dease River,
- went up the Cassiar Mountains,
- across the Liard Plateau,
- and finally in spring ended up at the upper Flat River (connected to the third canyon)
Once finally there, they were ready to rock and roll. They bumped into another prospecting group, all First Nations men from varying bands— Big Charlie, Bobby Babiche, Diamond C (I also saw it spelled once as Diamond See, which makes sense considering he got the nickname in the Klondike Gold Rush), Captain, and Iron— and these men already had gold on them. They showed some of their loot, some of which were large enough to be worth $3.
(A quick aside: $3 in 1914 (my calculator can only go back so far) is the equivalent of $79.29CAD in 2024.)
The McLeods asked them where they found the gold, but the other group wasn’t forthcoming with information. The brothers assumed that the quiet on behalf of the First Nations men meant the gold was close at hand, and spent a few weeks prospecting until they ended up at Bennett Creek (later called Gold Creek) (because of gold) (gold). They managed to find placer gold in the creek using sluice boxes.
Nienetwiler, CC BY 2.5 CH, via Wikimedia Commons
Nienetwiler, CC BY 2.5 CH, via Wikimedia Commons
Note in this photos the length that sluice boxes can reach in industrial operations. It’s the water-filled boxes people often imagine when they think of old mining operations. Now imagine making a boat out of them, because that is exactly what the brothers did when it was time to start making their way out of the valley.
With winter coming up and rations short, the McLeods decided to get on out with what they had and come back another time. They used sluice boxes to build a boat to try to ride down the river, where they ended up capsizing on the Cascade of the Thirteen Steps. This cost them the rest of their supplies and a vast majority of their gold, leaving them with a mere 10oz or so in a tiny bottle.
The three brothers did manage to eventually make it down to Fort Liard, worse for wear— described as “gaunt and emaciated”— with barely anything to show for it.
They resolve then to take up jobs with the HBC to try to earn a grubstake to fund a return journey and make up for those losses.
Come 1905, Scottish steamboat engineer Robert Weir rolls into town and notices that Fred McLeod has a gold watch chain dangling from his pocket. That’s some pretty rich shit, and Weir asks Fred where he got it. Of course Fred mentions his brothers’ score in the Nahanni, and Weir is immediately on board. The man breaks his contract with HBC to find Willie and Frank, and the three of them go back into the Valley come spring to go prospecting.
It isn’t unusual for men to spend over a year in the Valley, especially experienced woodsmen like the McLeods. Everyone assumes that the men are taking their time, wintering in the Valley, and will come down when they’re ready.
Until someone spots their abandoned canoe floating amidst the driftwood piles and lets Fred know that things are probably not well for his now missing brothers. Fred sends a missive to Edmonton in spring of 1907, and so Charlie and brother Danny McLeod make the journey to the area, arriving in 1908.
They assemble a search team: Poole Field, Sgt. Joy of the Royal NW Mounted Police, and “two of the Lafferty boys”. They take off in May to canoe up the river to search for Willie and Frank. In the area between the first and second canyons, they spot signs of people in the area. On approach, they find a split dogsled runner with the words, “We have found a fine prospect” carved into it, as was the habit of one of the brothers.
And then they find a camp.
On either side of a long-dead campfire, beneath two rotting woolen blankets and atop beds of spruce boughs, lay a pair of human, adult, male skeletons. Both bodies, to the horror of their discoverers, were headless. One of them lay on its back, rolled neatly in its blanket, as if its former owner has died in his sleep. The other was sprawled out on its chest, its blanket twisted about it haphazardly, one of its bony arms reaching out towards a rusted rifle which leaned against a nearby spruce tree.
— Hammerson Peters, Legends of the Nahanni Valley
The alternative tale speaks of the men bound to a nearby tree, still very much headless skeletons, though this version is the more widely accepted one per the nephew, GM McLeod’s, interview to the Calgary Albertan in Feb 19, 1947.
Charlie and Danny buried their brothers without their heads, having identified them by their distinctive clothing— Willie had a gold ring, and Frank had himself a gold pocket watch that was dangling from a tree branch nearby. As everyone searched the area for signs of what may have happened, they found that the mining equipment was missing, though supplies remained. The search party even found a box of gold-bearing quartz with the bodies, indicating that they did indeed manage to find some gold.
Notice, now: where the fuck is Weir?
There’s no sign of the man, leading most to believe that Weir killed the brothers in cold blood to steal the gold and run for it. This was assumed by both the RCMP and everyone with an ear out for the news until 1910, when the RCMP declared that there was, in fact, no foul play involved.
A skeleton was found along a tributary of the South Nahanni, and the RCMP declared it to be Robert Weir. With that in mind, the investigation was closed. The removal of the heads was likely due to animals, they said, and besides, the men probably starved to death. It’s not an unusual circumstance, after all! Even Albert Faille and Gus Kraus threw their two cents in, saying that the Nahanni probably took their boat and supplies like last time and it ended in natural, non-murder deaths for the pair.
Except that some, especially Charlie McLeod, still believed Weir to be alive. He made it no secret, and his story was picked up and very much embellished by historian Philip K Godsell. According to Godsell, Charlie McLeod made a journey that was hot on Weir’s trail, dogging the man for weeks and following rumors from Telegraph Creek, to Prince Rupert, to Ketchikan, and then finding the man in Vancouver to extract information about his missing brothers from a drunk and boisterous Weir. Armed with the information he managed to get from Weir, he finds the bodies and vows revenge, only to find that Weir disappeared a second time and Charlie McLeod has to put revenge on ice until opportunity arises years down the line. He retires to a farm in Alberta and has the good fortune of hearing about Weir living close by, under an assumed name. Charlie takes up arms again and tracks Weir to a farm, where Weir promptly climbs up a haystack, sets it on fire, and shoots himself in the head for good measure.
According to Charlie McLeod, though, the end of Weir was much simpler. The pair happened to bump into one another in Edmonton at a trading post.
According to these versions, sometime around 1926, Charlie McLeod entered a trading post outside Edmonton which specialized in the acquisition and sale of fox pelts. While browsing, he sparked up a conversation with a stranger who was similarly examining the store’s wares— a man who looked vaguely familiar. Before long, the conversation gravitated towards the North Country, then to the Nahanni Valley, and finally to the deaths of Willie and Frank McLeod. “As a matter of fact,” said the stranger in a conspiratorial whisper, “it was me who buried those fellows.”
Charlie, his face grim, gripped the man by his arm. “I hope you’re joking, mister,” he growled. “I’m their brother, Charlie.”
—Hammerson Peters, Legends of the Nahanni Valley
It ends much the same as Godsell’s action-packed version: Charlie pursues Weir to a farmhouse, where the man scurries up a haystack and accidentally starts a fire as he shoots himself in the head, burning his body along with the barn.
