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March 2, 2023 - ParaNaughtica

01:42:23

Valley of the Headless Men - Part 2

Here we are, DEEP in the unforgiving and eerie wilderness of a most desolate and lonely chunk of land with the mysterious name of 'Nahanni Valley'....or an even more mysterious and more isolated area with the fitting name of 'Headless Valley'.  Now that we are here we can find out just why it has been given that name...a name that sticks to this day..... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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	Thank you.
	You know, Bob, those Americans sure give us a hard time up here now, don't they?
	But, Bob, have you heard of some of the things that those pesky Americans do down there below the Queen's Country?
	Oh, well, Bob, we sure do get a rough up here in the Great White North pretty much by the entire world, but I'm as certain as Caribou's balls that those yanks down there are just jealous of how nice we are, eh?
	But, uh, you know, Bob, I don't know which things you're specifically referring to there.
	Well, Bob, those weirdos think that a groundhog can tell them when winter's over and the spring begins.
	Well, that sounds pretty stupid, Bob.
	You're right about that, Bob.
	That isn't even the half of it.
	Now get ready, Bob, because you're going to lose your butter tarts over this next one.
	Oh, no, Bob.
	I'm not quite sure if I'm ready to lose my butter tarts.
	Not just yet.
	Well, hold on to your toque then, Bob, and make sure your mook looks are fast and tight.
	Are you ready, Bob?
	Oh, dang, Bob.
	Okay. Those Americans, they think they can have free refills.
	Oh, well now, who on this queen's green earth would think they can just go around and have free refills, Bob?
	The Americans do, Bob.
	That's who.
	Okay, well, you were right, Bob.
	I think I'm due to lose my butter tarts over what you just told me there, and it's quite a bit to wrap my brain around, Bob.
	Now, I'm not sure what they got going on down there, but it sure doesn't look too pretty now, does it, eh, Bob?
	It sure doesn't, Bob.
	It's quite concerning.
	You know, they seem to be pretty angry all the time.
	Very. Contentious type of people.
	You sure got that right, Bob.
	Seems like the whole country has got itself in a bit of a soft pickle there.
	Well, Bob, it's a fact that they are an excessively undereducated people.
	As you know, Kanata leads the Queen's Green Earth in being the most educated.
	It's actually pretty frightening how undereducated they are, even though they pay the most to even get an education.
	I am exceptionally embarrassed for them Yankees there.
	You know what I mean, Bob?
	I couldn't agree with you more, buddy.
	Wow. We might have just won back a few Canadians that we lost during episode one there.
	Yeah, I sure hope so.
	I mean, we need listeners from where it counts, and that is from Canada.
	And from India.
	Shout out to Canada and India.
	Shout out.
	Yeah, shout out, you guys.
	Hopefully we get some from Tibet and Mongolia.
	That would really make me sleep better at night.
	Hey, Coop, let me ask you something.
	Did you know that the Americans have actually invaded Canada, like, at least twice?
	Whoa, what was that all about?
	The men taking all our women?
	Well, I'm sure that was part of it, Coop.
	That is in the unwritten history about the invasions.
	But actually, the Americans would quote-unquote invade Canada multiple times in history.
	But there were two major invasions that are kind of talked about the most often.
	And it's actually pretty funny because each time America invaded, they were actually forced to withdraw by the fierce warriors that Canadians are known to be.
	Right, right.
	The Sentinelese.
	So in 1775, there was what is now called the Invasion of Quebec, and that lasted about 16 months.
	Oh, how I wish I could have been there, Bob, to fight those Yankees and be a real hero for the Queen.
	You know what I mean, Bob?
	I know what you mean more than you do, Bob, and you know that.
	So the Americans invaded Canada in 1775 during the American Revolutionary War.
	The plan was actually for the Continental Army to convince Canada to fight alongside the 13 colonies against the British.
	But, unfortunately for us Yankees, they were defeated in every skirmish.
	Wow. Yeah, dude.
	That's not a good record.
	No. At all.
	And actually, Benedict Arnold, the famous American trader who fought alongside General George Washington, defected in 1780 and fought for the British against the very men that he had once commanded.
	He was actually sent on one of these campaigns against the Canadians, but he would be wounded in their attempt to dominate.
	As it always does.
	So the second time that U.S. invaded Kanata was actually during the War of 1812.
	So get this.
	While there were approximately 7.5 million Americans living in America at the time, there were only an estimated 500,000 Canadians in total.
	Holy shit.
	Yeah, quite a disparity there, population-wise.
	And interestingly, of those 500,000 Canadians, most were actually French or American rather than British.
	That's kind of funny, actually.
	Yeah, which, I mean, as we know, is who the Americans had declared war on.
	So, like, hardly any of them were actually British.
	And interestingly enough, most of the Americans that were living in Canada had actually left America in 1775 during the Revolution because they didn't want any part of it, so they defected.
	Oh, like the smart ones did during Vietnam War.
	Yeah, exactly.
	So, at the same time, while this is going on, the Napoleonic Wars are...
	And U.S. President James Madison, even though he was fairly neutral throughout the matter, thought that it would be a great time to invade Canada with only roughly 12,000 men in the U.S. Army.
	So 2,000 of them were sent up to the much-feared country via a three-pronged attack.
	And a certain apprehensive General William Hull led one attack near Fort Malden in Upper Canada.
	But, unbeknownst to Hull, the British knew that this was going to happen, and they preemptively seized his schooner with his baggage and his documents on it.
	And, I mean, you know, that's never good.
	Never good.
	So, then, about 200 of his Ohio men refused to leave the American boundary.
	Much feared Canada, bro.
	Yes, sir.
	We touched on that in episode one.
	That's true.
	Yes, we did.
	And now we're seeing it coming to pass.
	That's right.
	So Hull pushed on anyways with what illiterate men would follow his orders, and shortly in their campaign and just past the American boundary, Hull would issue a proclamation to the inhabitants of Canada, and he basically said, hey, you should all fight on our side.
	But they were basically just laughed the hell out of there.
	Yeah, I can see that.
	You know, Hull walks into a random Canadian house, right?
	Like the first one they come upon.
	Hey guys, uh, hello, um.
	Who the heck is this guy?
	Hi, yeah, so, I'm sorry to barge in like this, but, will you guys please fight on our side against the British?
	Uh, say, uh, well, I don't think that's a very good idea there, miss.
	Yeah, yeah, it sounds crazy, right?
	Sure does.
	Sounds as nutty as a queen's fruitcake.
	Then, as an emotionally insecure General Hull was attacking Fort Malden, the Shawnee chief, Tecumseh, Man,
	which have steadily gone downhill since about 2004, then attacked Hull with cannon fire, which forced the Americans to again retreat.
	They would surrender to the British.
	Hull would later be court-martialed for cowardice and neglect of duty and found guilty.
	you know, he just didn't want to be there.
	He just didn't want to be there.
	Definitely seems like he was not about it, and at the first sign of trouble was like, oh, I gotta get out of here.
	Naturally. So, a little further east, another American general, Stefan von Rensselaer, had a setback himself.
	One of his officers, who was apparently in charge of all the boats oars, went missing.
	With all the oars to all the boats.
	Nice. So after two days of coming up with a plan B, his men marched to find higher ground for an advantage against their enemy, the savage Canadian.
	But they too were forced to retreat by Canadian forces.
	Over 900 U.S. troops would be captured, and part of the reason for that is because U.S. troops refused to leave the American territory to conduct a rescue mission.
	And then, in the third attack...
	Over plucked eyebrow and just looking for a moment to take a shirtless selfie while at his squat rack, US General Henry Dearborn took 6,000 troops alongside his teacup poodle and marched toward the northern shores of Lake Champlain.
	His plan was to attack and capture Montreal, but there was a slight issue.
	His men refused to leave the American territory.
	Fierce warriors.
	But he was able to group his men together and give them a little inspiration.
	Come on, guys.
	We can do this.
	It's just like all the training we practiced.
	All that cheering.
	Remember, guys?
	We just have to go in there.
	Do some fighting and stuff, right?
	Exactly how we practiced.
	Maybe afterward, we can go find some new clothes because this outfit is disgusting.
	Just look at your trousers, Elmer.
	They don't even match your eyes.
	And then we can all go home to our...
	To our wives.
	One night, while heavy, lisped, and always fashionable Dearborn and his men were anxiously awaiting for daybreak to come, shots were fired from one end of the encampment and almost immediately, shots were sounded from the other side.
	With inside the wink of an eye, the entire encampment was alight in gunfire.
	Unfortunately, the jittery, scared, and jumpy men were only shooting at each other!
	Oh my god.
	I know, and I should note here that a lot of these troops were highly untrained and unskilled in fighting, let alone actual battle tactics.
	I can see it.
	Yeah, so many of them were just average men, just sort of scraping by in life.
	Yeah, you got old Joe the cobbler, you got John the other cobbler, and John the baker and the OBGYN, and then there's John, the guy that bailed out the latrine pits and would later in the day play dentist and then go off to pretend to be a mayor.
	Yeah, exactly right.
	If they had a gun and they were willing to fight and die for a new land that they felt was rightfully theirs, then they were considered part of the Continental Army.
	Smooth-legged Dearborn and his men were once again defeated, both morally and militarily, by the Canadian forces.
	They too would retreat.
	But these guys never even left the American territory.
	Dang it, guys!
	We almost had it!
	Lenny, just let me say...
	That was impressive, what you did with that hand-chop thing in the face of danger?
	I liked that.
	Of this, the Vermont newspaper The Green Mountain Farmer wrote that the entire attempt had done absolutely nothing but produced disaster, defeat, disgrace, ruin, and death.
	Wow. You know, that is literally called a shit show.
	It's totally unbelievable.
	I do know that over time, the U.S. and Canada have actually become very friendly with one another.
	Some would say...
	Too friendly, perhaps.
	Some would say.
	Well, Coop, what do you think about doing a couple stories before we jump into the second half of the old Headless Valley?
	Well, I couldn't be happier to do just that, Bob.
	I have to skate my grandmother to the ice den after the show.
	She's put on one of those ice skate derbies.
	Full contact.
	Brutally rough.
	It's beautiful, Bob.
	You should come.
	That's fantastic.
	She's a national hero, Bob.
	I'm on board.
	Let's apologize to the Canadians for our previous episode.
	We like you guys.
	This is all just for fun.
	We're not hammering you down into nothing.
	We are just here to have some fun.
	And we're not just making fun of Canada.
	We make fun of everybody.
	It's true.
	It's true.
	And when you look at the stats, there's probably a lot more about America that can be made fun of just in general.
	And we wouldn't be, just know that we wouldn't be making fun of you if we didn't like you.
	Yeah, we love you guys.
	Hell, I'm basically Canadian.
