Just a week or so ago the newly published Atlas Obscura, subtitled, “An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders,” arrived on my desk sporting an enthusiastic recommendation from fantasy and comic book writer, Neil Gaiman.
It’s a 470 page compendium of places, objects and activities organized geographically by continent, region and country. Canada gets about 20 pages, from 256 to 274. The Yukon, with two pages, two photos and a sketch, rates two pages.
Highlighted are the Watson Lake Signpost Forest, the Carcross Desert and – no, not the Klondike Goldfields or Tombstone Park – the Sourdough Cocktail. This entry got the sketch, perhaps because actual photos are rather gross, and an approx. 290 word article to go with it.
It’s not the first time the Toe has been noted as being special. In December 2013 Google Canada reported that the Sourtoe was at the top of the list of Google’s Cocktail Searches in Canada, saying that “Canadian Google-users were found to be particularly interested in this ghoulish drink, searching for it more than any other cocktail.”
In 2014 an online magazine called Mental_Floss listed the Toe as the number one item in an article about “The 12 Weirdest Experiences You Can Have in Canada”, noting that more than 60,000 people have joined the Sourtoe Club since 1973, when Captain Dick Stevenson finally figured out what to do with the pickled toe he had found in an abandoned cabin a while earlier.
The ritual includes putting the blackened digit in a drink of your choice and knocking it back until the toe touches your lips. As the ritual saying goes,” Drink it fast or drink it slow, but the lips have got to touch the toe.” There’s a barely legible Tombstone for Toes outside the entrance to the Sourdough Saloon at the Downtown Hotel. It used to read “ On Memory of the Sourtoes. I swallowed II lost III alive and well” That’s not true any more, there have been at least half a dozen substitute toes since that time. One was stolen; another was swallowed on purpose by a fellow who had the event filmed on a smart phone and posted on YouTube. As a result of that escapade there is now a fine of $2500 for toe swallowers.
The Atlas article incorrectly states that one toe is used for every drink, and that’s not true. They have several in reserve. Some have been inadvertently tossed out with the napkin they were wrapped in after a session. At one point there was a full set of toes (a foot, so to speak), donated for a fellow from Outside, courtesy of an accident with a lawnmower.
The account in the Atlas is necessarily brief. There are two books that go into more detail. Dieter Reinmuth compiled a collection called The Saga of the Sourtoe back in 1987, and keeps it in print. It contains some material by Stevenson and reprints from the Yukon News, the Klondike Sun, Up Here and The Yukoner Magazine.
Stevenson himself published Captain Dick’s Au’toe’biography in 2009 and put out four revised and expanded editions between then and 2012.
