Nahanni National Park Reserve

The Nahanni National Park Reserve, sometimes known as "Headless Valley" or "Valley of The Headless Men" (after a series of unsolved historical deaths in the park), in the Dehcho Region of the Northwest Territories, Canada (approximately 500 km (310 mi) west of Yellowknife), protects a portion of the Mackenzie Mountains Natural Region. The centrepiece of the park is the South Nahanni River (Naha Dehé). Four noteworthy canyons, called First, Second, Third and Fourth Canyon, line the whitewater river. Each canyon has walls reaching some 1,000 m (3,300 ft) in height. The word nahanni comes from the local Dene name for the area, Nahʔa Dehé, which means "river of the land of the Nahʔa people". The park is inscribed as World Heritage Sites by UNESCO.

Geography

There are several different landforms in the park that have taken millions of years to form, giving it a topographical diversity not seen in any other national park in Canada. Sediments, left by an ancient inland sea present some 500–200 million years ago, have since become pressed into coloured layers of rock. These layers, stacked about 6 km (3.7 mi) deep, are peppered with fossilised remnants of the varied organisms that once swam the ancient seas, beginning well before the time of the dinosaurs. As the continents shifted, the North American and Pacific Plates collided, the force of which forced layers of rock upwards. Ridges of rock thus bent and broke, leaving behind the mountain ranges seen today.