	I grew up 60 miles from the border.
	So, I'm basically Canadian.
	I'm one of you.
	He's just one of you.
	Welcome him back.
	Let me back.
	Let me back in there, Bob.
	I'm sure they will.
	Actually, probably not.
	No, they're not.
	All right, well, that brings us to just kind of three random stories, all of which come from AP News.
	Can I just say something really quick?
	Oh, yeah.
	I am very surprised that that General Dearborn was as gay as he was.
	I did not see that coming.
	I did not either.
	Like, how?
	Wow, man, that's pretty cool.
	He got up to the ranks.
	Good for him.
	Yeah, they didn't ask, and he didn't tell.
	Good. What stories you got for us there, Scott?
	All right, so we're going to open it up.
	From beautiful New York.
	Ah, the Big Apple.
	Yes, sir.
	This story was added today on AP News.
	Apparently, a group of moped-riding bandits have been riding around the city.
	Yes, you heard me correctly.
	Moped-riding bandits have been riding around the city stealing people's hard-won Apple AirPod Max headphones straight off their heads.
	Hopping back on their mopeds and speeding off, never to be seen again.
	So this is a thing going on?
	Yeah, well, I guess it's a thing in so much as at least 21 people in New York have had their fancy Apple headphones stolen.
	Okay, so how much money is that?
	Well, the devices, which are noise-canceling, actually retail for about $549 apiece!
	Fuck that.
	I would never...
	Fuck you, Apple.
	Seriously, though.
	That's just insane, dude.
	There are so many other headphones that work just as well, and you don't have to pay $550 for them.
	No, people are just buying the name, dude.
	And it just encourages things like this, like people running up and stealing that shit.
	Exactly. You want to assign crazy value to something?
	Someone somewhere is going to have the bright idea to try to rip it off.
	That's just how it works.
	Apple, here's a PSA.
	Make your shit free, then no one's going to steal it.
	No one would steal it because there's literally no point you can't sell it for any money.
	Boom. Problem solved.
	Nobody's trying to steal my second-hand underwears from Goodwill.
	Well, you let me in there.
	You let me in your room.
	You're going to be missing some underwear.
	Oh, man.
	I knew it was you!
	So, our second story also was posted today on AP News.
	This is a slightly different flavor.
	Apparently... The Mexican president has a rare photo of a rare creature, Coop.
	Can you guess what it is?
	Chupacabra. That is a great guess, actually, Coop.
	That's probably what I would have guessed.
	But no, apparently the Mexican president believes that he has a photo of the mischievous woodland spirit in Mayan folklore, Aluxay.
	What? Yes, he posted said photo.
	Do we have this photo?
	To his social media accounts.
	I do not, unfortunately.
	I want to see this wood spirit.
	I know.
	I want to see this wood spirit, too.
	I'm so curious.
	But he posted it.
	He said that it was taken three days ago by an engineer, and it appears to be Aluxai himself, the mystical elf from Mayan folklore.
	I'm going to look a picture of this really quick.
	Yeah, let's check it out.
	I don't see a picture that he posted.
	Who was it?
	Mexing President?
	Yes, this is the Mexican president, Andres Manuel López Obrador.
	Okay, so Mexican president posts a photo of what he claims to be an elf.
	Let's see.
	Oh, what?
	I don't know about that.
	It's probably just a hand drawing of a leprechaun.
	Anyways, it just looks like...
	Yeah, just describe it to us.
	It's a picture of a tree.
	So it's a picture.
	It's grainy.
	It looks like it's from one of the earliest cell phones you could get.
	Pointing up at a tree, and you can see the tree and the tree trunk itself.
	And behind it, it kind of looks like something is up there.
	There's two glowing eyes.
	You can see two glowing eyes, and this almost looks like it's wearing a white hood or something like that.
	And it all kind of blends in together.
	Only the head really sticks out.
	Everything else just looks like it's part of the tree.
	Interesting. So, I don't know.
	Well, apparently...
	I would like to know if he stood there and watched it.
	Did it move?
	Did it blink?
	Did it do anything other than just sit there?
	Yeah, let him take a picture?
	I'm like, that's pretty crazy.
	But apparently, according to traditional Mayan belief, these aluxes are small, mischievous creatures, and they can be found in forests and fields, and they like to play tricks on people, like hiding things.
	Some people even leave small offerings to appease them.
	Well, I can say this.
	The picture looks like that thing is not small.
	It looks...
	Human-sized.
	Oh, wow.
	Yeah, that's freaky.
	It's probably just, you know, someone in a costume.
	Yeah. It's probably his wife.
	Look! Look, I'm up here!
	It's a woodland spirit!
	Oh, it's just you again, honey.
	Dang it!
	Thought I got one this time.
	Coop, my third story was actually posted on February 23rd.
	Okay. Also...
	AP News.
	And this is going to bring us around to the tech sector.
	You know, there's always some news out of the tech sector, right?
	Yeah. Well, if you can believe this, apparently a facilities manager in Cohasset, Massachusetts, is facing charges because he set up a clandestine cryptocurrency mining operation in a remote crawlspace at a local school.
	Cool. Go on.
	Talk about a side hustle.
	Yeah. So apparently this Nadiem Nahas, who is 39 years old, is scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday of charges relating to fraudulent use of electricity and vandalizing a school.
	What did he vandalize?
	Well, apparently he took electrical wires and rerouted some ducts and he...
	Definitely modified this crawlspace to accommodate his side hustle operation.
	But I just don't understand why you would go to all the trouble.
	I get that there's value in basically validating all these crypto transactions, but why put it there?
	Why not just buy the laptop or buy computers yourself and do it?
	I just don't know.
	He doesn't have money to get electricity, but those mining computers, from what I know, are very loud.
	We actually have one of these mining databases near me.
	Well, not very close to me, but there are newspapers articles about people who live in that community, and they're saying miles away they can hear that thing humming.
	Oh, interesting.
	Okay, well, for whatever reason, he decided to do it at this school.
	So the Coast Guard Investigative Service and the Department of Homeland Security became involved and busted him after a three-month-long investigation.
	What started this investigation?
	It doesn't say, but that's what they found after that time.
	Apparently, he didn't show up for his arraignment, so they issued a default warrant for his arrest.
	So now he's in even bigger trouble.
	You gotta show up for those arraignments.
	Got you.
	Got you.
	So it'll be interesting to see how it all shakes out.
	I can say this.
	Well, he's definitely an electrician if he can manage to reroute all these wires.
	So I say this school should hire him as their electrician.
	Yeah, maybe they should just take it easy on him and be like, hey, you know what, man?
	You seem to really know your way around this shit, so.
	Exactly. Let's get you legitimate.
	Hey, nope, no mining.
	No mining.
	No mining now.
	We're just going to come around the corner and be like, hey, you mining?
	You mining right now?
	Quit mining, dude.
	What are you doing with that crawlspace?
	Yeah, don't let him near the crawlspace.
	Yeah. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how that one kind of shakes down.
	He'll pay whatever.
	He'll probably just get a slap on the wrist since nobody was harmed.
	Just whatever electricity.
	I'll bet you they just...
	Yeah, exactly.
	They'll probably just order him to pay a fine.
	Well, that's interesting.
	Maybe they'll force him to do unpaid work at their local energy conglomerate.
	There you go.
	You have to give back to the people.
	Yeah, make it a community service.
	That's what you should get.
	Yeah. Get on this electricity-generating treadmill.
	Put him in a wheel.
	A giant wheel.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Fucking run inside it for fucking two weeks.
	I sentence you to three weeks in the wheel.
	No! That's what we need to do, man.
	And just have that shit broadcast to the people so they can watch it.
	Right, right.
	Not California, just like where all the rolling blackouts are.
	There you go.
	Put the prisoners to work.
	Put them on wheels.
	Another criminal sentenced to the wheel.
	These warehouses of power generators, all these wheels with prisoners running on them.
	You got the little water things with hamsters used.
	Oh no!
	Yeah, right, right.
	Yeah, taking a little sip.
	Oh man!
	I love it!
	I love it!
	Yeah, some people would be like, dude, sign me up.
	Sign me up.
	So, that's the end of my three updates, Coop, and tune in next time for another...
	Three of three updates for you.
	Beautiful. Thanks, Scott.
	So, last week we discussed the South Nahanni River and the Nahanni Valley Reserve, or National Park.
	We went over the terrain and how magnificent the landscape is in that specific area, an area that has not been truly explored.
	We also went over the many mysterious creatures, human-like beings, the spirits that are alleged to haunt the forests, We also talked about the local Dene tribe, who have inhabited the area for many thousands of years and who consider the entire Nahanni Valley to be cursed.
	And that's because way back in the day, there was another tribe who lived in the area called the Naha, who were sort of bullies, if you will.
	They lived in the mountains, unlike any other tribe, and would only come down into the valleys to wreak havoc and raid other tribes, usually the unfortunate Dene.
	But the Dene had enough of their shit, basically, and decided to give the Naha a taste of their own medicine.
	They were like, nah-ah, Naha.
	They finally reached the Naha encampment, which wasn't easy, and then they rushed in to fight the Naha warriors, but to their surprise, there were no people to be found anywhere, nor were there any signs of a hasty escape from the camp.
	It was as if the Naha had just vanished into thin air.
	Which they pretty much did because after that, they were never seen or heard from ever again.
	But where we left off last episode was with the first documented story, of which there would be many, of exactly why there is an area of the Nahanni Valley National Park that is called Headless Valley, or Valley of the Headless Men.
	In that story, there were six men, gold prospectors, and they went into that very area of the wilderness and weren't heard from again.
	It would be about two years later when a hunter stumbled into that same area and found the remains of the six men.
	The thing was, was that all six men were missing their heads.
	And their heads were found at their feet.
	Now, I wonder if whoever or whatever did this, you know, decapitated them.
	I wonder if they just, like, had a little fun with it and maybe, like, switched their heads around.
	Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Like, put John's head at William's feet and James' head at John's feet and so on.
	Yeah, exactly.
	I mean, I know it's got to be, like...
	Pretty boring up there in this remote valley.
	So, you know, out in the woods, there can't be much going on.
	Like, you know how a lot of kids will torture and kill animals when they're young?
	So, like, up in...
	I was thinking about this.
	So, up in the Nahanni Valley, there are these young evil spirits or young creatures or whatever, right?
	And they're bored just being little children creatures.
	And they're just doing the same thing that people do.
	But to people.
	Like, so to them, people are these little creatures.
	And they're like, let's fucking torture these things and kill them.
	Oh, I see.
	Yeah, so it'd be like their version of magnified glassing ants.
	Yeah, totally.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Except for it's people.
	And their spirits.
	Children's spirits.
	These young, evil spirits lurking up there.
