Toe returned in a bag of salt with note from ‘ drunken fool’
Dawson City’s missing toe has been returned to its rightful owners in a bag of salt, with a handwritten apology from “A Drunken Fool.”
The toe arrived at the Downtown Hotel by express post on Thursday afternoon, with a fake return address for “Jean Argent.” (“Argent” means “money” in French, and the name rhymes.)
“I’m deeply sorry, I was way to ( sic) drunk and lost my mind celebrating a special Yukon date,” the note reads. “I returned it as fast as possible and not damaged. Sincerely, A Drunken Fool.”
The mummified human toe is the key ingredient in the Yukon bar’s “Sourtoe Cocktail,” a major tourist attraction in Dawson City. Since 1973, more than 70,000 people have “done the toe,” which involves ordering a drink with the toe floating in it, and letting the severed digit touch their lips.
The toe was stolen late Saturday night after a couple ordered the drink outside regular toe- time hours. The alleged thief was described as a man from Quebec. The bar owners said they knew who he was, since he’d left behind a certificate with his real name on it that he’d been awarded for taking the drink.
On Tuesday, the RCMP got a call from the man, who said he had mailed the toe back to the hotel. An anonymous voice mail was also left at the hotel’s front desk.
The package arrived on Thursday from Whitehorse. Geri Colbourne, the hotel’s manager, said she’d been instructed to take it to the police station right away to make sure there was nothing suspicious about it — other than the severed human digit she hoped it contained.
“They took it into a room, I wasn’t allowed to be in there … and sure enough, our toe was in there,” she said, adding that “Jean Argent” had the presence of mind to ship the toe in a bag of salt to preserve it.
After the police released the digit to her, she took it down to the bar Thursday night. “And everybody cheered and took pictures,” she said.
The toe, it seems, is none the worse for wear. Still, it won’t be served in any cocktails j ust yet. Colbourne wants Terry Lee, the Downtown Hotel’s “Toe Captain,” to check it over and maybe cure it in salt for a little while first. In the meantime, the bar will serve Sourtoe Cocktails with an older, backup toe.
Colbourne doesn’t think the hotel will press charges. “It would probably be better just to let it go.”