National Park After Dark - Legend Has It: Nahanni National Park Reserve

Episode Date: February 21, 2022

Who doesn’t love a good legend? Stories of vanished civilizations, ancient beasts and long-lost gold sink their hooks into us and leaving us wanting more. Legends that allude to things that are lost are exciting because they suggest at one point, they must have been discovered … and could quite possibly be found once again. This week we are back in Canada in one of the most beautiful and least visited National Parks in North America to uncover some of the many legends it holds. Is there any truth to them? And who has died trying to find out?For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials at:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!HelloFresh: Code NPAD for up to 16 free meals and 3 free gifts BetterHelp: Get 10% off your first month of online therapy by using our linkApostrophe: Save $15 off your first visit with code NPADFor a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Monday AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. They live inside Monday.com. So they see the full picture, my work, my team, the whole company. And I don't have to worry about the data. It's safe, which means I'm free to focus on the big stuff,

knowing everything runs smoothly in the background. It's completely shifted the way we work. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday.com. Girl, winter is so last season. And now Springs got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress.

Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch. Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear up on that envelope. It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. Legends. Defined as traditional stories sometimes popularly regarded as historical, but are unauthenticated, account for large swaths in the fabric of human history. The fate of the Lost Colony of Roanoke,

the Lost City of Atlantis, and El Dorado, the Lost City of Gold, are some of the most popular legends amongst historians and explorers alike. There's just something so thrilling about legends, especially when the subject of the stories has been lost, because this alludes to the fact that at one point they must have been discovered and could quite possibly be found once again. Deep in the Northwest Territories of Canada lies an area riddled with legends. Legends of beasts thought to have gone extinct long ago. Evil spirits dwelling within the forests.

Tribes who have vanished without a trace. and lost mines whose walls are cut deep with the veins of glittering gold. With features named after tragedies including Sunblood Mountain, Broken Skull River, Hellsgate Rapids, Headless Valley, Devil's Kitchen, and the Funeral Range, this park may have gold, but it also has danger. If you're willing to go searching for a legend, you better be prepared to become one. because not all who enter this valley in search of answers come out alive. Welcome to National Park After Dark.

I'm super intrigued already. Did you like that one? Yeah, everything about that. I'm like legends and death and all the strange names and a treasure. Question mark? A question mark? Perhaps. I will have to give props to my partner Ian, even though he doesn't even listen to this,

I said I would because I had a totally different episode planned for today. But he was on Reddit. He's like a super Reddit person. I've never used Reddit. But he saw an article about this park. And he's like, it looks really creepy. And there's a lot of weird stories that people are talking about in here. It might be a good theme.

And wow. I think we could do a whole podcast series on this park. That's how many stories are. involved in this park. Very interesting. And where is it exactly? British Columbia. Are you familiar with that where that is? Yeah, I just did an episode in British Columbia. Right. So it's north of British Columbia and to the east of Yukon, which borders Alaska. Okay. Of course, as it's in the episode title, we are in Nahany National Park Reserve. And I've heard it pronounced both ways, Nahany and Nahani. I gravitate towards Nahani, so that's just how I'm going to say it. But before we dive into this

episode, we have one thing to say. We do. We have new merch. We do. We have new merch. It's been a little while since we launched anything. And we have a new bandana. Okay, the bandana thing has been something that I've wanted for a really long time. I love bandanas. I wore one out actually on date night for Valentine's Day with Ian. And it was a bandana I got when I was in Santa Fe. And he's like, do I need to wear my cowboy hat? Are we doing like a Western couples, cowboy couple theme? I'm like, no, please. But I do love bandanas. And we partnered with an incredible artist who brought our vision to life for the design. And we're really happy with them. And they are available now. They're available now until the 25th.

The 25th. So it's different from the way that we've released merch in the past just for this item. Because we're also partnering with a small business print company that does orders differently. So we can only release them for a short amount of time. So if you would like the bandana this round, you have until Friday the 25th of February to order one. We also have something else. We have other merch. So we did a fun little t-shirt. We have a crop tea and a regular tea of a grizzly. And it's really kind of in remembrance to Night of the Grizzlies episode and then your Timothy Treadwell episode whenever we visit Grizzlies. I think it really has made an impact on all of us about the dangers of Grizzlies and how much we love them. So now we have it on a t-shirt. Yes. We wanted to have a little something to commemorate one of our more memorable episodes, which was the Night of the Grizzlies.

especially. So those two things are available. There are our newest items there. So if you want to check them out, they're on our website and through our Instagram and all that. You can find them in our shop. I think that's it. Yeah. Let's tell me about this park. I really, I want to know. It's on my list now. I want to go there. Okay. Okay. You think it's on your list now. Just wait until you Google images this park, which I think you should right now. Oh my God. It looks like glacier. It looks like glacier. It looks like glacier on steroids is what it looks like. Wow, this is like magical. Yes, it's incredible even just to look at pictures. I can't even imagine being there. So, all right, let me describe it to everyone because we're just going to get lost in.

Yeah, everyone else go Google this right now, though. It's amazing. Wow. Huge mountains, glaciers, rivers and water and grizzlies and kayaking and, oh my. And you don't even know the half of it. let's get into Nahani National Park. Yes, tell me everything. Nihani National Park Reserve is located, like we mentioned, in Canada's Northwest Territories. At over 11,600 square miles, which is about 30,000 and 50 square kilometers, this national park is one of the most remote, wild, and untouched national parks in the entire world. So to put it in perspective, Yellowstone, which is bigger than the states of Rhode Island and Delaware combined, so already a big park, this park, Nahani comes in at three times that size because Yellowstone comes in at 3,471 square miles.

