The Nahanni and Headless Valley

The South Nahanni cuts canyons more than a kilometre deep through the Mackenzie Mountains, and drops over Virginia Falls at twice the height of Niagara. The name that stuck to one stretch is Headless Valley, after the McLeod brothers, prospectors found dead near the river around 1908 with, the story goes, their heads missing. Several more disappearances followed over the years. Hot springs keep parts of the valley strangely warm and fog-bound, which did the legend no harm at all. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage national park reserve, reachable essentially only by float plane, and genuinely serious country.