"So, about that night in Nahanni?"

To recall what I can only now call my ‘vacation experience’ in Nahanni National Park, is your true intention Doctor, I shall avoid the precursor movements as to how we arrived in the Northwest Territories for now. The three of us chartered a seaplane to a lake in Nahanni National Park in the Northwest Territories of Canada and that’s the closest I wish to start the story. I’d wish to rather not recall too much of the past in this...experience if you don’t mind; The papers have articles with those names in them, read those. I’d like to begin if you don’t mind. Oh, yes by all means place as many recording devices as you need.

My friends and I had heard a few of the superstitious rumours and stories that lay behind the mysterious Nahanni Park from a few rather well….”witchy” acquaintances I shall say; People found headless, People gone mad, People not found at all. In all honesty I don’t think we really cared about the stories, or believed any of them. If they did, they never cared to discuss their opinions. We all shared the same spirit toward a trip there, and that’s why we chose to sojourn. We wanted adventure. We most certainly got an adventure. I got the burden of a souvenir, and I remember every moment of it. We planned to visit the park for about a week and a half but it was over in but a few horrible days.

We started our vacation in the beginning of July, the seventh I believe. After our seaplane landed on the lake, we exited onto the small wharf, collected our bags, then proceeded to sign the in-park waiver in order to keep the park's red tape sticky and tight.

The first chance I really had to embrace and visually explore the landscape of this magical place was immediately after I signed the waiver. It was absolutely indescribable. I was at that moment inside of one of the most unique and untouched places on the plane, and the authenticity of those titles were immediately deserved. One could feel the ruggedness of the land, the purity of nature’s laws, the sanctimonious energy that lives in this ecosystem. It was a sharp and rocky heaven in some places and flat and precious hell in others.

Of course, we were all most excited about travelling down the distinct and picturesque numbered canyons of the South Nahanni River after Virginia Falls: First, Second, Third, and Fourth canyons. I was impatient and anxious to visit the Second Canyon myself as I had seen the pictures online of the nearly straight vertical cliffs, the depths of the water being just as deep as the sheer height of the cliff faces in some places. But a picture can only dictate what a location looks like, rather than what a location feels like. God, oh God! I wish I never travelled down the Second Canyon! Compose yourself...You are sane.

Our river-riding course began at Virginia Falls, in the Fourth Canyon. Mason’s Rock was as beautiful as one would expect. We continued down the Fourth Canyon, into Third Canyon, and into Funeral Range, a 40 kilometer voyage itself. It was amazing, completely unique from the other canyons, the hills slope, not steep and sheer like the others. Let me remember what beauty I can from this trip, don’t rush me! There’s a damn good reason for it!

The rafting trip had been going extremely well until we passed Big Bend and entered the Second Canyon, about 15 kilometers, and travelled down Headless Range when everything around me just...changed.

Of course the landscape changed, this is a major sightseeing aspect of the park itself, Doctor, like I mentioned before the cliffs here are virtually straight vertical up, with virtually nowhere to beach one’s boat or cling for life if one capsizes - it makes one feel they need to cling to their life all the more. Adding further to the ambience of fear is the fact that this canyon is be-speckled by caves that have never been explored by anything. Something imperceptible to the human eyes and ears (above the legitimate weatherly ones that are) - but not one’s spirit.

A cool breeze began to pick up as we entered Headless Range, and Second Canyon became unnaturally dark compared to its predecessor; this fact being recorded and stated as nothing out of the ordinary for this area, even promoted as a sense of Earthly mystery to some eager would-be tourists. Yet as the others remained adventurous I felt something in the pit of my stomach and my soul stifled up inside me. I became quiet and observational rather than adventurous and edgy, I realized this myself but the others saw the change as perceivable enough to mention to me. All around us as we meandered aquatically down the river and between the caves began to show themselves to us.

My interest in these caves was further heightened because none of them were at ground level - the lowest resided about 30 feet above the water - and I once again remembered that no man had ever explored any of these mysterious cave systems. As my head swiveled on its neck to try to capture the gross amount of caves dotting the cliffs above and around us, a little grey and yellow bird, a Canadian Warbler shot out of one of the caves above us and the sheer speed of the creature unsettled me to the point of recognizing of the moving animal’s panic, as if it was running to escape from a predator.

As we carried on further down the Second Canyon and into the First, we eventually found a suitable piece of land to beach our rafts on, and pitch camp for the night in. The location was absolutely beautiful, it was as if we were already dreaming of an Elysian paradise the likes of which any Greek philosopher would completely flip his entire system of thought to see. Despite the amount of campers who normally choose to actually camp in this area, the plant life was virtually untouched and litter essentially non-existent. Everybody who came to this Park, but specifically this canyon had a sense of reverence for nature it seemed. I even had the chance to photograph the rare Nahanni Aster upon exploration of the area after pitching our tents. I actually possess the print and have it taped up in my cell to remind myself everyday that even in the harshest of environments something beautiful and unique can prosper. I’m not dallying Doctor! I have stated to you already that it is essential I remain positive.