So this park is huge. Canada's huge. Right. So it's fitting. Established in 1976, the park was one of the first to be placed on the UNESCO World Heritage lists two years after it was first established. So it was listed in 1978. In 2009, Canada expanded the park, giving the park a National Park Reserve boundary, hence National Park Reserve title.

And this was great because it aided in further protection. And currently, it is managed cooperatively by the Decho First Nations, which is a tribal council that represents the Denei and Métis people of the Northwest Territories along with Parks Canada. So together, they managed the park. On average, only about 1,000 people visit this park every single year. That's like nothing, especially when you look at Yellowstone or Yosemite or Great Smoky Mountains, the most visited park with, I think it was 33 million people every year. Right. I mean, easily any of those parks can see a thousand people in a day or an afternoon depending on, you know, the season.

So to think that a park three times as big as Yellowstone sees well, what Yellowstone sees in six hours maybe. It's just wild to think about. That's insane. Also, Great Smoky Mountains is 14.1 million visitors. That is wild. But so many, yeah. Wow.

A thousand. Okay. I want to be one of those. One thousand. Oh, wow. How many of those thousand die each year, actually? We'll get to that. We'll get to that.

Okay. But part of the reason for such low numbers is, number one, because it's very remote. You're, you know, it's not near a major airport. or tourist hub. And the nearest road is 90 miles or 144 kilometers away. Visitors can only get into this park by float plane or by boat, and there are no actual road systems within the park itself. Oh, wow.

So it's all hiking or kayaking. Or boating. Yeah. So are there any rangers that work inside of this park? There are rangers, but it's not anything that we would envision in the U.S. when we think of the big crown jewels of national parks. Okay. Those lucky enough to visit this area, which hopefully we can count ourselves among in the future,

will be met with some of the most jaw-dropping and awe-inspiring natural beauty the world has to offer. The park is mostly mountains with various mountain ranges, hills, and river valleys, along with plateaus. Some of the mountain ranges include the highest peaks in all of the Northwest territories, and some of which are extensively glaciated. The park also contains limestone cave systems, which largely have been yet to be explored. There are hot springs in this park. There are tufa mounts, which they're limestone formations. And the best example I can give is Pyramid Lake in Nevada.

They're the big limestone formations in bodies of water. Okay. Yeah, I do know what you're talking about. And there are also karst features. They are landforms that are created as the water erodes limestone deposits away. This park has a lot of different geological formations, and that's part of the reason why they're such a vast area protected is because it's so vastly geologically varied.

Hundreds of species of plant and animal life thrive in this park as well, and there are two main environments, including the alpine and the boreal forest environments. And in this park, grizzlies, wolves, peregrine falcons, doll sheep, mountain goats, lynx, snowshoe hair, and so much more thrive. The park has a nickname, and it is the Grand Canyon of Canada, and it's easy to see why, if you Google image photos of it. The park has four noteworthy canyons reaching 3,300 feet in depth, which is about 1,000 meters. The waters of the South Nahani River cut through the mixed strata of

limestone, shale, and sandstone, and twists and turns through the canyons until it picks up speed and reaches Virginia Falls, a 300-foot 92-meter waterfall divided by a massive central rock stack. And it's about twice as high as Niagara Falls. Wow. I actually Googled how high Niagara Falls was the other day because I was curious. Really? I've only been, I guess I've been twice technically, but I only remember one time going. I have a lot of family that live up in Niagara Falls.

So I've been there many times. But my dad and I were talking about Niagara Falls the other day. And he guessed that it was 150 feet tall and it's like 160 feet. Well, that would make sense if this is almost twice as high and it comes in around 300 feet. Yeah. It's massive and that massive stone that's kind of just stuck in the middle of it, it gives it a very unique feel and look and kind of like you said magical. That's what it looks like.

If you are to visit the park, there are a couple trails varying in length and difficulty that will actually take you up to the falls. Hiking and camping in the park are popular activities, but the most common activities lie on the water. Canoeing, kayaking, and rafting are immensely popular here. And due to the dangers of the river, Parks Canada highly recommends that trips are either taken with a guided and registered outfitter

or you do extensive research and preparation. Navigating the river in Nahani has a long and storied history. Nahani comes from the language of the Deney, a group of indigenous peoples who inhabited the valleys of the area that is now the park for thousands and thousands of years. Meaning the people over there, it's actually in reference to another group of indigenous peoples known as the Naha, who lived in the park's mountainous region. Every year, the Dene would travel up the Nihani River to their hunting grounds in the winter months. Then the following spring, they would make Muskin boats to travel back down the river.

The boats were extraordinary, some reaching 20 meters, almost 65 feet in length, and they were constructed with young, flexible spruce trees to use as the frame. They would hunt moose, up to eight of them per boat, depending on the length, to use their hides to stretch over the frame. And then they'd thatched the moosekins together using the sinew from the moose itself. and then they'd use these boats to navigate back down or up the river back to their regular grounds every single year. And when you see how crazy this river is, it's such a feat, especially because they have to get past Victoria Falls. So what they do is they would shore the boat and then they would portage it, so carry it around the falls and then put it back down on the other side and continue on. People used to work so much harder than we do now. I know, right?

I'm like, wow. It's like, that would never happen today. You'd be like, well, guess we're not going this way. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L, every year after, the love hypothesis.