	Sure, sure.
	Yeah, I can see it.
	Theory. Theory one.
	So that was the first strange story to come out of the Valley about headless men.
	And now, we begin part two of The Valley of the Headless Men.
	The first official story began in 1904.
	Three brothers, Charlie, Frank, and Willie McLeod, were all experienced goldpanners, and they decided that they should go up to the Nahanni Valley to try their luck.
	Really quick, and on kind of a serious note, are they related to Duncan McLeod, protagonist of Highlander?
	I am Connor McLeod of the Clan McLeod.
	I was born in 1518 in the village of Glenfinnan on the shores of Loch Shiel, and I am immortal.
	Just, you know, just wanted friends as he traveled the world fighting people to the death?
	Ran for, you know, like six seasons?
	No? Well, I think the sixth season was actually partly produced by a French-Canadian company.
	Don't quote me on that.
	But as far as Duncan MacLeod himself, I think he was Scottish.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	He was like 400 years old.
	He was like one of a shitload of immortals who had gone around hunting each other.
	But there could only be one of them, which, you know, yeah, that makes sense.
	But they could only die by being beheaded.
	Pretty fucking awesome show, man.
	I love that show.
	Yeah, bro.
	I would watch that shit all the time.
	I think it came on, like, right after school.
	Get home from school, turn the TV on, the boob tube on, and flick on old Highlander.
	I think it was between 92 and 97. Hell yeah, brother.
	The three McLeod brothers all lived in the Northwest Territories and were therefore considerably closer to their destination than the vast majority of anyone else thirsty enough to brave new areas to prospect.
	At one point, the valley was virtually untouched by any other man, or should I say any other white man.
	There had been a few whites before them who ventured into the uncharted zone, and they figured that since there was no word about striking rich...
	That the gold just had not been found yet, and that they, the McLeod brothers, well, they would find it.
	With the use of sled dogs and homemade boats, they embarked on a very long and demanding trek with only vague descriptions of the challenge ahead of them.
	Eventually, they would find themselves at the Flat River, which flows directly through the center of Nahanni Valley.
	The three bros, Charlie, Frank, and Willie, would follow the Flat River and painstakingly make their way Deep into the seemingly endless valley.
	Upon seeing a great spot to finally set up their camp for the next few days so they could prod the river for traces of gold, they quickly did so and they could definitely use the respite.
	For anyone unfamiliar with gold panning or sluicing, essentially with gold panning, you have a sort of dish, a sort of in the shape of kind of a wok, you know, a frying pan, if you will, and there are a number of ridges along the inside of the pan.
	You take this pan, Put it in a creek with some of the dirt and pebbles from the creek, and you sort of shake the dirt around in the pan, letting some water flow over it, kind of washing over it, and all the light stuff will be washed out while the heavier materials, hopefully gold,
	remains in the pan on these little ridges.
	Now, it's just a bit different with a sluice.
	A sluice is basically a box that has a certain length, and you place this into the creek, river, or whatever, and you let the water run through the box.
	And it will bring with it sediments and materials.
	And just like a gold painting, the lighter stuff flows out while the heavier stuff remains in a sort of funnel or a strainer.
	Almost immediately after setting up the sluices and presumably taking a relaxing dump in the woods.
	Oh yeah, you know they did.
	Right there in a circle.
	They probably used the same sock to wipe.
	That's what they did back then.
	That's how it all worked.
	You can't blame me.
	I'm just telling you how it was.
	That's how the railroads were built, after all.
	They discovered that the river was loaded with little gold nuggets.
	For the entire day and well into the night, they collected their gold, packed it safely into containers, and went to sleep with a plan to wake early and collect more.
	Then they would head back to civilization where they would take their spoils and stake a claim.
	The boys would be rich.
	All that went pretty well up until they were on their way downriver heading home.
	At some point in the rapids, their boat fell to pieces.
	Everything they had safely piled inside their boat either floated away or sank to the bottom of a very deep, very cold, and very swift river.
	They were able to salvage some of their supplies, but their entire load of gold was lost.
	But one item that they were able to save was one of their sluices.
	So the three brothers collected themselves on the riverbank and discussed their next plan of action.
	Soon enough, they decided that since they had made it out of that silly bumble alive, and still had one sluice, which to them was a sign as clear as day, why not go back to where they were and start collecting more?
	They had nowhere to be, no pressing matters to attend.
	Yeah, not like they were the CEOs of Tim Hortons or anything.
	You know what I mean?
	Being the grizzled woodsman that they were.
	Just caked in tree sap and pine needles, you know, their beards all matted because truly how often – I mean, come on.
	How often do you think they really clean themselves up there, like a legitimate clean?
	You know what I'm saying?
	Oh, yeah, man.
	Actually, at most, they would – and they would often do this back in the day, but they would take their canoe, and what they would do is they would heat water.
	I wonder who would have to go last after everybody else took their baths.
	Probably the weakest guy in the bunch, huh?
	Always the weakest.
	Being the grizzled woodsman that they were.
	They just cut down some trees and fashioned a new boat using the most basic of tools that they had managed to save.
	And who knows how long that took.
	But once they had a water-worthy boat, they paddled back upstream to their original spot and immediately went to work on that gold.
	But this time, they didn't find any gold.
	They toiled all night, but decided that they would just have to leave in the morning, which they did.
	And once back home, two of the brothers, Frank and Willie, Well, they began devising a plan to return to the Nahanni Valley.
	They knew the gold was out there.
	They just had to go a little more prepared.
	What about Charlie?
	Did he invest all that he had in the first Timmies?
	Because if he did, he made the right decision, you know what I'm saying?
	Oh yeah, buddy.
	Well, Charlie felt that it was just too close of a call the first time around.
	You know, falling to the rapids.
	So, he didn't want to risk his life.
	Trying to do the same thing again.
	Oh yeah, that's right.
	So he decided to be like a silent act, right?
	Instead, you know, one of those like terribly sad, chronically narcoleptic street performing clowns.
	Oh yeah, he probably called himself McClown.
	Get it?
	Instead of McCloud, it's McClown.
	Because he's a clown, man.
	Oh, I get it there, buddy.
	You switched cloud with clown.
	That's an extremely educated and clever thing you did there.
	I'm thoroughly impressed once again, sir.
	Since Charlie didn't want to accompany his brothers, Willie and Frank talked to their friend, Robert Weir.
	And Robert Weir couldn't be happier.
	Uh... Hey, uh...
	Whew, Rob.
	You, uh...
	Did you say my name?
	Yeah. Me?
	Yep. Oh, wow.
	Would you like to go...
	Me? Yeah.
	Would you like to go with us up to Mahani and look for some gold?
	I mean, I can't believe it.
	I mean, this is...
	I'm speechless, really?
	You're asking me?
	I am.
	And for the next several months, as winter passed, the trio made detailed plans for an extended trip so that they could bring back as much gold as their boat could possibly carry.
	And by the spring of 1905, they would make their ill-fated departure.
	There were no definite plans on when exactly the three men would return.
	Could be weeks, could be months, possibly years.
	It all depended on...
	What exactly would happen up there?
	You know, whether they found gold or found themselves in a desperate situation.
	Because of this understanding, Charlie didn't think much of it when after a year, nobody had heard from any of the three men.
	It wouldn't be for another full year to go by until Charlie finally realized that something awful probably happened to his brothers.
	So old Charlie went out and found four men who would go with him up to the Nahanni Valley to look for his two brothers and friend.
	They would eventually make it to the Flat River, which they followed upstream.
	All the while looking around intently for any signs of the men.
	They would reach the end of Flat River, where it actually began, flowing away from the much larger South Nahanni River.
	This is the 45 degree bend called the Big Bend, which then brings you to Second Canyon, which we talked about briefly in Part 1. And you know, if you haven't listened to Part 1 yet, I recommend that you do that before you listen to Part 2. So pause this right now.
	If you haven't listened to Part 1, go listen to that first, then come back to this.
	It's only natural.
	Yeah, it would make much more sense.
	Now, if you recall from Part 1, this stretch of the 350-mile South Nahonan River has cliffs on both sides of the river, and for 10 miles, you have nowhere to go but through the canyon.
	The men would make it through Second Canyon and approach First Canyon.
	It is there that they spot a tent perched on the shoreline.
	They also notice that there was someone laying on the ground in front of the tent.
	Charlie and his crew swiftly make their way over to the camp, and once there, they are horrified at what they see.
	The body is missing its head.
	The headless body had also appeared to be burned.
	But what only added to this perplexing scene was a realization that this person, at the time of their death, seemed to have been reaching out with the right arm toward a rifle.
	That was nearby, resting against a tree.
	Perturbed, they went around to the other side of the tent where the opening was.
	It was there that a second body was found lying halfway out of the tent, their head also missing.
	Charlie and his men had no idea who these two bodies belonged to, but they had their suspicions, so they searched their pockets.
	Through what they could gather around the camp, the two men missing their heads were, in fact, Frank and Willie McLeod.
	But Robert Weir, the third man, their friend, his body was nowhere to be found.
	What they did find, however, was a tree with a carving in it, which read, We three fabulously dapper gentlemen from the city have found ourselves a mighty fine prospect right here at this wonderful little spot on this romantic river right here.
	Okay, done.
	Wait for me, guys.
	I want to be in the middle.
	Eiffel Tower!
	This said to Charlie and his men that his brothers and Robert had found gold.
	But they didn't find any collected gold at the site, and their sluices were also missing.
	Charlie and the men promptly left and contacted the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the RCMP, and they would eventually go out to the site to investigate.
	Several months later, while searching the river around the campsite, the RCMP would find a skeleton a little ways downriver.
	But what they wouldn't...
	Scott. Can you take a good guess at what they didn't find?
	Hmm. I'm gonna go with his pedometer.
	No, no, that's not a good guess.
	I'm actually gonna go with his Tamagotchi.
	I mean, the poor thing is probably dead now.
	And now we have to add one to the official body count.
	Clinton's body count.
	They couldn't find the body's head, Scott.
	The head was missing.
	So this body, however, would never be confirmed to be Robert Weir.
	Or anyone else.
	The RCMP apparently wouldn't find anything else that interested them in their investigation.
	And to conclude that investigation, the RCMP would say that the three men had starved to death, and once they had died, animals scavenged their bodies and ran off with their heads.
	Hmm, well I gotta say, this is a bit of an easy one here to solve, if I do say so myself.
	I learned this in the academy, you know boys?
	You see that fellow there?
	The burnt one?
	Well, he was reaching over to his rifle out there out of sheer desperation to shoot himself something to eat, like a big moose or something that was probably walking through, you know.
	Those guys are monsters, true beauties.
	You could feed a family of four for about a month with one of them packed into your freezer.