The Following Incidents
Martin Jorgenson
Sometime in 1909 or 1910, depending on the source (you’ll see this a lot with earlier stories), a Norwegian prospector by the name of Martin Jorgenson went into the Nahanni Valley to search for gold. The man disappeared into the valley and two years later send a missive that brought Poole Field into the Valley to look for him.
Now, there’s a few different stories and variations about Martin Jorgenson— some say he was always partnered with Poole Field, as RM Patterson’s book Dangerous River claims, and another version that pairs him with Billy Atkinson, noted in Hammerson Peter’s Legends of Nahanni Valley. There are different details around his exact condition in death. There’s even disagreements on the fate of the man’s gun. As prospecting stories go, this is a standard, so I encourage readers to go about doing their own digging alongside this long-ass article.
Now, Martin Jorgenson goes out along the Nahanni after putting together an outfit at Poole Fields’ shop, and builds himself a cabin near the mouth of the Flat River, which is a tributary that intersects with the Third Canyon of the Nahanni. He spends years out there living off the land, prospecting, and eventually finds something good. He draws up a map, taps a Dene man named Jules to drop it down at the HBC post in Pelly Lakes, and bids his partner to come quick.
Regardless of which man was truly Jorgenson’s partner, the letter and map end up in Poole Field’s hands between 1912 and 1913. By 1914, Poole Field gets his own outfit together and grabs his Dene partner Oskar to start heading up the Valley to try to find where Jorgenson is. The pair end up traveling up to the Virginia Falls and spending a winter there, catching game and gathering pelts. They go back down the river to trade them out and try again in 1915.
This time, again, no one really agrees on who went with Poole Field. Oskar? His wife, Mary? Billy Atkinson? Olaf Bredvic? Ultimately it doesn’t really matter. Poole Field and co go right back into the valley to find Jorgenson and see what prospects he found.
They didn’t find the man alive and well.
What they did find was a burnt down cabin, Jorgenson dead and reduced to bones, and maybe a bucket, and maybe a gun. Poole Field wrote a letter about it in July 14, 1939:
After rooting around for a while there seemed to be a pretty well cut our trail leading up the river so I started following it out. About fifty yards from the cabin there was a bunch of large spruce and the trail made a short turn around it. Just here I found an axe in the trail. I picked it up and just around behind the tree I found Martin’s bones or what was left of them. His gun lay close by, loaded and cocked. We never found his skull, all tho we stayed all next day to examine the place well.
— Yes, Poole Field wrote “all tho”. sic sic sic
Poole Field and co buried Jorgenson and marked his grave with a wooden cross before going to Fort Simpson and reporting it to the Mounties there. The Mounties went to do their own investigation, though results came out inconclusive, and no record apparently exists of the man (as you can see in the letter below).
As to Jorgenson, we have no file or record of such a person being reported missing in the South Nahanni Country. In all probability a man by that name could have made a trip into that country and, like many other prospectors and trappers, returned to the outside safe and sound.
— RCMP letter to RM Patterson, author of Dangerous River
Jorgenson’s cabin was the first of several to be burnt into ashes, and there is still debate as to the condition of his head.
John O’Brien
On January 27, 1922, a pair of trappers were living on the Jackfish River, another tributary off the South Nahanni. One is unidentified, and the other is named as John O’Brien. O’Brien was a WWI vet, a hardy man who went this day to check on his trapline.
He did not return. For two weeks he was out there, and the stories debate on if his partner even bothered to look for him or not. A month later, though, Jack LaFlair and Jonas Lafferty, experienced frontiersmen, learned that O’Brien was missing and came by to see what could be found.
Concerned, they followed his trapline and found the man at the very end, frozen and dead. He was sitting with matches in his hand, apparently working to light a fire, and simply… dead. Again, no one can seem to agree on the condition of his head, though I found one account that said the man had a smile on his face.
May “Annie” Lafferty
In the summer of 1921, May “Annie” Lafferty was in the bush with Poole Field and his wife, Mary, along with a few Dene trappers. She was Mary’s younger cousin, described in Legends of the Nahanni Valley as neurotic, a girl who “often pined for her home and family while on the trail”. They had wintered in the valley and were on their way out.
Per Al C Lewis in his book Nahanni Remembered, based on what his partner Harry Vandale had noted, “Very often she appeared to be quite depressed and wanted to be back with her folks at Fort Simpson.” There’s a note where she had been acting erratically for a while before they began to leave the Valley.
As they hiked down the Mary River (named for Mary Field), they realize that May has simply… vanished. They pause, sure that the nipped off into the bush to relieve herself and would be coming right back. Except… she didn’t. Mary grew concerned and stopped the expedition, urging everyone to go after the girl.
Poole Field, along with his entourage consisting of Diamond C, Boston Jack, Charlie Yohin, George* Tesou, and Big Charlie (some familiar names here!), begin to track the girl. All of them, again, are very experienced woodsmen and hunters. They follow her prints away from the trail, noting that as they followed her for the next few days, she was stripping down.
Her clothes would be found along the track, and everyone was growing increasingly incredulous. The mosquitoes alone were voracious, and they couldn’t imagine why May would be stripping down and running wild like this, leading them on a circuitous route toward the mountains.
Once they got to the cliffs, they find that the girl had climbed her way up a route that the men pursuing her could not. According to Dick Turner in Nahanni:
About the fifth day the hunters came to the bottom of a very rugged cliff, which was actually the side of a five thousand foot mountain. Her tracks were visible at the bottom, but they could find no sign that she had turned to the left of the right. Poole said there was just no way that any sane person could possibly have gone up that wall of rock. There was an indication that she might have tried, for there was a narrow shelf-like ledge up for a hundred feet or so. Some of them went part way up but turned back. Poole thought for sure they had come to the end of the trail, but they worked their way round to the top and sure enough, there was her track again heading south and east. Sane or not, she was heading in the direction of her home, which was Simpson.
There are several conflicting reports surrounding this story, most notably being that some add a little extra to the story, or conclude that “May” and “Annie” are two different people. The ages change quite a lot as well.
The little extra bit? A newspaper article from 1933 detailing an account from a man named Charlie who claims to have seen May out in the wilds, naked as the day she was born, clambering up a mountainous hillside on all fours. Her expression was “like a woman possessed”. Of course… I can’t seem to find that article, and I wonder what weight it would have in this when the regular story accounted for in historical documents is enough.
A truly odd occurrence, I’m of the belief that this one was an unfortunate demonstration of untreated mental illness.
*Although I found a photo of him labeled as Paul Tesou in Dick Turner’s Nahanni.