Sterling Point and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. The Denei passed down way more than just their knowledge of muskin boat construction. They have passed down oral histories brimming with stories and legends of this region. From relic populations of woolly mammoths, dinosaurs to Eurady, their word for giant monster animals which roamed the world in ancient times. Speaking of giant animals, Nahani National Park is rumored to hold them. There have been accounts, everything from oral histories passed down from the dene, to writings from early pioneers and explorers all the way up to some modern day accounts

of interactions with giants. Moose with antlers spanning 12 feet, large hairy beasts with long tusks, colossal grizzlies, and lions with long, flowy mains have all been rumored to lurk here. These accounts may seem hard to believe, like stories conjured up from a book, but interestingly, all of these animals have very real roots. The Irish elk was a very real animal, and it was an old world servid, which was the largest deer to have ever lived, mammoths, the giant short-faced bear,

and the North American cave lion, and extinct species of the modern-day lion, all have lived and thrived in what is now Nahani. Even a long extinct creature dubbed the Wahila or bear dog thought to roam the forest of the park is reminiscent of the dire wolf. And as an anid antidote, prospectors told stories of indigenous peoples of the area who would come down from deep within the park and draw astoundingly accurate images of woolly mammoths. Some claiming to have seen small herds deep within the Nahani. Mammoth tusks and items made from them were traded at the time, but whether or not they were from mammoth remains that were discussed. in the park coming out of the permafrost, which has been documented and does happen,

or if they were taken from a freshly killed animal, has been lost to time. This is making me reminisce about when we went to the mammoth dig site in South Dakota. I'm just all of the ancient species that you're talking about. It just reminds me at the dig site where it's a sinkhole and they have all of these species, the mammoths and the bears and everything all who died there and their skeletons are. there now and it's just really making me remember that. I loved that trip. I mean, I said before it was like the highlight of South Dakota for me. Side note, this park has so many stories, not just survival stories or morbid stories, but stories like that. We could do a whole episode

on the history of whether or not these species had been witnessed by people not very long ago. And that's because this park, through documentation from pioneers and settlers and prospectors back in the 1800s and early 1900s when they were first going here and making contact with the indigenous peoples, they were mapping the area the best that they could. I mean, a lot of this park is still unexplored. But there were areas that based on the topography, there was areas that were sheltered from like the big glaciated peaks. And there was palm trees and it was very lush. Palm trees. Yes, like very, like an area that was just kind of protected. So for people who were, you know, lived in the area that came down and had all these items and prospectors were like, you know, where did you get this or what type of animal did this come from? And they would draw an astoundingly accurate picture of a woolly mammoth. It's like, are you getting that because you saw a very complete skeleton or mummified remains or did you actually see one? A lot of in very remote parts of this area. And that has been up for debate.

And I spent, I'm not even kidding you, probably five hours going down that route. And it was just so interesting. Yeah, just a little side note, but it's just wild. All I heard from that is that, woolly mammoths are still alive. And they're in Canada. Go now. No, no, no. I mean, this at this point obviously is hundreds of years ago, but it's just crazy.

They're alive. They're alive. They're real. They're real. That like, it's alive. I guess so. So moving on from that because we will talk forever about that. So there are all these creatures that have long and storied histories within the park.

But there's also talks of evil spirits, including a version of the devil. And evil spirits and spirits from different worlds and realms, whether they're evil, or not or just sacred. There are a lot of stories from the indigenous cultures here about these spirits residing within the valleys and parts of the park. So you would think that with all of these tales, whether they're, you know, dire wolf beasts, bear dog beasts or mammoths and spirits and all that and the devil, you would think that people would give Nahani like a wide breath and kind of just avoid it altogether.

But in the late 1800s, despite all of that. of these warnings, the area saw its fair share of new faces. Gold had been discovered in the nearby Yukon and hundreds of thousands of people known as stampeters rushed to that area in hopes of claiming their fair share and striking it rich. And while that final destination was the Yukon, the Nahani got its fair share of attention as well, especially by Sourdose, which is a term or a nickname given to people who came back from other gold expeditions that didn't turn out. the way that they wanted. So there are people that went out initially to a gold rush didn't strike it rich. And now they're looking at the Nahani? Yes, they are because gold was discovered in the Nahani.

The chance of hitting pay dirt was far too enticing to pass up. Warnings from the indigenous tribes fell on to deaf ears and prospectors waded into the waters of the Nahani with their sights set on sparkling little gold nuggets. But little did they know, most would know. Most would know. never make it out alive. Dun, done, done. So switching gears here, we're going to discuss one of those prospectors. Albert Faley was born around 1887, probably in Pennsylvania, and was brought up by a foster family.

Little is known about his early life, even by Albert himself. So there's no real concrete answers there as to his exact birthday or location. A couple sources said Pennsylvania and some even said Massachusetts. But he doesn't even really know himself for sure. He actually had a small little tag with his birth parents' name and their birth dates on it, but it was lost in a fire. So when that went up in flames, all connection with his birth family did as well. He lived with his foster family who ran a farm and life was pretty hard there for Albert. So he ran away when he was the ripe old age of eight.

Like for real ran away? For real, for real, real ran away. Not just like, that's it. I'm packing my bags. You'll never see me again. And you pack like a teddy bear and like a jar or peanut butter and you go down the street for five minutes. Like it was not that. I ran away once when I was eight and I packed my little backpack up. And I went outside and I was like I'm leaving. I'm never coming back. And then I went into the backyard over the stone wall into the woods where I could still see the house. And it was this little spot that had a little bit of water around it. So it was like my own little island, but it wasn't. And then. then I could see the house from where I was. And I was like, I live here now. And I'm going to build a house here. No, no, I didn't get to the shelter part. And then my mom came outside or something. And she's like, dinner's ready. And I'm like, no, I live here now. And I was like, oh, no, I'm kind of hungry. And then I came back. So when you say ran away at eight years old, that's what I'm. Nope. Albert was much tougher than you

were at age eight. He actually wandered the country doing odd jobs, sleeping in barns, and he learned to jump trains. So two years later, when he was 10 years old, he found himself all the way up in Minnesota, where he learned how to trap animals and sell their pelts. A 10. 10. Wow. In a 1962 article, William Winthrop interviewed Albert. And when speaking of his childhood, Albert was quoted as saying, nowadays, they'd pick you up and put you in a school. But in those days, it was different. A kid could be his own, which is very true, I guess. Makes that sound so nice. Like, you could be whoever you want to be at eight years old. You don't have to follow the rules. You don't have to go to third grade. You could go to Minnesota and

trap animals. Trap animals, yeah. As a young adult, he made his main source of income by trapping. But he did do odd jobs as well on logging camps, on farms, and in the forestry industry. He at this point also learned to read and write because he wasn't picked up and brought to a school. He had no formal education. So he was taught to read and write by one of his bosses when he was in the logging industry. In his late 20s, after serving a stint in World War I with the U.S. forestry engineers, he returned back to Duluth, Minnesota and continued his trapping and met and married a woman named Marion. By the 1920s, he had an opportunity to trap in Canada with a partner.

