The legends told about the Northwest's Nahanni (Headless) Valley (TIME, Jan. 20) stirred up so much interest that the Vancouver Sun sent out its own explorers for a first-hand look. By last week the accounts of the travelers, Reporter Pierre Berton and Photographer Art Jones, had, to the surprise of no one, thoroughly shattered all the fantastic folklore of Headless Valley.
From the Sun's chartered airplane, Berton reported he saw no lush vegetation and no great herds of fat animals, only awesome, rugged country buried under deep snow, "a handful of hot springs" and the frozen Virginia Falls, 316 ft. high. After flying 15 miles through a canyon whose sheer walls rose to 1,500 feet, the plane landed on its skis in the valley itself, a great bowl set amid the mountains. There was no living thing in sight, not even the fearsome character who (the legend said) cut off the heads of explorers and prospectors. All Berton found in his quick peek were two crumbling cabins near by. In one was a faded pin-up picture of Rita Hayworth, which the exploring reporter matched with a pin-up note: "Kilroy was here."
Looking around at what many fanciful talespinners had described as a northern Shangrila, Berton came to this solemn conclusion: "O credulous and gullible world . . . the vale that set your soul aflame with the fire of adventure exists only in your own imagination."