Yukon Archives - Wandering North

Canada North America

Yes, there is a human toe in the SourToe Cocktail

If you find yourself in Dawson City, whether you are traveling for pleasure or running from the law, you can’t leave without trying the Sour Toe Cocktail. Yes, it is a drink with a human toe in it. It is real. And it is, as far as I am aware, it is uniquely Canadian.

Apparently, in the 1920s, a couple of rum running brothers holed up in a cabin near Dawson City in a blizzard. One of the men had gotten severe frostbite in his foot and the other cut off the affected toe and put it in a bottle of whisky as a memento. As you do.

Flash forward to the early 1970s and riverboat captain/bartender Dick Stevenson found the bottle in the abandoned cabin and in 1973 decided to start serving the toe in a shot of booze at the bar at the Downtown Hotel: the Sourdough Saloon.

Over the years the original toe was lost, but there have been multiple toes in use. Some have been stolen or swallowed; some just got worn out. New toes have been donated from new frostbite victims. And in 2019 when Captain Stevenson himself died at 89, he willed his toes to the bar to be used in future cocktails.

Each toe is preserved in salt and then popped into drinks for brave bucket-listers to enjoy.

To date over 93,000 people have had the cocktail. I was number 93,090.

I was staying at the hotel, so I just popped downstairs and told them I was there for the sourtoe cocktail. I paid them ($12 CDN I think) and selected my booze. Well, actually I told them to pick, since I figured they would know best what goes with toe.

When my name was called, I sat at a table across from a ‘toe captain’ who reminded me that there is a hefty fine for swallowing the toe and recited a rhyming verse about having to have the toe touch my lips to officially be in the ‘club’. He did this whilst waving the toe around with tongs. I should say that I was there alone and felt self-conscious about taking too many pictures as others were waiting, so my pictures are lousy, but authentic.

My alcohol selected for me was the traditional Yukon Jack whiskey, which was too sweet for my liking but also masked any other flavours that might have been lurking in the glass.

I must admit, the toe did look pretty gross and I did my shot, worried that I would accidentally swallow it after it stuck to the bottom of the glass and I had to give it a shake to get the wet, mummified toe to fall onto my lips, but I didn’t swallow it. Just a brief bit of contact and it was done and I was awarded with my very own certificate, which I think should be on the wall of my office with my law degree, but it is not…yet.

I don’t know how anyone could go to Dawson City and not ‘kiss the toe’. It’s too weird to be believed and even though roughly 100,000 people have done it, it is still a great story.

Canada North America

Dawson City, Yukon

I flew to Dawson City from Whitehorse on the tiniest of airplanes. It was fun and felt retro – due partly to the fact that there was absolutely no pre-boarding security checks. No x-rays, no pat downs, no assessment of liquids. It was like flying in the 1970s. The airport in Dawson City is literally a one-room affair.

Dawson City is now the farthest north I have been, as it is even farther north than Helsinki. Wandering North indeed. Dawson City is a Klondike Gold Rush town, founded officially in the late 1800s but replacing a First Nations village. It soared in population during the gold rush, and then dropped off. It currently has a population of about 1400 people but is a tourist destination for people who venture that far north.

It is charming. A proper old-timey town, along the Dawson River with mud streets and raised wood plank sidewalks, wooden buildings dating back close to 100 years and most painted bright colors. It kind of feels like you are in a gold rush theme park, except that everything is authentic.

Normally the place would be busy with tourists, but this was August 2020, so Covid kept most people away. Some things, like the historic Diamond Tooth Gertie’s gambling hall (complete with dancing girls) were closed completely and others, like a number of restaurants were doing outdoor eating or takeaway only. That said, I was still able to fully enjoy my visit.

I strolled past the buildings, walked along the river and did a little hiking.

I took an excellent historic walking tour put on by the visitor’s centre daily. They let us go inside some buildings that are otherwise closed to the public and had truly excellent stories about con men, prostitutes, and adventurers to had made Dawson City home.

The thing I kept thinking was: who are these people who live here? Who choose to live in a place where it goes down to -25C in the winter and where the sun largely disappears? Where they are near…nothing aside from wilderness. I assume the must all be criminals (joking – sort of) or people who have just rejected the trappings of a more conventional life.

What really blew my mind was that on the other side of the Yukon River from Dawson City is an area that is not part of any town and that is unconnected to plumbing or electricity and people live there and commute to Dawson by crossing the river by ferry when it is not frozen and walking across when it is (there is no bridge). Being that off-the-grid is enough of a stretch but twice a year – once when things are freezing and once when they are thawing – for about 4-6 weeks, it is impossible to cross. The ferry can’t run, but the ice is not firm enough for walking. So they just have to hunker down and wait. Crazy. Admirable, but definitely not for me. There is even a guy who lives on the other side of the river in a cave and has been doing so since the 1990s.

If you do cross the river on the ferry and walk along the river for a bit you will come to the ‘paddle wheel graveyard’. A place where several late 1800s/early 1900s paddle wheel boats crashed and were just left there. They are pretty much wrecks now, but you can still see what they were and you can climb all over them. It’s eerie and really cool.