The two men had a really rough winter up in Canada that season, but they earned $5,000 for their bounty, which is about $80,000 today. Wow. So that's a pretty – and that's just in a season just for the winter. Right. Yeah. The following winter brought a new opportunity for another trapping excursion, and Albert was ready to make that money again. But his partner, scarred from his poor experience and almost dying in the backcountry the previous winter, said no to that opportunity. So Albert went out at it alone. And he turned out with another very

successful season. And things were going so well that he sent for his wife. He wanted her to come to Canada and start a new life in Canada with him. But Marion refused. She wanted to stay in Minnesota and he said that she didn't want to give up city life. I don't know what Duluth, Minnesota, is like now, let alone in the 1800s, but I just don't really imagine it as a big city. But either way, she just didn't want to be in the backcountry. Okay. So he never saw her again. That was it.

I'm pretty sure Duluth is a major city. Is it? Yeah, it's a major city on one of the Great Lakes. But in the 1800s too? Oh, maybe, I guess. Yeah. Right? I haven't been there, but yeah.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's a big major city. Apologies to everyone in Minnesota and in Duluth specifically. If I hurt your feelings, I don't know anything. Oh, we're on the other end of when people are like New Hampshire, where's that? No. Sorry. Sorry. We'll go to Duluth now.

We have to redeem. It's an obligation now, yeah. Marion said no because she was all about that city life. And they never saw each other again after that. But Albert did send her money all the time on a regular basis until she died in 1950. And he never remarried. That's my kind of girl right there. She had this man on the hook.

She's like, I'm never going to see you again and I'm not coming with you. But you're going to pay me a salary for the rest of my life. Well, you know, we don't know if he just did it out of the kindness of his heart or if she demanded it. But either way, I think that was a profound thing to do. I mean, he didn't have to. He wasn't obligated to do that. But either way, chivalry is not dead. So he spent his years doing solitary work in the backcountry alone other than sometimes he had some sled dogs with him.

And he did this for years until he reached his mid-50s when he switched up jobs and accepted a position as a boat engineer, which was run by a doctor, and they would go up and down the Mackenzie River. And the Mackenzie River is huge. It's one of the most major river systems in all of Canada. And it runs along the east side of where the park is. So it's not inside the park, but it's very close. Okay. So he works on the river for a number of years, about eight additional years. And at this point, Albert is now restless again.

And all this time that he's been on the river and he's been trapping in the forest and spending a lot of time in this area, he's heard his fair share of stories from this region. Legends of riverbanks glittering with gold, long-lost mines, and headless prospectors. At the time, Albert was working odd jobs in Minnesota, brothers Willie and Hensens, Frank McLeod traveled to the Nahani Valley to begin their own expedition in search of gold in the year 1904. After a year of scouring the valley and gaining a little help from a local indigenous boy, a year later in 1905, the brothers found gold on Bennett Creek. The pair loaded their cash onto a boat to bring back to a nearby settlement, but shortly into that journey, the gold was lost when they

capsized their boat in Flat River Canyon. The pair returned to collect more samples, and once back in the settlement, they connected with a third man who joined them on a third trip back to their gold mine to collect more. However, after months and months with no word from any of these three men, search parties were sent out for the trio. After exhaustive searches and no trace found, the mission was called off, but not wanting to give up, the McLeod's brother, Charlie, continued his own search efforts for three years. Wow, that's a long time. Yep. In 19, 2008, they finally paid off. Charlie found his brother's camp on the bank of the Nahani below Second Canyon Mountain.

He found a message inscribed on a tree. We have found a fine prospect. And then he found his brothers. Or what was left of them. Accounts vary here. One report from the 1940s states that the skeletal remains of the men were found and that it was actually their hair that helped identify who they were. But the wider known story and more accepted story is that their heads were never located and that the two men were decapitated. Their remains nonetheless were buried on the banks of the river and their story earned the area a new nickname, Headless Valley.

And that nickname has stuck to this day. What happened to the third man is also a little murky. Some accounts say that he vanished and no trace of him was ever found. and others state that he was actually later tracked down in Vancouver by the Rocky Mountain Mounted Police with thousands of dollars worth of gold nuggets. He's cashing in. Killed some people for their gold, maybe. Yeah.

Despite the fate of the men and the valley's eerie new name, the word of the McLeod Mine, full of large gold nuggets, ready and waiting for the taking, spread. It took on kind of like an Eldorado feel and men trickled into the area in hopes of uncovering. its lost location. One of those men was Martin Jorgensen, a Norwegian man who stepped into the Nahani in 1917. After sending word to his friend, Poole Field, who was part of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, that he had struck it rich, Pool made his way to go see his friend, but upon entering his camp, Poole found Jorgensen's cabin was burned, and his friend was decapitated. Another one? Another one. His gold and the location of his find as well as his head were never found.

