A nonfiction exploration of some of Northern Canada’s greatest forgotten mysteries: the stories and legends surrounding the South Nahanni River’s watershed.
A mysterious valley shrouded in legend lies deep in the Canadian North. Prospectors drawn in by stories of lost gold tend to lose their heads or vanish without a trace. Some say the valley is cursed, that it is haunted by an evil spirit whose wailings echo through the canyons. Others believe it is inhabited by monsters, relics of its prehistoric past. What secrets might the valley be concealing? What secrets are hidden beneath its misty shroud?
Prospectors arrived in the area for the first time during the Cassiar gold rush in the 1870s. The MacLeod brothers were famously discovered dead along the Nahanni in 1906 after allegedly staking a lucrative claim along the Flat River. Later, two prospectors arrived in the South Nahanni from the Yukon by ascending the Ross River, crossing the divide to a Nahanni source, and descending the river in search of the lost claim. One died mysteriously and was discovered years later by his partner. Several more prospectors and trappers disappeared or were found dead along the Nahanni and its tributaries over the next few decades, sparking rumours and giving the river a reputation for being extremely dangerous.