	You see that one over there?
	Well, that other guy, it's got himself lying halfway out of the tent.
	Well, first of all, why would you go and lay yourself down like that to sleep in the first place?
	You know how I can tell he's not a Queen's Canuck?
	Because no Canuck would sleep like that.
	Mark my words.
	No, sir.
	Anyway, well, he was just too tired and he fell asleep.
	Possibly attempted to hibernate.
	Starved himself to death in the process.
	Bears can do it.
	You know, but humans don't have that sort of capability.
	He should have known that.
	Every Canadian knows that.
	And, uh, well...
	The other guy, the one we found down there a ways, well, it looks like he just went for a quick rinse in what looks like a Class 6 rapid, you know.
	Most likely just slipped in after that.
	It appears he made it out of the river safe and sound downstream a ways.
	Must have been absolutely frightful.
	But, unfortunately, looks like he starved to death over there, like his two buddies over here.
	We get a lot of that out here in these parts.
	People starving themselves to death.
	Well, I could sure go for some Timbits and a couple double-doubles myself, eh?
	What do you say, Phil?
	You want some Timbits?
	Of course, Charlie never bit into the RCMP's name-o-bar of an explanation for his brother's deaths, and most likely Robert Wears.
	Charlie was always certain that a local tribe had attacked the men, but the RCMP feverishly disagreed and refused to pursue any further leads or investigation.
	The story of the three dead men who were missing their heads in Nahanni Valley made a sensation in the media.
	The story went national.
	Soon enough, talk about the first incident some years prior with the six men missing their heads started to circulate, and only added to the mysterious allure of Nahanni Valley.
	Theories were being offered, and of these, one was that Robert Weir had killed the McLeod brothers and ran off with the gold.
	Remember, the third body was never definitively identified as Robert.
	Nor was it definitively identified as not.
	Being Robert.
	Just wanted to add that little counterpoint there.
	That's very true.
	Other tales started to be told about the folklore, the myths, and the legends that permeate the region of the Nahanni Valley.
	Namely, the cursed mountains, the evil spirits, the cannibals, the man-like creatures who live in the cave systems, the Nukluk, the Wahila, and soon enough, it was official.
	The area was certainly cursed, but it needed a name.
	And so they named it.
	The Valley of the Headless Men.
	Which was later slashed, if you will, to Headless Valley.
	Wow, that was a compelling story there.
	And if I may add, I can honestly say that I'm thoroughly bullwinkled by it.
	That isn't it, Bob.
	That was only the first two incidents of men being found headless.
	There are many more.
	Well, hold on now, will ya?
	Just wait a Canadian second already.
	You're telling this hoser that there's more to this already frightening tale?
	It's scarier than the midnight sun or snakes.
	Boy. I'm gonna need a whole new pack of darts and a Mickey after this one, buddy.
	Scary tales abounded, spreading fear for miles around, but no scary story was gonna keep no-nonsense Martin Jorgensen from venturing into the Nahanni Valley to claim his fair share of gold back in 1913.
	So all on his own, he made the journey and would eventually feel comfortable with a spot somewheres 70 miles upstream from the area dubbed the Headless Valley.
	Old Martin had intended to stay a while.
	To ensure that he would leave there richer than he'd ever imagined.
	Therefore, he needed to build a cabin.
	He quickly went to work on a one-room cabin and was going to shack up through the winter.
	And once winter was over, he would meet with his friends and partners back in Yellowknife.
	So winter rolls in, months go by, spring comes, then summer.
	Martin's friends and partners become worried as he fails to ever show up.
	Within a couple of months of being worried, they hire a native guide.
	And they slowly make their way up.
	The flat river in search of him.
	They would eventually find what remained of Martin's cabin.
	It had been burned out.
	But next to the burned-out cabin, some mere feet away, were the remains of Martin Jorgensen, also burned beyond recognition and combined with whatever decomposition had taken place afterward.
	Well, at least no-nonsense Jorgensen still had his head.
	I mean, that's good, right?
	The curse was over.
	No, Martin Jorgensen's head was also missing.
	Son of a bitch.
	The RCMP would send an investigation unit to the site, and they would conduct their usual business.
	Okay, let's take a look at...
	Oh, God!
	That was a man at one point in time?
	My goodness, he looks terrible.
	Hmm. I see, yes.
	Right, okay, yes.
	Alrighty here.
	So it looks like this man burned himself to death.
	And, uh, looks like some animals took away his head again.
	Yeah, a lot of squirrels around here.
	Oh boy, you sure got that right.
	In fact, there's a freakish number of them out here.
	Not sure if this is normal, Greg.
	Hey, Phil, you know, uh...
	If Timmy's closes in about two hours, I say we start heading back, eh, before these terrifying beasts start to get hungry, eh?
	Oh, you bet your tiny buttons there, Greg.
	I can see death in their eyes right now.
	We better get going fast.
	Greg! Quick!
	Get out of there, you hoser!
	Ah, no!
	Let's make sure to send their family some flowers.
	Right, right.
	Martin Jorgensen's death would again make headline news, and once again, people were talking.
	The RCMP would repeatedly say that Martin's death had no connection whatsoever with either of the previous accounts of headless men, which totals to 10 headless men now.
	Yeah, I don't see how you'd make that connection anyway, right?
	Doesn't make a moose lick of sense.
	It would be about seven years later, in 1921, When another experienced outdoorsman would venture alone into the valley, only a few miles upstream from the infamous Headless Valley, he would be a trapper named John O'Brien, and he too would be found dead.
	Now, this story's a little different than the previous, and John, for what it's worth, he gets to keep his head, Scott.
	What is interesting about the death of John is that when he was found, he was simply sitting in front of his now-extinguished fire, seemingly frozen.
	The witnesses who found him said that it looked like he was just sitting there enjoying the fire with the matchbook still in his hand when all of a sudden it looked like he was just flash frozen.
	Nothing in his facial features indicated that he was in any pain or afraid of anything.
	And the RCMP would quietly write this off as just another accident and the case was closed.
	I mean, yeah, flash freezes do happen in nature as long as the air temperature drops very rapidly to, I don't know, negative 50 degrees Fahrenheit maybe for a number of hours.
	You know, a flash freeze should occur in those conditions.
	And you can just Google frozen waves in Antarctica.
	And they are massive, just mind-boggling sized waves that were literally flash frozen.
	It's incredible.
	You see this picture, Scott?
	Yeah, this is insane.
	Like, I've never seen anything like that.
	Dude. That's just, I couldn't imagine, like, I would love to see one of those, like, in real life.
	I mean, look at the side.
	They're massive amounts of frozen water, like, mid-wave frozen.
	Yeah. We're talking mid-crescent waves, like, about to crash over.
	So crazy, bro.
	Just like, I mean, just a reminder of how powerful and crazy nature really is.
	We're nothing compared to nature.
	Absolutely not.
	Now, this is where the story gets creepy.
	Oh, so you're saying now it gets creepy.
	Okay, not the previous ten dudes mysteriously missing their heads and dead.
	And you got frickin'...
	Dick dastardly over there, frozen in place.
	Scott, you remember Poole Field, right?
	Of course!
	How could I forget Poole Field?
	It's been recorded exactly zero times by the Social Security Administration over the last hundred years.
	He had written a letter back in 1913 to John Jack Moran, talking about bizarre creatures and man-like beings that existed in Nahanni Valley, at least according to the natives in that area.
	Well, Poole Field's wife, Mary, She had a younger cousin named May Annie Lafferty, and I would call her Annie.
	Everyone described her as being a strange girl, and some would even say that she was neurotic.
	Don't even get me started, bro.
	So in 1926, five years after John O'Brien's strange death by apparently being flash-frozen, Annie would accompany Poole, his wife Mary, and a group of natives who were from Fort Simpson.
	They would all be going on a hunting trip into the Nahanni Valley.
	It's said that this group had already spent the winter trapping in the Mackenzie Mountains and were on their way to a trading post on the Laird River before they would go hunting.
	At one point on their journey as they followed an old Indian trail along what would later be named Mary's River after Poole's wife, Annie seemed to just disappear.
	One moment they were all walking, the next moment they realized Annie was gone.
	The group figured that Annie had just simply gone off trail into the woods to take a duke or whatever.
	So they carried on thinking that, well, she would just catch up.
	Annie could handle it out there.
	They weren't concerned about her capabilities.
	But Annie would never catch up.
	Mary became very worried, and after much convincing, Poole Field, along with five of the native hunters, would attempt to find Annie.
	We had Diamond C, Big Charlie, Boston Jack, George Tassau, and Charlie Johan.
	They were all Poole's top five picks.
	And the six of them would quickly pick up on Annie's tracks.
	To them, It looked as if Annie had legitimately lost her way.
	They had to follow these tiny moccasin footprints that she had left as she apparently ran through the woods.
	But they said that the footprints were so soft it was as if she was lifted through the woods, as if on the wings of the wind.
	And the six of them would follow Annie's trail for nine days like this.
	And as they went on, they would find pieces of her clothing shredded.
	Hanging on tree branches sporadically throughout the forest, as if Annie had been running and taking off all of her clothing as she went.
	Wow, and the whole time she's just, like, outpacing all of them?
	Like, what the fuck, over nine days?
	No way.
	Nine days.
	They would say that the mosquitoes at that time of year were the worst they'd ever be, and any person in such a condition as Annie, she would have been eaten alive.
	Regardless of all these things Annie had going against her, no protection from the elements, no food, no water.
	They followed her trail as it wound its way up into the vast mountains that surround the valley.
	The five expert trackers and pool would continue to track Annie for another four days before finally giving up and heading back to civilization proper.
	Famed author Dick Turner wrote in his 1975 book Nahanni said this about the mystery.
	By now she had got into rugged country where she had to do some very steep climbing.
	She must have been without fear, for she climbed some cliffs where the men were afraid to go and had to go another way, where they would find her tracks on top.
	About the fifth day, the hunters came to the bottom of a very rugged high cliff, which was actually the site of a 5,000-foot mountain.
	Her tracks were visible at the bottom, but they could find no sign that she had turned to the left or to 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 to about 100 feet or so.
	Some of them went partway up but turned back.
	Poole thought for sure they had come to the end of the trail.
	But they worked their way around to the top and sure enough, they were her tracks again, heading south and east.
	Whoa, dude, that is so spooky.
	Everyone was well aware that Annie could not have survived out there for a single day, let alone the 13 days that she was able to stay ahead of the expert hunter trackers.
	When Poole, Mary, and everyone else made it back, they reported Annie's strange disappearance to the RCMP.
	The story also made it to the newspapers in the area.
	And when one man named Charlie read the tale, he seemed to turn as white as Celine Dion's second perennium.