Oh, gosh. Despite these stories, Albert headed up to Headless Valley on his first trip up the Nahani River in 1927 on a mission of his own to find the Lost McLeod mine. He left empty-handed and returned back to his work, but that same year, another man, Yukon Fisher, disappeared. An outlaw wanted by the police, his skeletal remains were found in the same exact area as the McLeod Brothers had been found years prior. He had his head. I was just going to say. In 1929, renowned prospector Angus Hall also disappeared after pushing ahead of the rest of his prospecting party. He was never found. Two more men, Bill Epler and Joe Mahaland vanished in 1936. The only trace of them to be found was their burned cabin, found by a friend who had been searching for them. Another burned cabin. Another burn cabin.

There's a theme going on here. In 1946, friends Frank Henderson and John Patterson made their attempts at finding gold. They did find some and planned to bring back their cash of 13 ounces of it and they had split up and planned to meet at Virginia Falls. Frank was the first to arrive and he waited around but John never showed up. So Frank enlisted search and rescue, including a small group of Marines to help find his friend, but nothing was ever discovered. So over the years, there have been story after story of people vanishing from the Nahani. I mean, that is just scraping the surface of the disappearances and odd deaths in this park. And some of these stories, such as the ones that I just went over, are true, while others have been totally exaggerated and embellished over time. Some of the people who allegedly

disappeared here have actually been documented later residing in an area nearby, very much alive with their heads. Totally fine. So there are some stories that there was about three or four of that I read in particular that state in some sources that they had disappeared, but after further digging, they had been confirmed, found, just not in the area. Okay. So despite the years and the stories, Albert continued on, living alone in the wilderness, making a living as a guide, finding odd jobs, and trapping. He'd work hard through most of the year, but when June and July came around and the ice melted, Albert would trek back to the Nahani in search of Old. Living and prospecting alone runs risks, and Albert faced his fair share of challenges.

During his expeditions, some of his most notable troubles included breaking his back, getting sick with scurvy, which resulted in him going temporarily blind. And a side effect of scurvy is terrible tooth infections, and he experienced that when he had scurvy and he ended up pulling out four of his teeth with pliers. That just brings me into, that gives me flashbacks to, you do this all the time, that med, and just when you get into a mouth for a dental cleaning that is just so diseased and filled with tartar that you can literally just pluck, pluck the teeth. Yeah. I did that today. It was very satisfying. Anyway. Imagine doing that on yourself though. Ow, wow. You had to. to be in so much pain before that.

I'm a baby when it comes to tooth stuff. One time I had a popcorn kernel stuck in my gums and I went to the dentist because I thought I was dying. They're like, it's a popcorn kernel. Yeah, I was like, my gums are hurting so bad. Like, what's wrong with me? And they're like, here you go. You get out of this kernel.

I spent, like, I don't know, I spent money to do it too. And after I was kind of embarrassed. But I had never had two. You know they made fun of you behind closed doors. Definitely. Definitely. But I had never had like tooth pain before and I was like, this is it. I'm starting to fall apart.

I've never even had a cavity. Really? So, yeah. Wow. Amazing. Yeah, I'm lucky, I guess. I've had, I think, like four. Yeah, tooth stuff, I mean, it's gnarly either way, whether or not you're pulling

your teeth out with pliers or you have a popcorn kernel stuck in your gums. It's just sucks either way. One is clearly worse than the other. Right. That same season, the cold weather, so the same season, we got sidetracked, the same season that he was pulling his teeth out with pliers, the cold weather arrived sooner than usual, and he was kind of caught off guard. So he had to just spend the winter there.

So he had to build a cabin and survive the whole winter unexpectedly. This man is gnarly. He's nuts. and in a good way. Yeah. And when the following spring, when things started melting again and he could go back to his home, he was making his way out of Nahani. And he came across two mounted police officers and they had shovels with them.

When they met, they explained to him like they were looking for him and they were prepared to bury him. That's why they had the shovels. And he just like got a kick out of that and he thought it was really funny. It's like, ha, ha, ha, why would I die out here? I live here. I live here, yes. Here's my tooth. Here's four of my teeth. In his late 60s, his boat capsized in the river. He lost all his belongings and the boat itself,

and he nearly drowned in the process, and he spent over a week in the forest attempting to walk out the 150 miles to Fort Simpson where he lived. Wow. He had encounters with bears, wolves, and all the wildlife that Nahani has to offer, but despite it all, he, he, dodged death. Does he have a movie? He does have a movie. Okay. Well, not in the way you're thinking. I'll talk. I'll tell you later. Okay. He was among the lucky ones. Over 40 people have officially been documented missing or killed within the park. And many of those people were in search of the lost McLeod mine. The causes of their demise depends largely on who you ask. Indigenous tribes have pinned many deaths and mysterious disappearances on evil spirits or giant

creatures within the park. While prospectors have whispered tales of indigenous peoples who targeted them as trespassers and basically saying that they were responsible for all of these people going missing, there's also rumors of prospectors attacking and killing other prospectors amidst their greed and wanting to get what they've found, just greed. Which makes sense, yeah. Right. So all of these different, you know, stories are swirling around and kind of like a who's, to blame, but one person in particular, known as the mad trapper of Rat River, was the subject of one of these rumors. He gave the name Albert Johnson. We know it's not his real name, but it's the only thing that history has on him. And he largely avoided and eluded human contact. When another prospector

accused him of tampering with some of his animal traps, the mounted police paid him a visit, which was not very well received. After the police knocked on the door, Johnson filed. fired through his door at the officers. One was struck in the chest and he was brought to seek medical attention, which was about a 24-hour trek back to civilization to get medical help. He survived the shooting. But soon after, the police went back to Johnson's cabin to confront him now about not just tampering with traps, but for shooting a police officer.

Yeah. And while they had gone in the meantime, Johnson had bored holes. into the sides of his log cabin at all angles, and he shot at the police through them all day. So they were having this huge back-and-forth gunfight for hours and hours. Wow. And no one was giving up. So finally, the police lit a stick of dynamite and threw it onto his cabin roof.

