Home of Brothels and Bar Drinks with Digits

"What's done in Dawson City stays in Dawson City," say the locals. We'll see about that after tonight when Allison and me toss back a Sourtoe Coctail, a Dawson City tradition in the heart of Klondike Country.

Yes, a real once-living human toe! The macabre concoction is served at the Sourdough Saloon most famous for this drink garnished with a severed appendage.

Sourdough was the name given to early gold miners who survived the Canadian sub-Arctic temperatures during the winter. The story goes that one of the early gold miners was bootlegging booze from Yukon to Alaska during the prohibition and froze his big toe. With no doctors available, his brother amputated it and preserved it in alcohol. The toe was never reconnected to the foot but stuck in a pickle jar and forgotten about.

Over 40 years later a crafty entrepreneur by the name of Dick Stevenson bought the brothers cabin and found the toe. As a grisly joke he dipped the toe in a cocktail and named the drink 'Sourtoe'. The popularity caught on and now over 24 thousand locals and tourists can claim they tasted feet.

Unfortunately the first toe has long since been swallowed. A rowdy intoxicated fellow fell backwards off his bar stool, bumped his head and swallowed it. But replacement toes are donated by amputees and accident victims all the time so the legend carries on.

Honestly, I can't make this stuff up. It's Yukon and anything goes, including Allison, myself and Marcia kicking up our heals in front of the oldest brothel house in the Yukon. Still bearing the name of its former Madam, Bombay Peggy's is a building with secrets like none other.