	And the poor fella just dropped his last timbit from his quivering lips onto the floor.
	Oh, well, Bob, I think you may want to remind everyone what a perennium is, just so we're all on the same page here.
	Oh, well, I suppose that's not a bad idea there, Bob.
	A perennium is the desolate and lonely area that stretches between the anus and, uh, well, you know, whichever sexual organ you got going on down there, you know.
	Whether you're an in here or an out, you know what I mean, Bob?
	Oh, I know what you mean, Bob.
	Upon reading the eerie tale...
	Charlie went to the police to tell of his own eerie tale.
	He said he had gone out hunting near the Third Canyon on the South Nahanni River, set up his camp for the night on the shore of the Flat River, and being exhausted, laid down for an early rest.
	Charlie had fallen asleep, but was awoken by the sound of small rocks tumbling down the mountainside and rolling into the river.
	Being alarmed, he sat up to take a look around.
	The moon was providing a surprisingly lit landscape, and while scanning the cliffside, Charlie spotted what was causing the rocks to tumble.
	It was a naked woman on all fours scrambling up the cliff.
	He would describe this woman's movements being animal-like, but it wasn't necessarily her movements that caught his eye.
	He was more fixated on her face.
	He said that her face held a ghastly expression, and as he put it, it was a rictus grin, like the expression was frozen on her features and her eyes wide and wild.
	Charlie explained that this woman would scramble up the cliffside, stop, look around, then continue scrambling up the cliff, and then stop, look around, and continue.
	And it was this behavior that was causing the rocks to fall down the cliff.
	The whole time, she held that rictus grin.
	That's not scary or anything.
	At the time, said Charlie, he found it very odd.
	But he somehow pushed it out of his mind and kind of believed it was just a dream.
	That is, until the newspaper story came out.
	And Charlie knew that he was in that same area where Annie went missing at the same time that she had gone missing.
	And he was adamant that it was she who he saw.
	No way in freaking hell I'm going to sleep after seeing that shit.
	Hell to the no, bro.
	I would be wide awake forever never letting her leave my sight, man.
	Yeah, man, I would definitely not sleep after seeing that shit, man.
	So it kind of reminds me of this time when I was a really young kid, and it's kind of one of the only supernatural type things that I've ever seen.
	I was laying on my bunk bed one night, and I was trying to go to sleep.
	And we always had a small lamp going.
	My brother and I shared a room.
	And I saw the weirdest thing detach from the wall across from me when I was laying there.
	It was like these dots just came out of the wall slowly, and they started circling towards me, and it was so real, and I could have sworn that what I was seeing was so real that I actually sat up and started calling to my mom as these dots got closer and closer,
	and eventually they just went right through me.
	And it freaked me out, dude.
	I've never seen anything like that since.
	Alright, hold on.
	Questions. It's kind of dark in the room, right?
	You have a lamp on that's kind of giving a little bit of light?
	Yeah, yeah.
	There's a little bit of light.
	Were these dots, like, were they glowing?
	Were they orbs?
	Or were they just, like, solid black or something?
	Imagine solid black dots about the size of a shirt button.
	Four of them, all keeping the same space the whole time, so it's not like they were swirling around.
	It looked like...
	How do I describe it?
	It looked like a four-pronged thing, but if they were just buttons, it would hold them all together in the same place as they kind of swirled at me.
	So it's kind of like the holes in a button.
	Kind of, yeah, exactly.
	Yes, exactly.
	Imagine that, except for black and coming at me.
	And I've just never seen anything.
	It was the freakiest thing I've ever seen.
	How big were they?
	They were about the size of, you know, like a button.
	They were like dots.
	Crazy, dude.
	Big enough for me to be like, whoa, what is that?
	You know, but not like huge or anything and not tiny.
	They went through you?
	Did you see them come out of you?
	They just like went into me.
	No, I didn't.
	They just like, I mean, you know, I didn't feel them or anything like that.
	They just came towards me slowly and bam, suddenly they were gone.
	And I was freaked.
	I was freaked.
	I've never seen that ever again.
	That is strange.
	Yeah. To this day, I still remember being like, Mom?
	Mom? Just calling because I didn't know what else to do.
	Could you call her?
	Because I know when I was a kid and I'd get freaked out, I would try to yell and nothing would come out.
	No, I could because I was still awake.
	I wasn't lucid dreaming or anything.
	I was still awake.
	I did call her and she came out of her room and was like, Hey, what's going on?
	I tried to tell her about it and she just looked at me like I was insane.
	Go to sleep.
	What the hell, Scott?
	I'm just kidding.
	I'm just messing.
	Sorry, Mom.
	Obviously, she just told me to go to sleep.
	The thing that got me the most is I think I was nine or ten.
	I wasn't that young.
	You know what I mean?
	This wasn't some delusion that a little kid sees.
	Exactly. Very much old enough to remember this, and I haven't forgot it to this day.
	Yeah, because it's so easy to discount young kids when they say they see something.
	Exactly. Five, six-year-olds say something, and you're like, what if you're a kid?
	You're just a child.
	But a 10-year-old, 9, 10-year-old, you're smart enough to be able to explain things that you saw.
	Exactly. You have enough knowledge in your head to be able to explain these things in a way that...
	Verbalize the experience.
	And my mom and dad, they just never...
	They just never would have believed that I saw what I saw, but definitely did.
	Freaked me out, man.
	That's fucking frightening, bro.
	Especially because they made contact with you.
	Yes! They did!
	It's not like they went around, or it's not like they went out of the room.
	They had detached from the wall, came straight at me, and went right into me, and that was it.
	Weird. That is weird.
	Yeah. Bro.
	the RCMP did not take it seriously and dismissed it entirely, much like your parents.
	Yeah, know how that feels.
	With their logic, and reasonably so, they determined the sheer impossibility that anyone could survive on the mountain
	And in memory of Mae Lafferty, a.k.a.
	Annie, the creek which runs through the area that she went missing is named after her, Lafferty Creek.
	Oh, now, isn't that just a romantic ending to an equally romantic story there, Bob?
	I said nothing about an ending.
	Not just yet, Bob.
	Now, it was also around this time that a brute of a mountain man known as Yukon Fisher would come around.
	As big and as bold as they come, he was originally a stampeder who found his way into the Klondike by way of the dreaded Ashford Trail.
	This trail was one of the worst through British Columbia.
	While at a random saloon in the Klondike, the old sourdough got into an argument with the bartender and smashed a bottle over his head.
	Wait, hold up for just a second.
	What the hell is a sourdough, bro?
	Well, a sourdough was someone who was a true outdoorsman who could pull his own weight out there in the wilderness.
	And the term sourdough refers to a rugged man who can live in the wilderness for months if not years on end without much difficulty while doing all the usual hunting, trapping, fishing.
	And one clear indication that they were a true man of the wild was that they enjoyed every minute of it.
	And they took mighty pride in their adopted name.
	It came with a struggle.
	And if someone called themselves a sourdough when they really weren't a sourdough, well, the matter would be taken care of by talking with the fists.
	The moniker actually comes from the fact that sourdough was the only bread you could make out in the forest without the inconvenience of baking soda, eggs, milk, or yeast.
	And sourdough was literally a survival method.
	In fact, the Canadian Mounted Police would refuse to let prospectors, gold seekers, and the like over the Chilkut Pass without a year's supply of provisions.
	Which, a 50-pound sack of flour and a sourdough pot would be most satisfactory.
	Oh, that's interesting.
	So the old sourdough Yukon Fisher thought that he had killed the bartender after smashing his head with a bottle during an argument in which he fled into the wilderness and lived as an outlaw for years.
	You know, the bartender was probably claiming to be a sourdough when he was actually more of a rye.
	Stolen valor.
	You know what I'm talking about?
	I do.
	Much like Elizabeth Warren, who claimed that she was a Native American, which he most certainly is not.
	Or George Santos, claiming to be Jewish, which he most certainly is not.
	Yep. That guy is not many of the things that he has claimed to be.
	It's said that Yukon Fisher would live in total isolation, completely avoiding any living man.
	He would, on very rare occasions, make an appearance at one of the more remote trading posts to stock up on supplies, such as ammunition, matches, salt, tea, before heading back into the vast, unforgiving wilderness.
	One such post he would visit was Poole Fields, situated on the Ross River.
	Poole Fields was actually the one man who had the most contact with the Yukon Fisher, and he would later say of him, He 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 by the sounds they made walking through the bush.
	You know Hillary Clinton can do much the same, right?
	Except she is one of those lurking through the brush.
	We talked about that last episode.
	She has her cave out there and whatnot.
	Every now and then, a trapper or some native would stumble upon one of Yukon Fishers' camps.
	They said that they could tell which abanid camps were Yukon fishers based on the small conical hut that he would make out of tree branches.
	Then he would pack the openings with moss and leave a hole at the top to allow smoke to escape from the fire that you would have inside.
	Well, if they didn't know Yukon Fisher was there by the small tree branch shacks he would make, it was literally the smell that permeated anywhere that he had rested on for more than an hour.
	Was it that bad?
	Oh yeah, the smell was literally like a fine crust of decay that covered his entire body.
	And here is how Yukon Fisher gets tied into this ghastly tale.
	In 1928, Charlie McLeod and some men had made a sketchy journey down the Flat River on yet another expedition risking their lives for gold.
	They were going along Bennett Creek, or as some call it, Gold Creek, where they unexpectedly happened upon the skeleton of what appeared to be a giant man who was missing his head.
	Next to the body of this headless giant man was a.44-40 Caribbean rifle.
	The barrel of this rifle was incredulously bent, and anyone familiar with firearms would be quick to say that it would take quite a bit of force to bend the barrel of said rifle.
	That's no jokes right there.
	And if that was an accurate assumption...
	According to their math, this man had been dead for around 15 years, which would have placed his death at being around 1913.
	They didn't know who this headless body belonged to as there was nothing to offer any sort of identification, but most people who have heard about this story naturally assumed it was Yukon Fisher.
	So in April of 1929, three more eager gold seekers decided to head up into the Nahanni Valley to try their own luck despite all the dreadful horror stories they must have heard.
	Angus Hall, Andy Hay, and J.M. Gilroy decided to take their small boat with an outboard motor attached to it up the Laird River some many miles, which was not a typical route to take.
	But by the next month, they would reach the South Nahanni River.
	Once reaching the South Nahanni, they were miserably ravaged by a number of flash floods, but would eventually make it through.
	They would manage to get beyond second canning before their motor would burn out.
	Now, being left without a motor, the three would have to battle the current manually with wooden oars.
	After many hours of excruciating work, they would finally reach Scow Creek, and from there, they would traverse by foot following the creek.
	After many more grueling hours, the trio would set up their camp where you would imagine it would have been a moment of
	I mean...