And when it ignited, the cabin collapsed on itself. But Johnson had dug a hole in the floor of his cabin and was hiding out in that and escaped. So he planned that then for that to pop maybe happen. Wow, what an interesting person. Well, it gets more interesting. He's gnarly. So for the next 48 days, Johnson alluded the mounted police over snow-covered Canadian backcountry terrain. He got into gunfights with them back and forth. They would think that they caught him and then he would escape in some McGiver type of situation. He didn't have any. with him, just anything he could carry because he ran from his cabin. And it resulted in one of the longest running man hunts in Canadian history. And there is a book called Legends of the Nahani Valley. And it's where I got a lot of information for this episode. And I highly recommend it if you are interested in any of these topics because it goes into great teetail, especially this story.

I mean, 48 days worth of information is a lot to condense. But essentially, the manhunt ended. in another shootout and the mad trapper was killed. But what was interesting about this is because on his person, they found a lot of different things. But one of them was very interesting. He had a little glass jar that was full of gold fillings, gold tooth fillings. Like a trophy from people he killed? Perhaps.

So that was what the rumor was. Like, had he been the person that was going around to decapitating people and taking the gold out of their mouths and then discarding their heads, kind of like cover up his tracks. Well, why would you just shoot at a police officer knocking on your door if you weren't hiding something really serious? Well, there was a lot of rumors about that too. Like, why was he so elusive of people in general?

And obviously, he had a very visceral reaction to confronting police or having police question him in any way. So rumors were all over the place. Everything from he killed all those prospectors. And that's the reason why he was so, I don't know. don't even know the word so reluctant to comply with any sort of conversation with the police. Or maybe he was someone who had mental health issues, and especially after living in isolation for so long, other people thought maybe he was a criminal or a bank robber that was trying to

keep a low profile out in the wilderness for another separate crime. Or maybe he was just a veteran of World War I who suffered from severe PTSD. So there was like a lot of theories going around, but the one stuck and the one that was sensationalized was that he was responsible for the decapitations. And there was a documentary that actually came out in 2009 called Hunt for the Mad Trapper, and it dispelled this rumor because his remains were actually exhumed and there was a lot of different tests done on them. And there was a forensic odontologist that was part of the team. And he concluded that the fillings that Johnson had on his person in the glass jar were actually just his own. Oh, so he was just holding onto gold that he had. Right. That's a little happier than

murdering a bunch of people. So he was cleared from that many years after his death. But if you were to ask Albert Johnson about his thoughts regarding all the deaths and disappearances within the park and along the Nahani River, his response to every single one of them would be death by natural causes, either starvation, hypothermia, drowning, landslides, etc. And when asked about the decapitations, his answer was very simple. Grizzlies probably carried them off. I'm not buying that. I am all for the natural death scenario, but decapitated, grizzlies don't just rip your head off. I think maybe like he was saying that scavengers, whether they're grisly or wolves, after they decompose to a certain point that they would just take the head. I don't know. I would imagine so,

but like it's not going to be a clean line or anything. You know, I feel like you could tell if an animal was feeding on a person versus. But a lot of these people are found once they're already skeletons. Like there's no soft tissue trauma or anything like that to go off of. So I guess this is a long time ago too where science isn't as good and people don't. know as much, but that just seems, I don't know. It's fishy. It's fishy for sure. It's fishy because the way you described it being decapitated, I feel like if I ever had the misfortune to have to decide what had happened versus decapitated or eaten, I feel like I would know the difference looking if something was being eaten. Yeah, you would think. I mean,

just to reiterate, as far as confirmed, Martin Jorgensen was the only confirmed person to actually be decapitated. He for sure was decapitated. But the McLeod brothers, there's some, you know, we don't know. There's varying accounts on whether or not they had their heads. So one person for sure was decapitated. The others, you know, it's all kind of like, it's a legend. The legend took on a life of its own. Yeah. But gold miners weren't the first people to vanish from the Nahani. I briefly mentioned the Naha tribe in the beginning of the episode. They were the people that lived high in the mountains and they actually terrorized the Dene people who lived in the lowlands and in the valleys. They were kind of just like dueling tribes. So the Naha wielded powerful weapons. They were

physically larger and more aggressive than the Dene people. So they intimidated them quite a bit and launched a lot of attacks on their people. But raid after raid went by and the Dene finally decided to strike back. They sent scouts up high into the mountains who located their settlement and were watching their routines. And they found that. their settlement up in an area called Prairie Creek. They fetched for their greatest warriors, and that night they returned to lie in wait to launch a surprise attack. So in the middle of the night, they did. They launched their surprise raid, only to flip open the latches and the doors of the tepees, and there was nobody there. Everything was abandoned. There was sleeping pads laid out.

There was even smoldering fires. Everybody's belongings were still there, just like as if they had just placed it down, but no one was there and they were never seen again. Oh. They never rated them again. They were never found again and all their belongings were left. So not a single person from that tribe had ever been found or located and it's as if they vanished and were never seen again. And there was an interesting little side note about that and that some of their language, like the dialect for this tribe and their language, can be found in the Navajo language. So a lot of people kind of theorized that maybe they just migrated south and ended up merging with the Navajo tribe, but there's really not a lot of evidence to back that up. So it's not really a

very widely accepted theory, especially because the Navajo history is pretty well known and understood. But either way, this park now has a lost indigenous tribe. And it remains a mystery as to what happened to them. But the park itself, even today, urges anyone who happens to be visiting there, if they are to come across any archaeological evidence of any kind, to photograph it, mark its location, and turn that information over to park officials without obviously disturbing it, because there's so much of this park that hasn't been discovered or explored. That's really cool. That's really cool because it's like you might really find something of history here.