The Yukon Fisher
One of the known outlaws living in the Valley, the Yukon Fisher was an elusive and reclusive man. Rarely he was seen doing trade in remote trading posts such as Poole Field’s store, and rarer was he seen out in the bush.
According to Poole Field, the Yukon Fisher “had developed the senses of a wild animal as a result of his primitive lifestyle, and could easily tell a moose, caribou, bear, and man apart from the sounds they made walking through the brush.” Poole also claimed he paid for everything in coarse alluvial gold— which some sources state he must have availed from the same strike the McLeod brothers found.
Only known by the name of “Yukon Fisher”, he was on the run from what he had believed was a murder. As seems to happen often in these frontier stories, he smashed a man— the bartender, in the Yukon Fisher’s case— over the head with a glass bottle. He assumed he killed the bloke and ran off to live in the Valley. Some years into his self-imposed exile, Jules— yes, the same man who tracked down Poole Field and co. to hand off Martin Jorgenson’s map— tracked him down to let him know that he was off the hook seeing as the bartender was alive and well. The Yukon Fisher called bullshit and continued to live in the valley.
In 1928, his body was supposedly found by none other than Charlie McLeod while on an expedition financed by a prospecting company (Northern Aerial Mineral Exploration Ltd)(I hate the name). Charlie and company noted that they found a “headless skeleton of a giant white man” on Bennett Creek, with his rifle bent and cabin in ruins. As they investigated, they found axe cuttings that they dated to around 1913, meaning the Yukon Fisher had likely been dead for about fifteen years before anyone realized.
Angus Hall
In 1929, the Nahanni experienced another miniature gold rush after the departure of Raymond Patterson and Gordon Matthews. The pair were suspected to have found gold, and the gold called in a small rush of potential prospectors.
Notable among them are a group of three: JM Gilroy, Andy Hay, and Angus Hall, all described as big brawny dudes with enough experience to know better than to get absolutely screwed out on the trail. Especially Angus Hall… though Angus Hall was a bit eccentric compared to many of the others we’ve looked at before.
The man was part of plenty of prospects before, and he had come to the conclusion that traveling light was the best course of action for him. The man was so into it that he brought a dog to pack additional supplies, so that he didn’t need to pack it himself in addition to what he had.
This didn’t mesh well with his two partners as they trekked into the Valley. The pair were carrying the usual loadouts of prospectors, with plenty of rations to last them, which slowed them down a great deal. Angus Hall complained enough about it that the three had an argument that ended with Hall deciding to go on ahead to Bennett Creek. Hay and Gilroy only catch sight of him twice more in the distance before losing track of him completely. Of course, they aren’t worried. This man is experienced!
The pair left behind meet up with a few other prospectors on the trail and they decide to share a meal and get to Bennett as a group. On arrival, though, there’s no sign of Angus Hall or his dog but for a single footprint.
One man, years later, claimed that there was a bit more to the story. Billy Clark, in an interview with Parks Canada, said that there was a note left near Landing Lake from Angus Hall. It was left in a communal cache and detailed what he had taken. In the tradition of the light load, he only took some rice, a bit of flour, and a pound of rendered fat.
Phil Powers
In about 1932, a writer from Peace River named Ms. Swenson arrived at Nahanni Butte to meet her fiance, Phil Powers. They had agreed to meet there after his foray into the Valley so that they may travel to Fort Simpson and get married. Unfortunately, he did not show, and Ms. Swenson went to the local trading post to ask for help. She ended up convincing Jack Stanier and Billy Clark to try to bring her upriver to find the man. They only managed to get to a trapper’s shack before the Splits before they had to turn around due to the high waters.
On return, she asks the RCMP to go looking for him. They send Constable Duncan C Martin and Special Constable Billy Edwards to Nahanni Butte, where Poole Field and Albert Faille join them. The four men make it up to Phil Powers’ trap line, finding the skeletal remains of fox and lynx that had never been recovered. Then they find a sawed off 30-30 carbine rifle laying on the riverbank. And then his canoe among driftwood.
And then the cabin.
Just like Jorgenson, the cabin had been burned down to the ground, with only his cache left standing a short distance away. RCMP determined that the cabin must have burnt down in 1930 or 31, nearabouts when he arrived, and according to Gus Kraus, nearly nothing was left except for a ruined log and some porcelain kettles that melted together in the heat of the fire.
The bones of Phil Powers were found nearby. No one story can agree on the condition of his body— one states that the man’s body was crisped and his bones were destroyed, leaving behind nothing but charred bits and his gold fillings. Some stories claim that his head was found at his feet, with a set gun for trapping nearby— a gun with a wire on the trigger.
The most curious bit of this, though, was the message left behind by Phil Powers. Nailed to the cache was a message written in pencil: “Phil Powers- his finis Aug. 1932”.
No one was certain of the cause of his death, but it was a common conclusion: it was no accident. As Dick Turner said, “I Have since thought that if a man of that calibre could make a serious mistake in the bush, then God help the rest of us.”
Bill Epler and Joe Mulholland
1935: Bill Epler and Jack Mulholland, longtime partners and Nahanni residents, joined forces with Jack LaFlair and Mulholland’s brother, Joe, to open a trading post in Nahanni Butte. It was planned that winter that the brothers would manage the store and Epler would mind the trapline, but with catchings scarce close by, Epler decided to move it further up, near the Rabitkettle Hot Springs area. Around Christmas, he chartered a bush pilot by name of George CF Dalziel (aka “The Flying Trapper”) to fly him up with a partner to spend the winter trapping.
Instead of his usual partner, Jack, he took Joe up with him. They planned to trap through winter and return come spring, taking a bunch of waterproof canvas with them to make something akin to skinboats on the return journey. This was widely regarded as a bad decision.
Come spring, the two of them were late. It was assumed— and this is usually a safe assumption— that they were catching game on the way back down the Nahanni. Come end of May, though, it was decided to reach back out to the Flying Trapper and have a look around to see where they could have gone.
Unfortunately this ended up being delayed— Dalziel was grounded in Ft. Simpson “over some alleged game infraction”. Some of Bill Epler’s friends circulated a petition to get Dalziel off the ground to search, which signers were eager to help with, and soon Dalziel and another trapper were off the ground to search.
After flying low over the river and trying to track the men down, all that was found was a burned down cabin. There were no bodies inside, outside, no traps, no equipment— and with that no one was certain where the men would have gone. The timing would have been poor, as between a winter without supplies or the beginning of spring when hunting was poor, the men would have surely starved to death out there. Some trappers supposed they may have drowned or been eaten by animals, though there were some that believed perhaps they got lost out there.
