Deep in the Forest: The Valley of the Headless Men

There is an enormous and remote wilderness area Nahanni National Park in the Northwest Territory of Canada that would make for some amazing hiking and exploring, only it carries a rather dark reputation - as a place where headless bodies show up!  

The local Dene Tribe named the region for "the people over there."  The "people" being some remote mountain folks called Naha who were evil giants who attacked their villages and behead people. These giants were said to wield weapons never seen before (a theme the Paiutes also utilized in describing the Hav-Musuvs of Death Valley). 

This theme seems to repeat itself throughout all Native People around the globe. The Natives either killed the Naha off or scared them off, but they went missing over time and just before headless bodies started showing up. Like many other Native legends, it is said the giants just suddenly disappeared....

With the 1800s advent of fur trappers and Europeans to this region of Canada, so came the legends of gold to be found. 

In 1908, two brothers went in there to prospect. After a year missing, it was assumed they were taken by the elements. Eventually, their bodies were found along a river, both decapitated, with their heads nowhere to be found.

In 1917, yet another prospector set out to find gold. He even built a cabin and settled in, but later the cabin was found burned and his headless skeleton was found among the ashes.

In the mid 1900s, a trapper's body was found in his sleeping bag, without a head.

Soon after, a trapper was found frozen to death, holding matches and sitting in front of what looked like a fire that had been running for some time. He was frozen through. 

By the late 1960s, 44 people had gone missing, never to be found again. 

In 1964, a man named John Baptist saw a man-like being with a long black beard that uttered a growl and took off. Several more people in the area reported seeing him, one saying he wore a moose skin around his waist and had a stone club.

These giants are reported to have short body hair, long beards, clawed fingers, long arms, black faces, red or yellow eyes. They are said to make high-pitched whistles and laughing sounds, are nocturnal, smell awful, are swift runners, supposedly hypnotic powers, throw rocks, and will kidnap women and children.

This valley is also known for other cryptids such as thunderbirds, strange lights and UFOs. Some say that the once thought extinct, Bear Dog, still rambles around the hillsides there. Perhaps the area is a strange portal or vortex, even a holding place for some Pleistocene creatures thought long gone.

Source:  In North West Canada,‭ ‬and even some connecting parts of the United States there have been reports of a large wolf-like animal,‭ ‬but powerfully built similar to a bear,‭ ‬particularly the fore quarters where the legs are longer than the rear as well as a broad head much wider than a wolf and with a coat of long white fur.‭ ‬These features all correspond with the physical traits of the larger bear dogs‭ (‬although we can’t be certain about the colour‭) ‬as well as the description of a creature in Native American folklore called the Waheela.‭ ‬Back in the twentieth century the cryptozoologist Ivan T.‭ ‬Sanderson drew this very conclusion that stories of the Waheela may in fact be accounts of a relict population of bear-dogs‭ (‬although confusingly he additionally referred to Canis dirus,‭ ‬better known as the dire wolf for his theory,‭ ‬and this was a true wolf not a bear dog‭)‬.

The Waheela is a creature of legend yet one that many people have claimed to have seen even in modern times.‭ ‬Additionally there seems to be a concentration of reports of the Waheela that come from the Nahanni Valley,‭ ‬a place that is also known by the more grisly name of the‭ ‘‬Headless Valley‭’ ‬due to the discoveries of the bodies of people that were missing their heads.‭ ‬Stories from people who claim to have seen the Waheela are usually fairly consistent although it could be argued that the story of the Waheela is becoming more popular in the mainstream and that more people now know what to say,‭ ‬or are led to a specific conclusion because of this whereas otherwise they might not have said Waheela.‭ ‬The story and description of the Waheela is also similar to other creatures of legend called the Shunka Warakin and the Amarok,‭ ‬so it seems that these different stories may all be describing the same creatures.

Although the story is good,‭ ‬it is currently impossible to establish if the Waheela is a late surviving bear dog,‭ ‬or even if it exists at all because so far it is only legend.‭ ‬No body or part of has ever been presented for scientific study,‭ ‬and there is no definitive video or photographic evidence of a living Waheela in its natural habitat.‭ ‬This does not completely discount the idea that a still unknown large mammal might be roaming around the wilds of Canada given there remoteness and lack of people to witness something,‭ ‬which is why the chance of something being found is viable,‭ ‬if slim.

The idea that Waheela are surviving bear dogs is a little harder to swallow,‭ ‬but suggesting that a legendary cryptid is a relict of a prehistoric creature is not unknown.‭

Others say the region is an opening to Hollow Earth, a supposed other world within our world sometimes described as nirvana. 

Source:  Another entrance is found in the Nahanni Valley but many of those that have dared to enter this area have been found decapitated, thus giving the region its name ‘The Valley of the Headless Men’. The Nahanni Valley in Canada is the land of the Ojibways, the Slave, Dogribs, Stoney, the Beavers and the Chipweyans. It covers 250 square miles in the southern end of the Mackenzie Mountains of Canada  and lies almost 550 miles due west of Fort Simpson on the Mackenzie River of northwest Canada. Hot springs and sulfur geysers keep the
valley warmer than the surrounding areas by about 30 degrees year-round. This land of perpetual mist is viewed by the Indians as â €™taboo’ and avoided.

Much of the land is still unexplored and unmapped, making it an ideal hiding place for a tribe of giants who went into hiding or other mysterious and deadly entities. 

What is happening in the Valley of the Headless Men? We have no idea, and we may not for quite some time. Man still has yet to truly plod through the region extensively enough to discover anything for sure any time in the near future in this still greatly unexplored wilderness.