Of significance, yeah, to help us understand a little bit more, yeah. Albert was known to respect the locals, their histories, their knowledge, and it's unclear what he made of this particular story of the disappearance of the Naha tribe, but it was an indigenous boy who solidified his belief in the lost gold. He had heard of a story in the late 1800s of an indigenous boy named Little Nihani that brought some gold nuggets out of the valley and gave them as a gift to a local bishop who lived in nearby Fort Simpson. This bishop turned that gold. into a watch chain and a ring. And in the 1930s, Albert had seen this bishop wearing that exact same ring. So this was significant for a couple of reasons, mainly because it was physical evidence of gold being within the park. But Little Nahani was that same exact boy that aided the McLeod brothers in their initial search for gold. Oh. So to him, this was really significant. Yeah. By 1957, nearing 70 years old, Albert retired from winter trapping and living alone in the backcountry and instead opted to live alone in a small one-room cabin in Fort Simpson, which is nearby the park.

And he still spent all his summers in the Nahani in search of this elusive mine. He wasn't the only one who remained searching for the gold, even though the big rush of prospectors kind of started dwindling. In the fall of 1959, two years after Albert had purchased his little cabin, five gold prospectors, Micekonen, Webb, Pappas, Ross Warn, and Richardson flew into the Nahani and were dropped off near McLeod Creek. They planned to be there for months. They had a big expedition planned.

And they brought a sled and a whole sled dog team. They had 100 pounds of food supply with them in hopes of lasting until January. At which point, the same pilot that dropped them off would come back and give them fresh supplies for a couple more months. In December, two game wardens inspected their cabin and discovered that there was some moose and caribou meat that had been shot illegally in there. So they confiscated it because they were shot illegally. They didn't have a license to do so. And they left and reported it to their boss.

The following day, the game wardens come back with their boss. And the men kind of got more of a stern talking to than anything. They weren't cited for anything or fined for anything. But they had a conversation with the game wardens, and the game wardens even offered the men a ride back into civilization, but everyone said no. They wanted to keep going with their expedition. Great, whatever, goodbye. Months pass. And no word is heard from this crew.

And there were two brothers, Chuck and Jim McGavey, and they had heard of this group's plans to search for the lost mine and all this gold. And they were interested to see what was going on with it. And they also knew that no one had heard from them. So they flew over to McMillan Lake, which is close to the creek that the men had made camp, and they saw a large SOS in the snow covering the ice of the lake. The brothers landed and made their way to the cabin. Inside, they found Rossworn and Richardson, so two of the men. They were emaciated, pretty much just skeletons, and they were on death's doorstep.

Oh, but they're alive. They're alive. The men explained that their supply shipment that was expected in January never came. And we're now in May. Oh my. The men had run out of food and had to result to killing their entire sled dog team to eat for sustenance. Oh my God. Months had dragged on with less and less food.

At one point, the men were just grinding up the bones of their dogs and mixing it with snow and eating that. And one day, after failing to catch anything while out ice fishing, one of the men, Miskinen, completed suicide by strapping the last remaining sticks of dynamite onto his weight. and igniting them. Soon after his death and realizing that help was not likely to come anytime soon and with little other options, Pappas and Webb set out to find help, but they were never seen again. But the two men that the brothers came upon in the cabin, Ross Warren and Richardson, they made full recoveries. And this incident is now known as Starvation Cabin. That's like where you can go is called starvation cabin. It's what the story is called.

I have no idea if the cabin is still there or not. Wow, that's a survival story right there. Yeah. I'd like to know more about and also less about because that stuff about the dogs is really, really sad. It's so sad. I know. I almost didn't include it because it obviously pulls at heartstrings and death of

animals is difficult. Domestic animals especially. But, I mean, it's true. It's what happened. Yeah. that's awful to have to have to I can't even imagine making that kind of decision out there and of course I mean they have nothing to feed their dogs either so they're dying too yeah and there's speaking of survival stories I didn't mention it in the episode it has nothing to do with the rest of what I have but

there are a couple survival stories and or deaths that have to do with playing crashes here I'm surprised you didn't cover that one I know I was very close yeah something that maybe you would want to look into in the future because it's very interesting. Okay. I'll keep that in mind. So a year later, after the starvation cabin incident in 1961, the National Film Board of Canada turned their sights to Albert's story, and they wanted to make a film about his searches. So this is the movie I'm talking about. It's not like a feature film. Like you wouldn't see it in movie theaters, or nowadays you wouldn't. So the short film is called Nahani, just simple. And it's only about 18 minutes long. I found it online. You can watch it online. And it documents one of Albert's summer expeditions up the river.

Seeing Albert at work is truly extraordinary, talking about how you mentioned. People just don't have the same type of work ethic anymore. Yeah. I mean, to see this, this guy is in his 70s at this point. And the film documents him preparing for this expedition, setting off on this trek, which is like 500 miles up the Nahani River to where he thinks the location of the mine is, which is above Victoria Falls. that massive waterfall. So what he has to do is he has to portage his boat. So he gets to the edge of the

river where the waterfall is. He unloads all his equipment. So I mean 500 mile journey by boat, that's a lot of gasoline. It's a lot of supplies. He literally takes everything out of his boat. One by one. He's 70. He broke his back previously. So he's kind of hunched over. And he brings everything up this vertical mountain, which is over a mile, one by one carrying all his stuff and then he dismantles his boat, carries all the lumber up the mountain, reassembles his boat on the other side, and continues on. So that process takes like about a week or so just to do that. And then he continues his journey on. That's the kind of shape I want to be in when I'm 70. It's crazy to why I'm like so inspired. After weeks of running the river, camping on its shores and getting

near to his destination, the river suddenly changes. It wasn't as out. Albert had remembered. Massive amounts of silt and stone had washed down the river since he last navigated this part of the river. So this wide, deep area of the river that it was previously is now super narrow and unrunnable. The film documents Albert stepping off of his boat, taking a long rope and dragging with all his might against the rough current of the river. He's inching along, his back is hunched over, and he's yanking his boat with all his might to no avail. He was making no headway, So he navigated his boat back to the sandy shore and made camp. He could attempt the last stretch by foot, but it would take significantly longer than he had allotted for.