In May 1936, Albert Faille, Gus Kraus, Billy Clark, and Nazar Zinchuk were camping out at the mouth of the Flat River. This was just before it was made known that Epler and Mulholland had gone missing, so these four weren’t on the lookout for anyone in particular. They were waiting a bit longer for the ice to go when they found the remains of a campfire and axe cuttings, which was attributed later on to the missing pair.
Months later, oddly enough, two trappers noted something odd near the Rabitkettle Lake: “a neatly folded green tarpaulin… an empty Turret tobacco tin… one front leg of a wolf.” It’s assumed that this was one of the traces left behind by Epler and Mulholland.
Now, it was assumed the pair were dead, but in 1938, Dick Turner heard a rather strange theory. Or really… it wasn’t a theory so much as a sighting:
“Dick, I will tell you something I have never told anyone before because they would probably not believe me anyway, and I don’t want to stir up anything. If Bill is alive I don’t want to jeopardize his safety. I knew Bill Epler as well as anyone. With that one eye and pug nose of his I could never mistake him. As you know, I was out in Vancouver last winter and was crossing the street one day when a taxi pulled up beside me and stopped to wait for a light. There was a passenger in the front seat beside the driver. He turned to look at me. I was face to face with Bill Epler. Just for a few seconds and the car was gone. I am sure to this day that it was Bill.”
— Dick Turner’s Nahanni, pg. 165-166
It was thought that some accident probably happened, killing Joe, and sent Bill screaming for the hills because of a terrible fear of a possible murder accusation. It had happened to him once before in the States and he never wanted to be anywhere near a murder trial again.
Ollie Holmberg
Scandinavian trapper Ollie Holmburg disappeared the winter of 1940, and a rumor began that perhaps the Flying Trapper George Dalziel may have killed him… of course, whether this was in the Nahanni or the Smith River of BC is still debated.
William Gilbertson
Another in 1940: Gilbertson was found dead in his cabin with no apparent cause. Yet another death rumored to be caused by Dalziel…
John Patterson
Round 1945 and 1946, two frontiersmen agreed to meet, and only one arrived.
Frank Henderson arrived from the north with his two Dene guides to meet his friend John Patterson above the Virginia Falls in the summer. Patterson was to be coming from the east with his own guides, along with provisions and his dogsled. They were planning of heading north through the Valley to search for gold in the Yukon.
As is typical in the Nahanni Valley, Patterson didn’t show up, and Henderson was swiftly abandoned by his own guides, who beleived that something in the Valley likely did in Patterson. Henderson decided to search the valley, prospecting as he proceeded (and of course netting about 30oz of gold along the way), but he found no trace of Patterson.
“All summer I moved with the utmost caution, mostly at night. There is absolutely no denying the sinister atmosphere of the whole valley. The weird, continual wailing of the wind is something I won’t soon forget.”
— Henderson on his search (Hammerson Peters, Legends of Nahanni Valley)
John Shebbach
At this point, we have a long list of professional outdoorsman with years of experience almost always accompanied by their partners out in the wild. Now we have John Shebbach, a novice trapper who was instructed on the Nahanni by fellow Ukranian Nazar Zinchuk. Zinchuk was a much more experienced trapper (you can see him in the photos above) and had assured Shabbach that he would be coming later in the year to trap with him.
With that, Shebbach packed up and went into the Nahanni Valley. He built a cabin by the Skinboat Lakes and established a trap line. Unfortunately, his trap line wasn’t turning out, so he packed it up and proceeded to a cabin that Zinchuk told him to go to if things got rough, saying he would meet him there. This was a cabin built by J. Starke and RS Stevens, a landmark that Zinchuk could easily find Shebbach at.
Zinchuk did not end up going into the Nahanni that year. And Shebbach did not come out.
In June 1948, George Sibbeston found a body he reported to be “the mutilated remains of an unidentified man”. The RCMP hire Gus Kraus to guide them to the cabin to find the savaged body of Shebbach.
“It was just a mess. Scraps of clothing and bones had been gnawed and dragged around by bears, wolves, and every other damned thing that could chew.”
— Gus Kraus (Hammerson Peters, Legends of the Nahanni Valley)
Shebbach had left behind a diary detailing his final month. The man had decided to stay the winter in the cabin to wait for Zinchuk, but couldn’t catch any game to feed himself. As hunger took a toll on his health, his energy dwindled and he couldn’t continue to hunt or chop firewood to keep himself alive. His final entry was dated on February 3, 1946, saying that Shebbach had been 43 days without food.
And the entire time, just a mile away, the man that found his body— George Sibbeston— had a stocked cabin that would have helped the man survive.
Leonard Brunchnik
At the extreme end of inexperience lies Leonard Brunchnik, who set off into the Nahanni Valley at 18 years old. Equipped with only a pick, a gold pan, and a mining book, he was incredibly ill-equipped.
A few months later, he was found facedown in his own vomit, his raft downriver in the driftwood piles.
Angus Blake Mackenzie
This one may as well be the next big found footage film. PLEASE, please, someone out there, give me a found footage film of this!
In October 1961, Angus Blake Mackenzie (aerial vet of WWII from RCAF) and bush pilot John Langdon (photographer) ask Jack Mulholland and trapper Tom Haggerty to help them film a movie about Nahanni’s “curse”. They decide to do the film on Bennett Creek, and work to ferry supplies to the area.
On January 5, 1962, Mackenzie takes off to do another supply run. It’s a short one: about 140 miles over the mountains, and about an hour long flight. Mackenzie disappeared, and despite the efforts of both ground rescue teams and aircraft looking for him, his plane could not be found.
Despite this, Langdon and team decided to proceed with the filming. They stay in the area for some time, leading to the August 8, 1962 discovery of Mackenzie’s downed Cessna near MacMillan Lake. The supplies that Mackenzie had gone to fetch were arranged neatly, including gasoline, a stove-heated canvas tent, and 100 days worth of food. Despite all that was found, the only traces of Mackenzie around were two diaries, one written in pen and one with the tip of a lead .303 bullet.
The man was nowhere to be found, despite the searching of several more rescue teams. On reading his diaries, it was found that due to fog, the wing of his plane had been taken off by a tree and sent him to the ground with naught but two sprained thumbs and a wrench in his back. The diaries note as well he had many more supplies and was actively sending out radio signals, making tracks in the snow, and did his best to survive. During the initial search, he even made a flag with his red sleeping bag to try to get the attention of the RCAF rescue planes.
The man noted each near-miss with the rescue team, a letter to his daughter, and dwindling hope, stopping on the 20th of February.
The man disappeared, and speculation has run from simply being a victim of the natural plights of the Nahanni or disappearing to start a whole new life somewhere else. Some people claimed he even managed to find some gold out there and decided to run off with some woman. There’s even a claim by another bush pilot, Jim McAvoy, that the diary was a fake made beforehand to throw people off his trail!