	Yeah, I feel like it would be rainbows and unicorns myself.
	Just a really pleasant time, you know what I mean?
	The men began to argue incessantly.
	And unable to handle the tense situation, Angus Hall threw a bit of a tantrum and stormed off into the woods.
	Quit saying that.
	It isn't true.
	I stepped in dog poop.
	You're stupid.
	Shut up.
	I don't have small feet.
	You guys are idiots.
	I'm out of here.
	As Angus walked off, The other two figured that he just needed to take some time to cool off and he'd be back soon.
	Nothing to be concerned about.
	It happens all the time.
	But nightfall came and Angus had not returned yet.
	But again, Hay and Gilroy didn't think much of it.
	You know, they were all very capable men.
	They had no reason to believe that he was in any trouble so the two men went to sleep expecting Angus to return by morning.
	Morning came, but Angus did not.
	Rise and shine, you big silly goose, you.
	You were rowdy last night.
	Wait, where's Angus?
	At that point, the two men hiked further up Bennett Creek to see if they could find any signs of Angus.
	Somewhere along the shore, they came across a single footprint, which had telltale signs of being a hobnailed boot, which was literally a boot with the sole being nailed into it for added protection against the wear and tear of rocks.
	This boot print...
	Looked to be exactly what their friend Angus had been wearing.
	Gilroy and Hay were perplexed, but couldn't find any further traces of Angus, so the two would then go find other men to help them in the search.
	They would soon meet up with four men, George Spangler, W. Cochran, Billy Hill, and Fred Hasler, all experienced prospectors.
	The six men would go out in search of the missing Angus, but he would never be found, the only vestige of him being the solitary boot print.
	Hob-nailed boot print.
	You know, it's really the specifics that draw in the listener.
	Then, one year after the disappearance of Angus Hall, another man, all on his own, would journey into the Nahanni Valley.
	He would be traveling from Fort Nelson, and was known to be a tough, honest, and extremely competent frontiersman.
	And his name would be Phil Powers.
	Phil would build a small cabin near the Flat River.
	and the old pot hot springs at the mouth of Irving Creek.
	I love it there.
	It would be here that he would establish himself and become immersed with all the usual chopping, hunting, fishing, and foraging.
	But unlike most of these masculine sourdoughs and gallant prospectors, Phil wasn't a loner type.
	He actually had a woman in his life, and while he was a hardened woodsman like many others of his caliber, he still had an adventurer's side to him.
	Miss Swenson was a writer, and the two had planned to meet in the spring of 1932 where they would travel together Ah, yes, another romantic ending.
	Oh, no romantic ending.
	The time came to meet, but Phil would never arrive.
	Miss Swenson became very worried and demanded that Jack Stanier and Billy Clark, two men visiting their friend Jack LaFleur at his Nahanni Butte trading post, would go out in search of him.
	The two men refused to at first, but the ceaseless begging by Miss Swenson proved far too much for them to handle.
	Like the incessant buzz of a mosquito, and they would soon give in.
	The two men would bring her as far as Mattson's cabin, a well-known trapper's cabin located just downriver from the Splits.
	At that point, the two men would return to the trading post while Miss Swenson would continue on to Fort Simpson, where she would go to the local RCMP to have them send out a search party.
	The RCMP didn't consider her desperate situation to be very moving, and they would refuse to go search for Phil Powers.
	But Miss Swenson?
	That would be rough, you know, like, who knows how long they'd be gone looking for the guy.
	And the whole time she just has to chill in this, like, tiny-ass settlement, hoping that at some point they'd find her missing fiancé or even just, like, a trace of the guy.
	Like, nowadays we have helicopters, planes, you know, FLIR and dogs and all that stuff, but back then...
	They had nothing but their feet and their eyeballs.
	Maybe a compass, if you're lucky.
	That's about it, man.
	For real, dude.
	It could take days, weeks, months.
	I mean, these guys are just walking through thick woods and floating upriver for many, many, many, many miles.
	Just looking around for any signs of human.
	And, you know, it must have been pretty fucking hopeless to be any RCMP put on the assignment to go search for anyone out in the wilderness.
	The two RCMP men would head out on their mission.
	And luckily for them, Old Poole Field, along with another man, Albert Fail, We'll join them.
	This pool field must be something of a legend in that area.
	Seems he got himself tied into everything that's going on.
	Yeah, and I didn't realize how big of a part he actually played in all of this.
	I thought I'd mention him once in part one, but he actually is a pretty big deal.
	He actually became a member of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, essentially an extension of the RCMP, and he would contribute greatly to the geological surveying of Canada, and he was in constant contact with the Athabascan peoples, and he could speak their language.
	And he would give a lot of information about them to anthropologists who were greatly indebted to him.
	And not to mention that he aided many a trader, prospector, and daily traveler with all the much-needed supplies since he owned his own trading post.
	And actually, his family has ties to Winston Churchill, and a cousin had risen to the highest rank in the British Navy, Lord of the Seas.
	Oh, wow.
	You know, Winston's mom was American.
	He was also very clumsy.
	When he was a kid, he threw himself off of a bridge and he suffered a concussion and ruptured a kidney.
	I think he was probably trying to impress a girl.
	Later on, he almost drowned in a lake in Switzerland trying to impress a girl.
	And of course, he fell numerous times from horses, usually trying to impress a girl.
	He also dislocated his shoulder while stepping off of a ship on his way to try to impress a girl on the dock.
	And once he crashed a plane that he was trying to fly while attempting to...
	Yeah, you guessed it.
	Impress a girl.
	Yep. And while in New York, he was hit by a car on Fifth Avenue after looking the wrong way, trying to impress a girl.
	Yep. Yes, sir.
	But despite all of that, he lived to be 90 years old.
	Somehow. Lived to 90. Died of a stroke.
	And what's most interesting about all of that is that...
	It was always the same girl he was trying to impress, and he didn't even know it.
	Yep. Strange how that happens.
	So anyway, very near where Martin Jorgensen would be found apparently flash frozen, the searchers would come upon the first signs that something was amiss.
	They came upon numerous traps that Phil Powers had set, except caught within all of these traps were the skeletal remains of foxes and lynxes.
	Searching further, they'd find Phil's 22-foot canoe.
	They continued on.
	And would reach the mouth of Irving Creek, where they finally found Phil's cabin, or what was left of it.
	The cabin had been completely burned to the ground, and within the damage, they found the remains of Phil Powers.
	As the story goes, when they found his remains, he was missing his head and gripping a revolver in his burnt, bony fingers.
	Nearby was a 20-foot-tall cache, but it was left undamaged.
	On one of the poles to this cache was a message that read, It's unclear who wrote that message because, according to the investigators, the evidence pointed to the theory that the fire had occurred at least one year earlier.
	Well, so who the hell wrote that message?
	We will never know.
	The truth is locked deep within the bowels of the famed Kanatican, with all the other Canadian relics, like the skeletons of giants, all that treasure that those guys are still digging for on Oak Island.
	That's all there.
	And the entire village of people that disappeared back in the early 1900s that used to stand where none of it stands today?
	Yep, they're all down there.
	Ah, yes.
	That entire village is being stored down below the...
	Connecticut? Yeah, man.
	The entire village.
	Everything. The huts, fire pits, animals, the stone piles.
	Everything. The RCMP would quickly conclude that a faulty stovepipe was responsible for the fire.
	Well... Looks like the budget only allows for us to focus entirely on a single issue.
	Lenny, you can make the pick this time around.
	Oh gee, well this is an easy one, and I think I speak for everyone when I say that I choose we focus on who spray-painted a penis on Gary's lead sled dog.
	That's an atrocity, a capital offense in my book.
	So it is.
	Gary will find the bastard.
	But any experienced woodsman, prospector, trapper, or hunter would quickly disagree with this conclusion.
	First of all, They would say Phil was far too experienced, as all sourdoughs are, and was competent enough to build a cabin with a safe, workable stovepipe.
	Secondly, they said, if the stovepipe had ignited the roof, which would have been the first to go up in flames, it would have caved in and all of the dirt placed on the roof would have extinguished the fire.
	The issue was that the fire had burned so hot, so intensely, That the only thing left of the cabin was the bottom log around the perimeter, and what was left of Phil's bones.
	Then, there was the cache nearby.
	Everything that should have been there was still there, except for the cans of gasoline that he kept for the motor on his canoe.
	Those were emptied of the contents, but placed back inside.
	The logical prospectors summed up that somebody had gone to Phil's cabin, shot him while he lay in bed, and then emptied the gasoline cans all over the inside of the cabin and lit it on fire.
	But the RCMP impetuously disagreed.
	Oh, well.
	Now you see, the whole theory you have going on there just doesn't make a moose lick of any sense.
	Clearly, the man drenched his entire cabin and himself with the gasoline, put the cans back in the cache there over there, then laid himself down on his bed, where he then shot himself in the head, obviously.
	Then he let himself burn down to a pretty good crisp, it looks like there.
	And, uh, hmm, well, when the fire died down a bit, those wicked squirrels came in.
	You know how those devilish little bastards can be?
	They took his head from where it should have been, and, uh, yeah, they placed it down there at his feet.
	I mean, open and shut seems pretty clear to me.
	And yet, the story continues.
	It was 1935, right after Christmas.
	A bush pilot named George Dalziel would fly two trappers, Bill Epler and Joel Mulholland, to Britnell Lake.
	This is a small body of water within what is called the Cirque of the Unclimbables.
	This impressive range of mountains are notable for their many vertical faces that appear to be perfectly smooth, therefore, unclimbable.
	The men's plan was to fashion a sort of Indian skin boat, which is to attach canvas to the outside surface of your canoe or boat to make it more waterproof.
	They would then collect as many furs as they could before they would float down the South Nahanni River the following spring.
	You're lying.
	Come that spring, Joe Mulholland's brother, Jack, would be the one to sound the alarm after the men had not returned.
	They would find the men's cabin, but not the two men.
	The cabin itself, like the cabins of both Martin and Powers, was burned down.
	There'd be numerous searches for the men, but only a couple scant clues would ever be discovered.
	So now let's go to May of 1936, when a group of hunters had arrived at the mouth of Flat River.
	There, they found the remains of a campfire that could only have been a few days old.
	As they continued down the South Nahanni River, they spotted some trees that had been cut down using axes.
	It was deduced that Mulholland and Epler had been through the area.
	The other clue came the following winter, when Harry Vandale and Al Lewis, two hunters, The hunters found it odd that there were a number of caches spaced miles apart,
	and within these caches were left neatly folded tarps or canvases with random items placed on top, such as empty tobacco cans and, in one case, a wolf's leg.
	Other than that, no other signs or clues were ever found as to what happened to the two men.