And he didn't want to get stuck there in cold weather or in early winter again like he had in previous years. Yeah, he's older now. He was only 40 miles away from the promised land of this location that he thought the mine was at, but he had to turn back home. The film, which was released in 1962, won awards, which Albert really didn't care about at all. But the film did benefit him because it was shown to a school in Duluth where his stepson, Harry, was in attendance. And after he saw the film, Harry, who had long since lost contact with his stepfather, Albert, after his mom, Marion died, he reunited with him and actually went out to see him. So they had a little bit of a reunion. And also the Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau also took a great interest in this film and with Albert himself.

So much interest that he made a trip to the Nahani to meet him. That same prime minister later went on to establish the Nahani as a national park in 1972. Wow, that's really cool. When the film released and the nation saw Albert's failure to find his fortune, he was asked, will you be returning next summer, Albert? to which he responded, sure, I'll be dead or drowned before I quit. Albert didn't drown, but he did die. He passed away in December of 1973 at his home in Fort Simpson.

More specifically, he passed away in the outhouse of his home in Fort Simpson. And that cabin and the outhouse, though not inside the park, they're just outside it. That whole area is now preserved as a historic site and can be visited. Everything is left exactly as it was in the cabin the day that he died. His snow shoes are hanging on the wall. He has canned goods on the shelves. His clothes are laid over his reading chair. And his calendar is still pinned to December of 1973.

Albert Valley loved what we now know as Nahani National Park. He lived, played, worked, and explored the area where so many others lost their lives trying to do the same. Legend has it. There's gold up in them hills. but I think it may be wise to let the Nahani keep its secrets. That's so interesting. I'm glad you. Cool.

I'm glad. Sorry. All these thoughts are in my brain because one, I had never heard of this park before. And then just all these wild stories. And then Albert himself is just an whole other creature just in his life. Yeah. I mean, he embodies work hard, play hard. He works all year doing whatever.

job he needed to do and then he took the summers off to go and try and find this lost gold mine. Yeah. And although he never succeeded, he had a hell of a life doing it. If you are interested in seeing him at work, that short film, Nahani, you can Google it. It's out there. And he doesn't say a word in it, just FYI. I was picturing a silent film for some reason. It's not silent. It's narrated by someone. And, you know, it's colorize. You know, he just doesn't say anything. Oh, okay. Yeah, I loved researching that park.

And like I mentioned before, I could have gone in so many different directions, but I really tried to stick with the legend theme a little bit. And, yeah, I hope you enjoyed it. Yeah. And we went to Canada two weeks in a row. Yeah. And, oh, my gosh, I almost forgot to mention. Oh.

The coolest thing I learned through researching this is Seattle. has a national historic park called the Klondike Gold Rush National Historic Park. I'm like, why the hell does Seattle have this? And it's because there's a lot of, obviously, gold rushes. There's a few different big gold rushes that happened up in Yukon and Alaska. And the big cities that were launch points for them were San Francisco and Seattle. Oh. So there's a historic park in Seattle that is all to do with the gold rush. And I know what I'm going to do next weekend or the weekend after. I was just going to say, when are you going? Yeah, I'm stoked because I was really enthralled with learning more about the gold rush and all of that, even though it wasn't

specifically in this park. So that's it, I guess, for that story. But we have one last thing to say, do you have anything to say about that? I know you said you have a lot of thoughts. I don't want to cut you off. I know. I just think that the park sounds so cool and just the way people were out there in this really wild tundra out there surviving or not surviving and disappearing and disappearing. Yeah, it's just like there's so much, it feels like just the way that you told it, it feels like there's a different kind of energy that's there. I'm glad you said that because I tried to set it up like that because it is a very special place for a lot of like the First Nations and indigenous people up there. wanted to have that portrayed a little bit and not just have it be like, well, it's natural causes, period.

And just kind of pay homage to some of their beliefs and give that vibe. Well, you definitely did. It feels like a place that holds, like you said, a lot of secrets and just has a different energy. And maybe spiritual, maybe it's just because it's so wild. But there's something there for sure. And it's not just historic disappearances. I mean, the most recent deaths that have to do with that area was in 2005. And the families of the people who passed away were the most recent article I looked into about it

was they were asking for their cases to be reopened because they think that there's more to the story than what happened, which one was ruled, drowned, and the other died of hypothermia. But they were in the same cabin together. There was a lot of bullet holes inside the cabin. and like they were trying to shoot at something from outside of the cabin. They both died at relatively the same time in different ways. It was just very odd. Yeah.

So that's the most recent kind of like mystery of something doesn't seem as cut and dry as what it was officially documented as. But anyway, that's a whole other thing. Yeah, I was like, that's a whole other direction we've got into today. Yeah. So, okay, one last thing. I know that one was kind of long. I literally said right before this recording.

I'm like, it's not going to be that long. Yeah, you're like, this is actually going to be a really short episode. And here we are like over an hour into it. We always do that. So we have something very exciting to announce. We do. Obviously, we're a big fan of books. Everyone is recommending us books.

We recommend books. We should start a book club one day, maybe in the future, five years from now. But as of now, a lot of people have always recommended that we read Ranger Confidential. And we did. And we're talking to the author on Monday. We'll see you then. In the meantime, enjoy the view.

But watch you're back. Goodbye. Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale you'd like to share, send us an email at NPAD Stories at gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast. Become an outsider by joining you.

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