Stockwall, Hudon, Goertz, and Busse
A short one: On September 29, 1961, Kenneth Stockwall was flying Victor Hudon, Gunther Goertz, and Henry Busse into the Nahanni, right into a terrible storm. The aircraft was found, and only Hudon’s corpse was left there.
Wuethrich, Wiesmann, Mihncke
June 22, 1963, Martin Wuethrich, Fritz Willy Weismann, and Wolfgang Mihncke were flown to Glacier Lake for a canoe trip. The only one found was Wuethrich, preserved by the cold water of the Figure Eight Rapids with a poncho wrapped round his neck. Some theorized he was murdered before the water took him.
The Stories of the Valley
The Nakani
An old woman and her grandson were once staying alone at their camp out in the bush. They had some snares set and were catching a great deal of rabbits. They would often go and see their snares together. One day as they were out visiting their snares, the grandson heard something in the distance. ‘Grandmother, I hear something.’—‘Grandson, what do you hear?’ asked the old woman. ‘Grandmother, back past our trail someone is making noise.’
— Eliza Andre, Nanaa’ih, in Gwichya Gwich’in Googwandak: The History and Stories of the Gwichya Gwich’in as Told by the Elders of Tsiigehtshik. An example of the oral tradition passing down stories of the Nakani and related creatures.
Both listened very carefully; they again heard the same sound. At once, the old woman gathered up the rabbits they had snared, threw the bundle over her shoulder, and they both ran quickly along their trail, back to their camp. They ran into their tent and immediately the woman skinned the rabbits and quickly threw the intestines into the open fire to roast. The old woman waited until the intestines were scalding hot.
By this time they could both hear someone making noise outside their camp; someone was approaching their camp, drawing nearer and nearer. Meanwhile, while all the commotion was going on outside, the old woman had gathered the hot intestines and waited near the doorway. Soon, the person, who turned out to be a bushman, nanaa’ih, poked his head into the doorway. Immediately, the old woman slapped him in the face with the hot intestines. At once, the bushman jumped up having been exposed to the hot substance. The bushman went tearing out of their tent, swearing painfully, holding his face, yelling. With this, they heard him thump to the ground outside their camp. The following morning, they went out to investigate the incident of the previous night. They found a big bushman stretched outside their camp. They did not bother to do anything to him but instead retired to their tent, never to be bothered again for a long, long time.
Creatures with many names— Nakani, Mahoni, Nakentlia, Nant’ina, or my favorite, Bushman— the Nakani have been consistently described as enormous men with red eyes, covered in long hair. They have long, muscular arms and tracks with prints three feet long. They hunt down lone maidens and solitary hunters, or whisk away children in the night. The fear of them at times was so strong that on occasion entire bands would break camp to shelter away from the Nakani, crossing running water that would prevent the creature’s passage; other times, they would fire muskets into the night out of fear of what could be hunting them out there.
The belief is a strong one, and they haunted the whole Dehcho region, not just in the valley. The habits of the Nakani intersected poorly with their White neighbors, as B.R. Ross writes in 1879:
A strange footprint, or any unusual sound in the forest, is quite sufficient to cause great excitement in the camp. At For Resolution I have on several occasions caused all the natives encamped around to flock for protection into the fort during the night simply by whistling, hidden in the bushes. My train of hauling dogs also, of a large breed of great hunters, would, in crashing through the branches in pursuit of an unfortunate hare, frighten some women out gathering berries, who would rush in frantic haste to the tents and fearfully relate a horrific account of some strange painted Indians whom they had seen. It was my custom in the spring, during the wild fowl season, to sleep outside at some distance from the fort. Numerous were the cautions that I received from the natives of my foolhardiness in doing so…
— B.R. Ross, Notes on the Tinneh or Chipewyan Indians of British and Russian America
The creatures are seasonal, as they come out to hunt people in spring and persist until early autumn, where afterwards they presumably hibernate or migrate during the cold months, leaving the Dehcho region in peace for a brief period. During this warmer season, the Nakani emerge at night to stalk their victims. At times they would event taunt people, throwing rocks and sticks, whistling, or laughing at them. Occasionally they also would steal food and destroy equipment.
(I note here that there’s some superficial similarity in these particular behaviors as with the currently agreed upon behaviors of the Sasquatch— especially the throwing of objects and the distant noises.)
There’s a long history with the Nakani, but of course the instant the white man begins to encroach on native territory, they too become victims of the hassle of the Nakani. For example, John McLeod, the man who helped convinced White Eyes’ mountain band to trade with HBC, experienced a brief bout of bullying:
One night, while resting by the fire after a long day of tracking and portaging, the voyageurs were harassed by an unseen assailant, who hurled stones at them from the shadows. Although McLeod speculated that this marauder was probably a Nahanni Indian, native legend suggests that this stone-throwing provocateur, considering his behavior, may have been a Nakani.
— Hammerson Peters, Legends of the Nahanni Valley
Written contact continues with a story that Poole Field relates happening in 1914, where he was traveling with Oskar and Chief Jim Pellesea’s band. As Nakani habit dictates, the creature began to harass the band by throwing sticks and making wild noises around the camp for several nights. It followed the band, expertly avoiding being caught despite several times being spotted at a distance, and eerily kept up with them even when a canoe was built to make their way downriver.
Tracks began to show that the Nakani was joined by others, making the band more nervous as to the intentions of the Nakani. Many invited whoever it could be to come back in daylight for hospitality, in several different dialects and languages, but there was never any answer.
Eventually, one of the pursuers was shot by a young hunter named Chiboo. As Poole says:
“The hunting party has split up shortly after leaving camp,” Field explained, “and Chiboo was following up a small creek alone when he heard someone following him. He stopped and waited, but the man also stopped. He started to run, and his follower ran.”
— Hammerson Peters, Legends of Nahanni Valley
The undergrowth was thick, nad Chiboo could not see far. With shaking fingers, he slipps a round into the breech of his rifle, slammed the bolt handle forward, and stumbled out into a small opening in the trees. Suddenly, a strange Indian emerged from the opposite side of the clearing.
“Chiboo shot at him and knocked him down,” wrote Field. “The wounded man started calling in a strange language, and Chiboo turned and ran the other way and never stopped until he got back to camp. The whole tribe was for getting into their boats and leaving, but after a lot of talking we decided that Oskar and I, Big Foot, and the Chief would go back and investigate.”
The four searched for the body of the supposed Nakani, but found only blood. The one who had fallen was picked up by his fellows and taken away.
It turns out that this case in particular was one of mistaken identity— the Nakani was a Kaska man who had been sneaking around and sleeping with a young married woman. When he eventually died of his wounds, retribution was paid the following year not to Chiboo, who had died by then, but his brother. The Kaska had been following the band in secret and fussing with them, bringing us to one of the many theories surrounding the “true identity” of the Nakani.