	The Edmonton Journal published an article in 1940 about an aeronautical engineer, William Gilbertson, who was found dead inside his cabin within the Nahanni Valley.
	And that was essentially the entire story.
	I could find nothing more about this other than the same sighting in the book Legends of the Nahanni Valley by Hammerson Peters.
	And later in the same year, Ollie Holmberg would go missing in Nahanni Valley.
	And again, I could find nothing but a mention in Hammerson's book.
	Then in 1945, another man.
	Walter J. Tolley, along with two partners, took an expedition into Nahanni Valley to do their own prospecting.
	Only days into the journey, they discovered a camp on the bank of the Flat River, so they thought they should stop and check it out.
	Once they got to the shore, they could see what looked to be a man sleeping in a sleeping bag.
	Upon further investigation, they found that it was indeed a man, but he was badly decomposed and also missing his head.
	Squirrels! Later...
	His remains would be identified as those of 40-year-old Ernest Savard, a French-Canadian prospector well-known among the various trading posts.
	The RCMP would issue their statement on Savard's cause of death.
	Well, okay now.
	Hey, hey everybody.
	Okay, okay.
	Hey, be quiet.
	One at a time now.
	Thank you very much.
	Okay, now, based on the mountains of evidence we gathered over there where he was camped, we came to the conclusion...
	As to how this young man had died.
	Okay, well, clearly this man became extremely hungry.
	Well, uh, sir...
	That's completely understandable.
	The man was so hungry that he thought he would just go ahead and sleep it off, you know.
	You know how it is.
	So he crawled in there, inside his sleeping bag.
	Really comfortable looking one there, too.
	Indeed it is, sir.
	Great eye.
	Remind me to buy you a double-double when we get back home, eh?
	Anyway, yeah, so he died in there.
	Yep, looks like he overslept a little bit, eh?
	And since he was inside the sleeping bag there, the animals could naturally only get in his head, okay?
	Wow. Boy, I am just poofed, I gotta say.
	Thank you.
	The RCMP did actually say the following.
	Hunger made him tired, so he crawled into his sleeping bag and died.
	Animals couldn't get at the rest of the body, so they gnawed away at his head.
	Later, some would say that it could not have been Ernest Savard's body since he had allegedly been spotted in 1946 in Yellowknife, and would only die a couple years after that.
	So it is suspected that the body found was that of someone else.
	Now let us introduce a decrepit and threadbare man as rugged as rugged can come with a face resembling the bottom of a dirty boot.
	You know, it's actually helpful out there in the elements.
	Frank Henderson was his name, and he was a prospector just like the rest.
	He had already gone up to the Nahanni Valley himself, found 30 ounces of gold, survived, and made it back to society to talk about it.
	Now a little side story on this guy.
	He had gone with a group of geologists and some native guides up to the junction of where the South Nahanni and Flat Rivers meet, and this group would come across the body of a fellow prospector, John Jacobson.
	He appeared to be dead.
	As it turned out, John had been with a group of his own, but he had become comatose and the group left him behind, and that was nearly two weeks earlier.
	So Henderson and the others began digging a grave for the man, but in the process...
	John Jacobson regained consciousness, shocking everybody.
	But he would apparently go on living a relatively normal life.
	Well, he's probably only firing on about one piston, though.
	Hey, John, can I try your socks on really quick?
	um hey john will you hand me those matches you you you Oh, ah.
	Bye. Ha ha ha.
	you Yeah.
	you
	Well, that was only one of his stories.
	Henderson would go on to recount a story to a journalist from Fort St. John named George Murray.
	He would explain that in the fall of 1945, he and a friend, John Patterson, had made plans to meet at Watson Lake in the Yukon near the Laird River.
	This Patterson fellow was as rough as they come as well.
	Birds of a feather flock together, right?
	Tard with the same brush, if you know what I mean.
	If you lie down with dogs, you get up with fleas.
	Blood calls to blood.
	The two planned to meet at Virginia Falls in the summer and traveled down the South Nahanni, then up to the Laird to Watson Lake.
	Apparently, Henderson would come from the north with three native guides and a dog sled with six months worth of provisions, while Patterson would approach from the east by himself.
	Henderson arrived at the meeting place and waited for his buddy who would fail to appear.
	The native guides with Henderson told him that they wouldn't wait any longer, and so they just took off.
	You know, assuming that Patterson...
	He'd just been taken by whoever or whatever haunted the valley.
	And for the rest of the season, Henderson would be alone while searching for his lost friend.
	Of this, he said, All summer I moved with utmost caution, mostly at night.
	There is absolutely no denying the sinister atmosphere of that whole valley.
	The weird continual wailing of the wind is something I won't soon forget.
	Patterson or his remains would never be found.
	Dude, this place is something else.
	Like, there has got to be some ancient curse or some sort of just with all of the things that are going on there in that area, all the deaths.
	I mean, and I know it's remote, but it's just some weird shit, man.
	I know.
	It just seems like there are areas all over the world, these little specific areas where just weird stuff seems to happen there.
	And Nahanni Valley is like...
	I don't know, man.
	Weirder than most, I would say.
	It's got a feeling to it.
	You know, it's in the wilderness.
	A very, very remote area of wilderness.
	And that alone just gives it that extra freak factor.
	You know what I mean?
	Totally. Absolutely.
	Something is going on up there, though.
	I can tell you right now, I will never go there.
	What if someone paid you to go there?
	Well, now you're talking.
	I'll give you five toonies if you go up there.
	Oh, how about five toonies for a loonie?
	Deal! John Shebbick was flown into an area south of the Flat River in the fall of 1946.
	He went in alone, and for whatever reason, with very little food and minimal provisions.
	Perhaps it was due to the fact that there was a stocked cabin in the general vicinity.
	I'm not exactly sure what his plan was, but I'm betting that he had intended to leave the valley alive at some point.
	But this would not happen.
	A little over a year later, a frontiersman named George Sibston He said that inside the cabin lay the remains of a man that had been torn to bits.
	Upon a search, of which Gus Krause, of the famed Krause Hot Springs are named, was part of it.
	It was discovered that the body was that of John Shebbick.
	Kraus would say the following.
	It was just a mess up there.
	Scraps of clothing and bones had been gnawed and dragged around by bears, wolves, and every other damned thing that could chew, especially those damned squirrels.
	Inside the cabin, they also found Shebek's diary, of which only the last entry was legible.
	It indicated that Shebek had gone at least 43 days without food.
	This was an astonishing thing to read, considering that this man was a very capable outdoorsman.
	What was also a mystery to everyone was why Shebek did not make his way to that well-stocked cabin of George Simstons, only about a mile downriver.
	Shebek's friend, Nazar Zinchik, had reminded him of the cabin before he took his trip, and Shebek certainly knew of his existence.
	Yeah, that literally doesn't make sense.
	Like, the guy was starving for 43 days.
	And he didn't venture off either way along the river to look for the cabin.
	It was a mile away.
	One mile.
	No, it doesn't make any sense.
	Why would you sit there for 43 days knowing you're starving?
	Anything's better than sitting there starving to death.
	It's like this forest will pick and choose who it wants to do something to and it puts this stupor over them.
	They can't think.
	They have this confused thought process and so they just lay down and die.
	43 days.
	Doesn't make any sense.
	No. Typically, the story of the Headless Valley ends here.
	But there have been many other deaths that some have attributed to the curse of Nahanni Valley.
	Although most can easily be attributed to drownings, hypothermia, or plane crashes.
	There's one interesting tale I'd like to mention really quick.
	Two men wanted to film a documentary about the curse of Nahanni Valley in the fall of 1961.
	They were both very experienced pilots.
	One being a veteran of the RCAF, the Royal Canadian Air Force, and that would be Angus McKenzie, and the other was a bush pilot named John Langdon.
	By 1962, they were on scene near Smith River and were finishing up bringing in supplies by plane.
	Angus, the more experienced pilot, went off for one last run which should only have taken about 50 minutes, but he would never return.
	Thinking that a storm was to blame, seeing as the weather wasn't all that good, they quietly waited for him to arrive.
	Again, he never returned.
	The RCAF Search and Rescue went out to look and scoured the area, but they saw no sign of wreckage or of a landing anywhere.
	Even though Angus and the plane couldn't be found, John was still on location with all the cameras and gear and everything else, so he decided that he would just carry on with the filming for the documentary.
	One day, about six months later, John and his crew were still out filming some final scenes.
	Far in the distance, they spotted something glimmering in the sun, so they hiked over to check it out.
	When they got to the location, they realized that it was the wreckage of the plane Angus was flying.
	Spread all about in an orderly fashion were all the supplies and at least 100 days' worth of food.
	Angus clearly survived the crash.
	They would then find his diaries, and within them were written many entries.
	It was all basic stuff, such as, you know, he only had minor injuries from the crash, and he was making huge signal fires, as well as tramping huge Save Our Ships in the snow, and he even made a flag from his red sleeping bag to try to get the attention from the pilots flying above looking for him.
	He couldn't understand why they couldn't see him.
	You know, basic stuff.
	Then, after 46 days, the writing stopped.
	And the later entries were also written with a sharpened.303 bullet, not a pencil or a pen.
	But Angus was never found.
	Weird. Like, who would...
	I don't even know, man.
	I don't even know where to start with all that.
	You know?
	So, like, he made it through the crash.
	He's obviously tough.
	You know?
	But then suddenly the writing just stops out of nowhere.
	Yeah, and we don't – apparently he doesn't explain what happened with the plane to go down.
	Right, right, right.
	So it must have been some sort of technical thing going on, and he brought – like, the plane wasn't destroyed.
	Like, it wasn't a crash-crash.
	He was able to, quote-unquote, crash-land it, so it wasn't heavily damaged, but it was damaged enough that he couldn't fly it anymore.
	Right, right.
	And then he took all of the stuff out of the plane and laid it on the ground in an orderly fashion and had 100 days' worth of food.
	Yet, he was nowhere to be found.
	So he just walked off?
	Why would you just go walk off?
	I wonder if he just went a little bit insane.
	Or maybe he was injured.
	Maybe he survived, but maybe he was more injured than he thought.
	Even though I know it was a crash landing, so it wasn't like a bad crash.
	You know, it was minor injuries.
	But he was never found, so that's the thing.
	Nobody knows, will ever know the extent of what he really went through.
	Right. And I had a question about that, too, because he was riding with a.303 bullet, right?
	It's a rifle bullet, so he was riding with a bullet.
	So he had a rifle, and I don't know if a rifle was found.
	So I suspected he was waiting there for however many days, 46 days until the writing stopped.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	So he was probably like, I don't know, go hunting?
	But he had 100 days worth of food right there.
	So that doesn't make sense.
	I think he went crazy and was too spooked out being alone in the fucking wilderness.
