The Local Flavor

One of the things you really want to do when you travel is take advantage of the opportunity to learn as much as you can about the places you’re going – the history, the culture, and of course, the local traditions.

Dawson City, Yukon Territory, Canada is chock-full of the history that you would expect from a wild west frontier town.   The wood-plank sidewalks, dirt streets, and even the occasional horse hitching post make you feel like you just stepped onto the set of a John Wayne movie.

You know how in a lot of places that you go there’s always that “one thing” that everybody has to do. It’s kind of like you can’t really say you’ve been there until you’ve done “it”.

In Dawson City, “IT” is something called a Sour Toe Cocktail.

As you would expect, it gets very cold in Dawson City. Hunting and trapping are big winter activities – not only for the sport, but for the meat and the fur.  The tale goes that – back in the day – a trapper lost a toe to frostbite.  It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out the rest of the story.  I’m certain it started with a dare – and I’m sure there was a lot of whiskey involved.

So now, at the Downtown Hotel, taking a shot with a mummified toe in the glass has become the “IT” local tradition for out-of-towners.

Yep – it is indeed a toe… A real mummified human toe.

They SAY that the alcohol keeps it sterilized… but I’m not sure I’m buying it.

Not a group to pass up a little tradition, our group was well represented during the sour toe challenge.  Even the coolest Biker Mom in the world partook…

The idea is that the toe has to touch your lips or else you aren’t in officially in the Sour Toe cocktail club (and you don’t get your certificate).  I think it costs about $10 to give it a shot – HA!  But the penalty for accidentally swallowing the toe is upwards of $2000.  And yes – apparently that does happen more frequently than you would think. I believe it actually happened during our time in town.  It happens often enough that they frequently put out a call for new toe donations.

I don’t even want to know…

It was fun to watch. But you do notice, of course, there is no picture of me taking the sour toe cocktail challenge.  Let’s just say that, for me, some local traditions might be best kept… well… local.