It’s believed that the Nakani was partly a folkloric fabrication to keep people safe, much like a boogeyman or stop signs. It was not unusual for a person alone to be taken for another tribe, or attacked on their lonesome for one reason or another. Other theories include the Nakani being a descendant of a hominid that crossed the Bering Strait alongside early humans, which would relate them to other similar “Sasquatch” creatures. By far the most wild and perhaps my favorite theory (for no other reason than it’s just silly!) is the feral ape theory, where Sir Ranulph Fiennes entertains the idea that capsized Spanish ships with apes on board. The apes escaped the sea, moved inland, and survived many winters using the hot springs to keep warm. He claims that these supposed escapist apes are responsible for the headless men throughout the history of the valley.
Of course, just because the Nakani could be something mundane, we can’t discount that there may be something haunting people still. Even as recently as 2016, there has been sightings:
N.W.T. man tells of encounter with nàhgą — the Tlicho sasquatch — following boat accident — CBC
The PNW is a large place with dozens of different creatures that line up with the Nakani in one way or another, and is a favorite subject for cryptozoologists to dig into. There’s a lot more reading to do on this subject!
The Waheela
The Waheela, or the Ghost Wolf, is a wolf of enormous stature, often described as looking like a huge, white mixture between a bear and a wolf.
An encounter in 1965 by explorer Frank Graves is written about to Ivan T. Sanderson, granddaddy of cryptozoology:
“An enormous white thing that I at first thought must be a Polar bear sort of wandered out of the trees. It wasn’t a bear; it looked more like a gigantic dog. It stood straight up on rather long legs, more like a dog or a wolf. I had seen plenty of wolves and some of them are enormous enough up there; but this thing was twenty times the size of any wolf I had ever heard of. By a sort of reflex action I fired at it- and it was less than twenty paces away and only partly screened by little bushes. I hit it with two barrels of ball-shot. It didn’t even jump, but turned away from me and just walked back into the forest. I reloaded and fired again, and I know I hit it in the rear, but it just kept on walking.”
— Frank Graves, letter to Ivan T Sanderson, narrated in Interview with a Cryptid Hunter
The Waheela, not named by the native Dene people but by Sanderson, has been described as a loathsome, fear-inspiring creature that stands at nearly four feet to the shoulder (which, by the way, I am only 4’9″, this thing would be taller than me if it reared up) and had an odd, wide head. It was explained to Graves later on that the Dene people do not believe this creature to be a wolf, but a scavenging animal that avoided actual wolves.
The wolves in question were aggressive towards humans, however, and it was not unusual for them to hunt humans alongside their normal prey. One notable instance is when Albert Faille was hunting above Virginia Falls and heard wolf calls signalling prey. He decided to try to follow along and see if he could bag it before the wolves, however, with the silence in the forest around him, he soon realized it was him being hunted. The leader of the pack emerged from the bush to take the lead and was promptly shot. To keep the rest of the pack away, Faille shot into the trees and ran back to his boat to escape.
With this in mind, it’s entirely reasonable to believe the Waheela may be an oversized lone wolf with an unusual belief. However, owing to the distinct descriptions that remain consistent among accepted Waheela sightings, many dismiss the idea of a wolf entirely.
Some theorize that perhaps the creature may be a Pliocene-era Amphicyonidae who survived in the so-called tropical valleys hidden in the Nahanni Valley.
roman uchytel, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Others theorize it may be a white Mackenzie Valley wolf, or even the more niche Mackenzie River wolf. These wolves are some of the largest in the world, and were only larger before their numbers were thinned by hunting. They average at about 112lbs… though the wolves trapped by those in the Nahanni ranged rather large. Gus Kraus himself caught one 155lb specimen, while another hunter— Arthur George— caught a 160lb animal in 1929.
Sightings of similar wide-headed, short-eared, giant freaks of nature are spread much further than the Nahanni Valley. Stories of similar creatures range from the Inuit lands— the Amarok— into the midwest, and down into northern Mexico. All of these creatures are described as white-furred and wolf-like, though obviously strange in one way or another.
Tangentially related, in Legends of the Nahanni Valley, Hammerson Peters finds intrigue in a particular dog owned by Gus and Mary Kraus… named Snoodles. The dog was so weird that it earned a whole section in the book, and really, I just want to show you a picture of the bigass dog lovingly named Snoodles.
Yeah, I see you eyeing the caption. Those wolves I spoke of also attacked Mary and Gus Kraus, brought to them by the scent of blood from a bear they downed and prepped for packing. They were shot as they were running to attack Mary, and now you see them in their hugeness hanging from the roof of the Kraus cabin.
Tropical Valleys
A common story heard about the valley is about a verdant, warm paradise hidden somewhere in the mountains surrounding the valley. There is a number of headlines ran from the 1920s forward that speak of first-hand experiences, and stories of Dene people with artifacts indicating creatures from hundreds of years past still alive and flourishing.
The image built by account after account published in newspapers like the Valdez Miner in Alaska or the Wrangell Sentinel is a green valley that remains warm all year, filled with incredibly large, fat game and enormous plants bursting with fruit and flowers. Imagine being enveloped by mist as one hikes through high mountain passes and endures frigid winters, only to find that you’ve emerged in a summertime vale with food aplenty and huge veins of ore of every kind. That’s pretty much the dream for prospectors, isn’t it?
There’s multiple counts of several strange creatures that call this valley home as well— one is speculated to be a remnant of the Ice Age, leaving behind “imprints of huge three-toed prehistoric animals found in the sandstones and shales”, corroborated by two separate articles of prospector accounts. One, published in 1922, speaks of Hank Russell and Jack Lee’s version being “perfectly round tracks eighteen inches in diameter, which bore three toe-like depressions in the front.” In 1925, the Alaska Weekly published the account of Frank Perry, who mentions that the native people surrounding the area avoided it due to these very prints.
Alongside mammoth prints are some accounts of albino animals, one observation by Captain Samuel C. Scotte in 1924 speaking of a white deer, and another two in 1925 by RCAF colonel J. Scott Williams that noted an albino moose and a Kermode bear.
Most contemporary sources have concluded that these valleys were greatly exaggerated accounts detailing the many hot springs in the mountains surrounding the Nahanni. Between the expedition led by botanist Mary Gibson Henry and the expedition led by Dr. Charles Camsell, it was found that these tropics were instead area surrounding natural hot springs that encouraged lively plant life that enjoyed the heat surrounding them.
People of note
I want to point out the people of the historical accounts who just Don’t Quit Showing Up. Reading around everywhere, it’s easy to see that the same names pop up time and again. Here’s a list of those main players and handy links.