As I was saying, after I found the Nahanni Aster the sun began to set and twilight became determined to show her head and we sat in a circle drinking rum and telling each other the various stories of this region of the world we had heard from concerned relatives and friends alike: The mysterious walking white figures the Native tribes report sometimes, The headless bodies of men found not far from this very spot, The story of a woman becoming possessed and climbing up the rock faces. All ridiculous but I feel they all did their job in unsettling me, but acting as a source of joviality for my friends...and frightening me further into remembrance of the unnatural speed and agility of the Warbler I saw only an hour or so before. As nature so blesses us, the setting sun and twilight made way to night, and night naturally made way to a want for sleep.

I must again remind the good Doctor before me: I am mentally sound and my every memory of the horrific event that took place is completely solid. I did not do those unthinkable acts to my friends - How could one? No, Doctor, I don’t mean like that; How could one physically accomplish those acts so many tabloids accuse me of for the sake of sensationalizing and monetizing a conspiracy?

Yes, Okay, I will resume the story. The next conscious moment I had was being awoken during the night by voices, whispers. Now while one will immediately assume they were the voices of my friends playfully pranking me, as they were wont to do - I don’t recall bringing an adolescent female child with us. Especially one that would cry and wail and beckon at night. Gooseflesh grew across my entire body and I pulled the extra blanket out of my bag and placed it over the other one already draped over me and fell back asleep, the voice probably being my own unconscious paranoia speaking to me due to the stories we told earlier. Upon falling back asleep he or she or...it...whatever caused that Warbler to feel exposed itself to me. I remember in my dream as I was sleeping, I remember I was in the center of this incomprehensibly large room with a spotlight on top of me when this luminescent cloud of foggy warm colour...this...creature...no, no, no, this force this amalgamation of pure energy communicated to me, not with me, to me. Nameless and formless he was he relayed to me. Composed of pure energy - negative and fearful energy - he was not viewable or perceivable by biological human senses or instruments. No, no, he announced to me, he was an F.B.L. A frequency based lifeform; a life devoid of Carbon based essentials that fed, spread, and repopulated purely on the lone and potent sense of fear that all men and women share - especially and particularly he made great care to stress to me - in this part of the park. A thin spot he told me, a veil, a fabric that becomes crossable in a way completely devoid of a need to expend any of his own force perceivable to certain lifeforms composed of things above and below Carbon.

He allowed me to retain my concentration on something beyond himself and I awoke and was enrobed with fear, panic and more human liquid indicative of being utterly frightened beyond one’s senses, my mind unable to comprehend and analyze the message that what I know was not my subconscious had preached to me. I decided to get an early start to the morning, clean myself and change from my nightclothes to my day clothes.

As I stripped off my shirt and pulled it over my head I heard the howl of a timber wolf, and a second howl...and half of a third. The whimper and yelp of a frightened and retreating animal accompanied the second half of the third howl. Everything became eerily quiet, the only sound to be heard was the perusal of the river behind my tent.

I continued to remove articles of clothing whilst laying the new clothing on the floor in order to stay organized, able to find everything in the untidy confines of my tent, and clean from the wet when the sound of tarp tearing behind me forced me to stand up and spin around purely naked. The beak of a Canadian Warbler was stuck in the door flap of my tent; the poor animal must have flown into my tent by accident in the dawn's light!

As I approached the beak of the bird to push it back through the hole it created and allow it to fly away, the thought entered my terrified mind: Why would the bird simply not fly back out? It had hit nothing hard, it hadn’t winded itself, it could very easily fly backwards and out of the flexible material. But suddenly, just as suddenly as the thought entered my brain, the grey and yellow bird let out an immense, mechanical and piercing scream! The noise was so unnatural and so intensely loud I was forced to run out of my tent without clothes on to find a space where my eardrums wouldn’t bleed and burst!

I began running faster and faster, my fear more in possession of my physical limits than my mind until I felt something grab and rip at the joint of my ankle and pull me upwards quickly and forcefully up a pine tree. I believe I was knocked unconscious as my head hit the stump of a branch as I was being hoisted up.

I do not know how long I was unconscious as I resided hanging upside down by the ankle at the top of the tree, but it must have been at least a few hours as the sun had risen to nearly a quarter of its zenith.

A group of rafters yelled out to me - asking me if I was alive, and “wake up”, back and forth, the same questions until I responded. I thought to myself (and responded) “Why wouldn’t I be?”, as I was still suffering from the lack of concentration unconsciousness bequeathed to me after being aroused. It was a more powerful and important question than I had initially realized at the time. For as I regained my facilities and groped around me I felt the soft and cold touch of what would be bare human skin, then the warmth of what felt like rough fur, like a dog or goat.

I let out the most horrific and effeminate scream I feel my body will ever produce. As I spun my entire swinging body to see what my currently unrecognized sense of touch could possibly be interacting with; There, hung onto the finial of the treetop, were the strung up, naked, and blood-dripping corpses of my three friends - their heads severed cleanly at the shoulders. Sewn in lieu of their so far unlocatable biological detachments were the heads of fully grown and horned Dall Rams, held in place by natural stitches made from plant fibers - around each stitch and suture was a single flower plucked from the Nahanni Aster.

This memory doesn’t fade and oh no this isn’t trauma I feel everyday. He told me why he kept me alive, he told me my fear was the most intense when put into frequencies able to be consumed. He keeps me from forgetting, from dying, so that he may live forever. I told you Doctor, I must stay positive, like I said, I’m not crazy and how could one even accomplish those acts?