	And so he took his rifle and just shot himself in a river.
	Or something.
	He could have done that.
	Or I think he might have gone off looking for help because it's been so long.
	He's like, well, fuck it.
	I'm just going to go trek, try to find help.
	Because by 46 days, no one's helped him.
	So he's like, well, I got to go do something.
	Right. Maybe it was a water issue.
	Maybe he had a lot of food, but no water.
	Oh, no potable water.
	Yeah. And then, you know, you can drink so much snow, but it just kind of leads to more dehydration eventually.
	Right. Right.
	But the body note was never found, so who knows?
	Aside from a couple unusual deaths that have occurred in Nahanni Valley, there are also many stories of people losing their minds and going mad.
	This is going to harken back to what you were just saying.
	Dick Turner, the author of Nahanni, wrote about four men he had personally known that had gone mad through sheer loneliness while being isolated out in the Nahanni Valley.
	Of one man, he wrote...
	He died of shanty rot.
	He lay on the bed in his cabin for the best part of two years and gradually rotted away.
	He said, That's kind of creepy.
	And one of those three stood out the most to Turner, and he wrote, Talking with him on commonplace subjects, I found him as normal as anyone, but suddenly in the middle of a conversation, he would lower his voice and in a somewhat obscure manner, make reference to them.
	Extra creepy.
	That's hellaciously creepy.
	He would say that one spring, this man simply never returned, and, well, he was never seen again.
	But perhaps one of the strangest tales happened back in 1959 when five prospectors from Yellowknife made it to Macmillan Lake to do their alluvial toiling.
	The five brought with them sled dogs and his sled, 100 pounds of flour, and several months of rice, beans, sugar, and tobacco.
	They expected to be gone between four and six months.
	Come December, a game warden had checked on the five men.
	While inspecting the cabin, he found that the men had killed a number of moose and caribou, but they were all unable to provide the warden with a license to do so.
	The warden gave them a stern warning not to kill any more animals unless they were in danger of starvation.
	Then he seized all their illegally gained meat and flew out.
	This infraction would be immediately reported to the constable, who then made his own visit to the five men the following morning.
	He just wanted to see them for himself, you know, check them out, give them a looky-loo.
	And after doing so, he asked if they would like a free flight back to civilization.
	This offer was refused.
	But the men certainly had enough provisions to last through the harsh winter.
	Come the following May, two brothers, Chuck and Jim McAvoy, both bush pilots, flew over McMillan Lake knowing of the five prospectors.
	Upon flying over the lake, they noticed a large Save Our Ships imprinted in the snow.
	Seeing this, they landed the aircraft and hiked to the small cabin.
	For anyone who doesn't know, save our ships as SOS.
	Inside, they found two of the five men, Dean Rosworth and John Richardson, both severely emaciated.
	The two starving men would then give chilling details.
	About four months prior, in January, a shipment of supplies that was supposed to be dropped off to the men never arrived.
	They literally ran out of food and began to go hungry, scavenged around for crumbs and forgotten morsels.
	I, for one, am always looking around for forgotten morsels.
	They explained at first.
	They knew that they would have to go out and kill themselves a moose or a caribou to stock up on meat.
	And while they were able to kill a handful of said animals, they, for some reason, were completely unwilling to dress the animals and procure the meat.
	You mean, like, put sweaters on them to keep the meat warm on the way to the cabin where they could then remove the sweaters and get what meat they could?
	Right? Hunting 101.
	Instead, they decided to kill their sled dogs and eat their meat.
	One man took his dead dog and put it in a hole in the ice where he let it decompose to the point where the skin would slide off with the slightest nudge.
	It was at that point he would then cook it and eat it.
	Oh, shit.
	Well, at least he cooked it.
	I'll give him that.
	Another man would do essentially the same thing, but with the entrails of a caribou, while leaving all of the red meat behind for the animals.
	And at some point in their ordeal, after a failed ice fishing attempt, Alex Maiskonen grabbed his camera, his glasses, and his pack sack, backpack, or knapsack, whichever you prefer, and set off from the cabin telling the others that he was going on a search for wire.
	So that they could make animal snares, and then assured them that he'd be back as soon as possible.
	Nobody questioned him.
	Shortly afterward, the four remaining men heard a loud boom in the distance.
	Interestingly, none of them cared enough to really think about what that loud boom actually was.
	But after several hours of Alex not returning, another man followed Alex's trail through the snow where it came upon the man's splattered remains.
	It appeared that he committed suicide using the last stick of dynamite that they had with them.
	And apparently, Alex was the only guy of the group who was absolutely fearful of explosives.
	Oh, wow.
	After that gruesome find, two of the others, Thomas Pappas and Orville Webb, decided to set off into the forest in search of help.
	Then, some weeks later, the McAvoy Bros would fly into the area, see the Save Our Ships, And find John and Dean withering away in the cabin.
	Thomas Norville, while they would never be seen again.
	And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes the two-part series of The Valley of the Headless Men.
	Wow, that is a trek in and of itself.
	Just the summation of all of those stories.
	But clearly there's something up with that valley.
	I mean, you know, we have plenty of valleys here.
	And we don't have nearly the legendary deaths and mishaps and misfortunes that these people are having.
	There's just such a high number of it, such a high volume in that area.
	It's really spooky.
	Alright, so what could possibly be the cause?
	We can surmise that there are evil spirits up there luring people into the woods and killing them, cutting off their heads for whatever reason.
	We can say that perhaps the wahela are real and they're out there killing men and taking their heads.
	These cannibalistic people that are said to live in the caverns, well, they could be doing it too, but the thing is they're cannibals, so why wouldn't they cannibalize the bodies?
	Right? Right, right.
	Just the head.
	You're not going to get much meat off of it.
	No, and any, you know, the wahela being wolf-like, whatever.
	Is that the wahela?
	I'm not sure if that was a wahela.
	A giant dog bear or whatever up there.
	You would think that, well, the animals would probably eat the human and not just run off with a head.
	Right, right.
	Even the wild animals in the area.
	Yeah. I mean, if it was still, you know, if it was like the Canadians said, you know, like the creatures, there would still be the bones left.
	You know, like they'd eat the skin and the flesh and whatnot, but there'd be some bones left.
	It wouldn't just be like a decapitated body.
	Right. And if it was like predation, we know that if a person is going to be eaten by an animal, they're not going to be in one spot, the remains.
	They're going to be spread out.
	Exactly. You're going to find bits.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Here and there.
	You look at any video of animals, you know, being predators, taking down prey.
	They go for the guts.
	That's where the good stuff's at.
	They don't go for the head.
	They might go for the neck to kill prey, but the very next thing they're trying to get is the guts.
	Yeah, so big cats, they usually bite down on the neck and suffocate their prey, right?
	Bears usually go after the head first to incapacitate the victim.
	Right. But they don't cut...
	You know, bite the head off and run off with just a head.
	Right. If they do bite the head, usually it's aggression, you know, or to, like, kill whatever it is.
	But they do the same thing as everything else.
	They go for the guts.
	You know, it just makes the most sense.
	So it's just a silly theory that they came up with.
	And reports of this stuff, like, there is some animal, like, eating off the dead bodies, but on, like, every account, the bodies are not torn to pieces and ripped and spread out.
	Over, you know, an area.
	Like, the reports mention that the bodies are still in one place.
	Yeah, they're in one place.
	Like, they were left there.
	Right. It had to be humans.
	Well, and that's another speculation.
	A lot of people think that it's just another tribe in the area killing these white prospectors, you know?
	Right. Saying, get the hell out of our land.
	You do not belong here.
	And that gold belongs where you got it from.
	And that's why whenever these people are found, the gold is never found.
	The gold is always gone.
	And the sluices, for some reason.
	Right. You know what we need to do with LIDAR and everything we have now?
	They need to fly over that valley and just see what they can see covered up by the trees and everything.
	Maybe there are settlements that they've just missed because it's a hard area to explore.
	I feel like the Canadian government would have done that by now.
	I would think they have their entire country mapped by this point.
	I don't know if they give a shit, though.
	I don't know.
	Yeah, you would think.
	No, I don't think they care too much.
	And especially when it comes to a conspiracy type of story like this.
	Exactly. Where it's like we're just being speculative by all these weird, mysterious ways these people were murdered.
	The Canadian government might be like, "Well, let us just go out there with some water."
	Yeah, right.
	They don't give a fuck about that.
	I mean, it would just, if something else were discovered, it would make their original findings just look so asinine.
	Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	And it's in my opinion that I feel the Canadian government has been up in that area and are definitely doing some fucking gold prospecting themselves.
	Yes, yes, I see.
	Why wouldn't they?
	If that gold is being found, you know the government's going to be there.
	Holy Queen's monarchy!
	In the name of Gretzky and the Maple Leafs, and of old Timmy Horton himself, deliver us from those chislers down there in America.
	They're some real bokavs.
	Some real chuckleheads.
	They come up here to harass and attack us before fearfully squabbling back to the shadows of the border.
	Reminds me a lot of the Naha who used to do the same to poor Dene.
	Leave us alone, you yanks.
	Yeah, you bush gorbies.
	You're just a bunch of scared skyvies down there being dirty skeets.
	Yeah, you know it.
	They remind me a bunch of benders being doughheads and dusters down there.
	I couldn't have said it better myself, pal.
	Alright, well just one more time, you know, we just want to make sure all the Canadians know we love you guys.
	You're attached.
	We're literally attached to the hip, man.
	We are.
	We can't live without you.
	You can't live without us, except you probably can, because you've been doing it for a long time.
	But, just know, we've got lots of love for you Canadians up there, wherever you're at.
	Whether you're in BC, British Columbia, or BC, British Columbia, or old Saskatoon, we're thinking about you.
	We're thinking about all of you.
	Ottawaans. Ottawaans.
	Yep. Ontarians.
	We love you all.
	It does not matter where you are, or if you're Canadian, or French Canadian, or whatever.
	We love you.
	We love you.
	And there you have it, folks.
	The end of part two of the Valley of Headless Men.
	Thank you all very much for stopping by and lending us your ear.
	Listener support is always welcome.
	And highly encouraged.
	So please, please, please subscribe to the Paranautica podcast wherever you listen.
	And we are available pretty much everywhere, I think.
	And also, don't forget to like and share and email us at paranautica at gmail.com.
	That's P-A-R-A-N-A-U-G-H-T-I-C-A at gmail.com.
	We like our listeners.
	We do this for you.
	And baby Jesus.
	And baby Jesus indeed.
	Thank you all for listening and we hope you'll tune in next week for another episode.
	Yeah, what are we doing by the way?
	I have no idea.
	It'll be a surprise.
	We all like surprises, don't we?
	Thanks everyone.
	Until next time.

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