NWT Archives/Kraus family fonds/N-1990-022: 0570
Gus & Mary Kraus
This notable couple lived at what’s now called the Kraus Hot Springs between 1940 and 1971. Yeah, it’s named after them. They’re firm figures in the history of the Nahanni, due in part to how Gus seems to have his finger in at least half the stories associated with the valley.
Mary is given few accolades, so I just want to toss some people to look at this little article here… And also, I want everyone to know that she shot Gus once, and afterwards they seemed to get along just fine.
Poole Field
History has made Poole Field stand as a almost mythical figure in the stories of the Nahanni. As well known as the Kraus’, Poole Field was a prospector and a trader whose letters painted quiet the picture of life for the white man in the Nahanni. I’ve referenced him heavily writing this because of his involvement with the local history.
Despite everything, though, it seems that some people looked at the shape of his personality with a less than favorable eye— such as the treatment of Mary Field’s cousin, May, who’s end I’ve spoken of above.
Albert Faille
Albert Faille was another mythologized figure for exploration and prospecting in the Nahanni. He lived and died prospecting, and was made famous by R.M. Patterson’s book The Dangerous River. He continued prospecting up into his 70s, looking for the lost McLeod Mine, and expired soon after prospecting in the Nahanni was outlawed.
There’s a really quite interesting site set up that has long since gone defunct, but I do invite you to look at “Albert Faille’s Nahanni Home“.
Videos of Interest
Alright. I heard of the Headless Valley and immediately went bumping around on YouTube. I didn’t want to watch someone else’s video on JUST the headless part of the Headless Valley. I wanted to get into the nitty-gritty!
This home documentary is the PERFECT first video for anyone interested. Mel is actually quite funny, and it shows quite a lot of the work that went into a trek up and down even with a very light (well, 70lbs) canoe. Mel and Ethel are also an adorable pair, and there were some moments where I was just sucked in.
They also share some interesting tidbits for people interesting in making their own trek up and down the Nahanni, including references to the urban legends, the history, and general camping tips that helped them move up the river.
This is a documentary interview with Frank Graves, an explorer/cryptozoologist who visited the Headless Valley in 1965. And yes, the documentary is by the author of Legends of Nahanni Valley, the powerhouse of research on the happenings of the Nahanni Valley. On his website is a transcription for those who aren’t interested in watching the video itself.
Links of interest
Parks Canada has loads of recordings from inside the park, everything from birdsong to an underground creek.
Parks Canada shares a short series of updates from the Nahanni Aster Seekers, who look to survey the ultra-rare Nahanni Aster!
You can visit the park virtually using the Street View from Google! It goes along hiking trails in the park, so if you meander about, you’ll find plenty of beautiful scenery to take in. It’s heart-stoppingly beautiful.
Here is a poem by Nahanni river guide Nils Aslfeldt that speaks of the McLeod Brothers.
A whole collection by a tourist agency decribing the beautiful aspects of the Nahanni Valley, complete with more (!!) book and article recommendations.
A history of the Dehcho region from the First Nations perspective. It includes history beyond what I’ve spoken of and the greater effects of colonization to the entire population of Dene people.
Books for further study
Legends of the Nahanni Valley by Hammerson Peters
Dude, this book is amazing for this subject. Hammerson Peters went all out and had access to everything I couldn’t get my slimy little fingers on. Between his book and a bunch of other sources, I was able to really understand more than just the most frightening campfire stories that the Nahanni’s tragedies have become. It’s really quite jam-packed with every possible story you could want to know about. If you want the rundown, this is the first book to read.
It’s a modern book, thankfully, so getting your hands on it should be fairly easy from a library or to purchase it as an ebook or whatever. I have a Kobo Plus account so I was able to grab it that way (and I will likely end up getting a physical copy for my collection!).
Nahanni
by Dick Turner
Written by Dick Turner, this book was published in 1975 on Turner’s life living in the Nahanni Valley. There’s a lot here that comes from firsthand experience, or experience related to him by other people living in the Nahanni. While it isn’t all about the mysteries of the Nahanni, he certainly touches on them, and it serves as a valuable resource on the perspective of someone who lived, traded, and trapped in a place considered so nefarious. For him, it was his livelihood, and where he lived with his family until they eventually moved down the Liard River.
I actually foudn the best way to read it is to borrow it from the Internet Archive, as getting a copy of this out of print book can be a trial.
The Dangerous River
by R.M. Patterson
Published in 1957, based on the journals he kept while in the bush, RM Patterson details his time on the Nahanni. The very first chapter even kicks off with a light list of the most famous mysteries and what Patterson knows about them. Come for that tidbit, stay for his actual experienced on the river.
You can actually get this book easily as an ebook now, and Internet Archive now has a copy that you can borrow hour-by-hour.
You can find my Internet Archive list here as well: click! Below are some of the books you’ll find collected there.
Sources
Sources
Dehcho First Nations. “Prairie Creek Mine: Cyanide Disaster Waiting to Engulf Dehcho.” Dehcho First Nations, 9 Nov. 2020, dehcho.org/prairie-creek-mine-cyanide-disaster-waiting-to-engulf-dehcho.
“The Disappearance of Angus Blake MacKenzie, 1962.” ExploreNorth, explorenorth.com/library/aviation/cffyn-crash-nwt-1962.html.
Gonuguntla, Vijayaraghavan. “Earth Shape.” SlideShare, 13 July 2016, www.slideshare.net/slideshow/earth-shape/63993380.
Hammerson Peters. “New Cryptozoology Documentary: Interview With a Cryptid Hunter.” YouTube, 1 Nov. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=enpq9OrfQF8.
Heine, Michael, et al. Gwichya Gwich’in Googwandak: The History and Stories of the Gwichya Gwich’in as Told by the Elders of Tsiigehtshik. 2nd revised edition, Gwich’in Social and Cultural Institute, 2007, www.academia.edu/11573410/Gwichya_Gwich_in_Googwandak_The_History_and_Stories_of_the_Gwichya_Gwichin_with_Michael_Heine_Alestine_Andre_Alma_Cardinal_and_the_Elders_of_Tsiigehtshik_.
“Indians 101: Canadian First Nations 200 Years Ago, 1824.” Daily Kos, www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/4/16/2235036/-Indians-101-Canadian-First-Nations-200-years-ago-1824.
Larson, Christina. “Canadian Mountain Range May Be Home to Oldest Animal Fossils.” Canada’s National Observer, 20 Dec. 2021, www.nationalobserver.com/2021/07/28/news/oldest-fossils-animals-canada-rocks-NWT.