That’s pretty much all I did in Dawson City – aside from drinking a drink with a human toe in it, but I’ll save that for the next post. There were lively bars with a serious dive quality that was appealing, but covid kept me out of such places. I was there for 2 days which was pretty good. I didn’t wish for more time. I recommend it if you are in that neck of the woods. It kind of made me realize just how big and, in places, wild and unforgiving Canada is.

Canada North America

Whitehorse Weekend

I had never thought much about the Yukon aside from having to learn its location and capital in elementary school, and I would not have gone if it wasn’t or a pandemic trapping me in Canada. While I can’t say that my long weekend trip to the Yukon (Whitehorse and Dawson City) was amazing, it was a pretty good short trip from Vancouver and I would recommend it, provided you like outdoorsy things.

View of Miles Canyon outside of Whitehorse, Yukon

Coronavirus & Travel

Covid. I have to say something about it because it is the only reason I decided to travel domestically (within Canada). It was March 2020 and I was 24 hours away from a weekend trip to New York when the pandemic was declared and the directive not to travel came down. I cancelled that trip and trips over the next few months to Denmark and Ukraine. I had trips for the rest of 2020 planned to Sudan, Iraq, et cetera, but none of that came to be. Obviously there are far worse things than not traveling (someone is always worse off than you and it is a bit of folly to compare suffering), but not being able to travel has been awful. It is the only thing I really want to do and without it, I live in a city I am a bit lukewarm about and all I do is work. Without travel to look forward to, life feels a bit pointless. That’s how I feel anyway.

By August 2020, I realized things weren’t going to open up any time soon and I decided to see something in Canada, so I picked the Yukon. It’s close to Vancouver and looked interesting. At the time, people from British Columbia were the only travelers allowed into the Yukon; everyone else was shut out due to coronavirus fears. It seemed like an easy choice and I decided to visit Whitehorse and Dawson City.

Whitehorse

I flew to Whitehorse. My first covid flight. Masks and lots of extra questions. I took a taxi from the airport to my accommodations: the Historical Guesthouse. If I returned I would definitely stay there again. It’s a log house built in 1907. It has a few rooms and shared facilities with a suite in the basement. It is simple and cozy with a great location. The best part though was that in the back is a colorful garden with sunflowers and raspberry canes. The owners live in a log cabin behind that. I quickly discovered that the husband of the couple is an avid cigar smoker. I was in heaven. I spent each of my two nights there with him (Bernie) sitting in the garden smoking cigars until late and swapping stories. He has a lot of good ones from his many years of living in the North.

Whitehorse the city itself isn’t anything that special. It’s small but not so small as to be quaint. There are some shops, but not much of interest. There is an arts scene, but it was shut down when I went because of the virus. You could easily see the town in a day (or less).

That said, I really enjoyed myself. I was so happy to be away. I walked the streets, photographed some street art and old buildings of character.

I was delighted by the foxes that seem to be everywhere in town if you get up early enough.

I was amused by the Yukon take on the covid social distancing signs that the government had erected. I now have a good sense of how big a caribou is compared to a loaf of sourdough bread.

Because of covid, many restaurants were just closed and many others were only doing takeout, so I didn’t get a sense of the restaurant scene, but I enjoyed a fancy grilled cheese from a cart and got coffee and soup to go from the Burnt Toast Café. And both evenings I had amazing vegan ramen from Wood Street Ramen.

The MacBride Museum of Yukon History was open and it worth a visit.

The thing that is best about Whitehorse, at least during my pandemic visit, was the outdoors. There is a nice riverfront with a path for walking and cycling and there are lots of bike rental places, as well as places to rent kayaks and canoes. Going canoeing seemed like fun, but I wasn’t about to just go out on my own. But I did walk and wander.

If one is so inclined there are tons of day canoe or kayak or hiking excursions around Whitehorse and if you don’t go in the middle of the summer, as I did, there are the Northern Lights. But I filled my two days easily without those things. If I had been there with other people or I had a car, there are quite a few day trips one could do to see a weird desert, pretty lakes, and quaint communities. I really wanted to visit Carcross (a tiny town with a vibrant First Nations community and lots of art) but you need a car. If I went back I would figure out a way to do that.

Day one I explored the town.

Day two I went on a hike that somehow took me eight hours when it should have taken four. The Miles Canyon Loop. It is walk-able from town and is far, but not difficult. Very scenic. Endless green trees cleaved by a jewel blue river with high, rock walls. It was the sort of scenery I wanted from my Canadian North excursion.

I had two full days and two nights of sight seeing in Whitehorse. On day three I flew to Dawson City, the old timey old west city in the Yukon, which was great: history, colorful old buildings, shipwrecks, and a human toe.

I wouldn’t say that one should travel from far flung parts of the globe to visit Whitehorse, but if you are already in the vicinity (like in Vancouver) it is an inexpensive, quick, and enjoyable place to do some outdoorsy stuff and see something a bit different. I would even consider going again once this stupid pandemic is over.

Tag: Yukon

Coronavirus & Travel

Whitehorse