Bit of a weird one this. As fellow Brits have rightfully pointed out, Britain doesn't exactly have much in the way of wilderness besides some bits of Scotland. Last year I wrote about forests, and how the forests I'm familiar with are sites of industry and tourism, not wilderness.
Actual wilderness requires looking further afield, and by chance I recently learned about the Nahanni Valley, in Canada's North West Territories.
It's spectacular. And terrifying.
And by 'terrifying' I'm not talking about the normal reasons I'd find a place that's accessible only by boat or flying boat to be a scary thought...
In 1904, two brothers named Willie and Frank McLeod headed into Nahanni Valley in search of gold. They found some, but due to boat trouble, didn't manage to bring much back. The following year they headed back - and weren't seen again until 1908 when their brother Charlie went looking for them and found their two headless corpses.
Nine years later in 1917, Martin Jorgensen went prospecting in Nahanni Valley. He sent word back that he had struck it rich, but when people went to look for him they found his hut burned to the ground and his headless corpse.
In 1945, the body of an unnamed miner from Ontario was found in his sleeping bag without, as you might have guessed by now, his head.
Not every death in Nahanni Valley ended in a headless corpse. Others included burning to death, flash freezing, and just plain disappearing, along with tales of mysterious white figures roaming the area, and a woman seemingly possessed as she ran naked across the landscape. All the same, the place did pick up a number of nicknames including 'Headless Valley'.
Realistically, it probably all comes down to some combination of murder and local wildlife. All the same, mysterious white fairies with a penchant for decapitating anyone who tries to steal their gold is one hell of an adventure hook.
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