Luzong, Allia, and Allia Luzong. “Take a Trip to Nahanni Valley, the Valley of the Headless Men.” A Little Bit Human | Lights, Camera, Progress, 16 Jan. 2023, www.alittlebithuman.com/nahanni-valley-of-the-headless-men.
“The Makings of the Canyon Kingdom | Nahanni River Adventures.” Nahanni River Adventures & Canadian River Expeditions, 11 Feb. 2019, nahanni.com/blog/the-makings-of-nahanni-canyon-kingdom.
Malbeuf, Jamie. “Families Call for Case of Mysterious 2005 Deaths to Be Reopened.” CBC, 7 May 2018, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/mysterious-deaths-rcmp-reopen-case-2005-1.4649717.
“Mary Kraus, First Lady of the Nahanni | Nahanni River Adventures and Canadian River Expeditions.” Nahanni River Adventures & Canadian River Expeditions, 29 Oct. 2019, nahanni.com/blog/mary-kraus-first-lady-of-the-nahanni.
“Men Vanished From Cabin, Whereabouts a Mystery.” CBC, 21 June 2005, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/men-vanished-from-cabin-whereabouts-a-mystery-1.536627.
“Nahanni National Park.” UNESCO World Heritage Convention, whc.unesco.org/en/list/24.
Nahanni National Park Reserve of Canada. Parks Canada – Nahanni National Park Reserve of Canada – Cultural Heritage. web.archive.org/web/20050214101809/http://pc.gc.ca/pn-np/nt/nahanni/natcul/natcul2_E.asp.
National Film Board of Canada. “Nahanni.” National Film Board of Canada, www.nfb.ca/film/nahanni.
National Park Service: Golden Places: The History of Alaska-Yukon Mining (Chapter 4). www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/yuch/golden_places/chap4.htm.
“N.W.T. Man Tells of Encounter With NàHgą — The Tlicho Sasquatch — Following Boat Accident.” CBC, 28 July 2016, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/whati-man-nahga-bushmen-encounter-1.3698240.
“Our Guide to the Nahanni River | Nahanni River Adventures.” Nahanni River Adventures & Canadian River Expeditions, 20 Feb. 2018, nahanni.com/blog/nahanni-river-guide.
Parks Canada. “Nahanni National Park, Northwest Territories.” Internet Archive, uploaded by University of Alberta Library, 1977, archive.org/details/nahanninationalp00park.
—. “Nahanni National Park Reserve of Canada.” YouTube, 9 June 2009, www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybn69NPoTiI.
Parks Canada Agency, Government of Canada. “Culture and History.” Nahanni National Park Reserve, 26 Nov. 2022, parks.canada.ca/pn-np/nt/nahanni/culture.
—. “Geology and Geomorphology.” Nahanni National Park Reserve, 1 Dec. 2023, parks.canada.ca/pn-np/nt/nahanni/nature/geologie-geology.
—. “Google Street View.” Nahanni National Park Reserve, 20 Mar. 2020, parks.canada.ca/pn-np/nt/nahanni/visit/streetview#pano.
—. “Nature and Science.” Nahanni National Park Reserve, 26 Nov. 2022, parks.canada.ca/pn-np/nt/nahanni/nature.
—. “Stewardship and Management.” Nahanni National Park Reserve, 26 Nov. 2022, parks.canada.ca/pn-np/nt/nahanni/info.
—. “Vegetation.” Nahanni National Park Reserve, 11 Jan. 2024, parks.canada.ca/pn-np/nt/nahanni/nature/natcul1b.
—. “Wildlife.” Nahanni National Park Reserve, 11 Jan. 2024, parks.canada.ca/pn-np/nt/nahanni/nature/natcul1a.
Patterson, Raymond M. The Dangerous River. 1990, ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA76119900.
Peters, Hammerson. Legends of the Nahanni Valley. Hammerson Peters via PublishDrive, 2019.
—. Nakani: The Wildman of the North. 4 Dec. 2019, mysteriesofcanada.com/quebec/nakani-the-wildman-of-the-north.
—. Waheela- the Great White Wolf of Northern Canada. 25 May 2018, mysteriesofcanada.com/nwt/waheela-the-great-white-wolf-of-northern-canada.
Provincial Archives of Alberta. “Headless Valley (Mel and Ethel Ross, 1958).” YouTube, 29 Jan. 2016, www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr1v5N6ovp4.
Riley, Sharon J. “A Mine in the Middle: Travelling Through the Nahanni, the ‘Grand Canyon of Canada.’” The Narwhal, 7 Dec. 2019, thenarwhal.ca/a-mine-in-the-middle-travelling-through-the-nahanni-the-grand-canyon-of-canada.
“River Stories: The McLeod Brothers Three | Nahanni River Adventures and Canadian River Expeditions.” Nahanni River Adventures & Canadian River Expeditions, 7 Oct. 2019, nahanni.com/blog/river-stories-the-mcleod-brothers-three.
Rogers, James M. Rivers of Conjecture: The Hudson’s Bay Company and the Exploration of the Far Northwest 1823-1851. University of Montana, 1999, scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/9336.
Statista. “Number of Visitors to Nahanni National Park in Canada 2011-2023.” Statista, 15 Feb. 2024, www.statista.com/statistics/501653/visitors-to-nahanni-national-park.
Struzik, Edward. Ten Rivers: Adventure Stories From the Arctic. CanWest Books, 2005.
Sutherland, Mary. In Search of Shambhala, Agharta, Inner Earth , Hollow Earth, Subterranean Passages and Tunnels , Aliens, Ufos Mary Sutherland, Author of Living in the Light, Hollow Earth Theories and the Search for Shambhala. livinginthelightms.com/in_search_of_shambhala2.html.
The Terra Incognita. “The South Nahanni River by Canoe: Into the Land of Dreams.” YouTube, 13 Nov. 2022, www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQe2UzrD4OY.
TristramEvans. “(PfCoCAfRL Spotlight) the Valley of the Headless Men.” RPG PUB, 6 Nov. 2021, www.rpgpub.com/threads/pfcocafrl-spotlight-the-valley-of-the-headless-men.6817.
Turner, Dick. Nahanni. Hancock House Publishing, 1975, archive.org/details/isbn_0888390289.
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—. “Northwestern Wolf.” Wikipedia, 22 May 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwestern_wolf.
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—. “South Nahanni River.” Wikipedia, 15 Apr. 2023, en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Nahanni_River.
Wren, Christopher. “THE TALK OF NAHANNI BUTTE; CANADIAN NORTH: RABBIT FOR SUPPER, BEARS IN YARD.” The New York Times, 16 July 1986, www.nytimes.com/1986/07/16/world/the-talk-of-nahanni-butte-canadian-north-rabbit-for-supper-bears-in-yard.html. Accessed 1 May 2024.
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