Day 27/28 - The infamous Toe Shot and the Northern Lights

Northern Lights atop Midnight Dome, Dawson City YT

The famous wood carved bench at the Midnight Dome lookout

Pub #1: The Pit - a true local bar

Starting off the night with 2 Yukon Golds

One of the locals getting a little too friendly...

Pub #2: Sluice Box Lounge

Pub #3: Bombay Peggy's

A real Whiskey Sour and a Missionary 

Classic Irish Carbomb 

THE LEGENDARY TOE at Pub #4: The Downtown Hotel

 "You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow, but your lips much touch the toe"

Down the hatch

Melindas turn 

83,641 people before us have conquered the Sourtoe Cocktail

Our official Sourtoe Cocktail certificates

Pub #5: Diamond Tooth Gerties for a cancan show to end the night off 

                           

DAY 27/28 - The infamous Toe Shot and Northern lights

Resuming from 2am on Tuesday evening, right after the blog was finished Melinda woke up from her nap. As she brushed the sleep out of her eyes she asked if the northern lights were out and unfortunately they were not... Atleast not on my side. Melinda wiped the condensation off her window, looked up at the sky which was facing away from the bright moon and the Aurora Borealis lit up the sky. I immediately jumped out of the truck in just my jeans and a T-shirt (it was just below 0°C) and just stared into the great northern sky. When we jumped outside, we were so excited that we unlocked the truck from the inside and set off the car alarm... Which we then couldn't find the key to turn it off!! After that fiasco I grabbed my sweater and Melinda and I sat on the famous wood carved bench on top of Midnight Dome. The bench was huge, enough to fit probably 10 people comfortably and had carved into it "Top of the World" which was very suitable. As we sat there shivering uncontrollably, we took in the crazy night sky. It wasn't as vibrant or dancing as we know it could have been, but it was so incredible to experience. Then as quickly as it appeared, it also disappeared. Once the shimmer was gone, we hopped back into the truck, cranked the heat and enjoyed our hot chocolate we packed. We were definitely awake now. We did get to see the green glow a couple more times over the next hour or so and it was just as mesmerizing every time. Once about 3:30am hit, we hadn't seen anything since and I decided I needed a little snooze. As I drifted off, Melinda started playing around with the camera trying to capture the night sky. She saw a bit of a glow while I slept but nothing worth waking me up for. She did however figure out how to capture the true essence of what was dancing through the sky that night. The sky was pretty cloudy and still very light due to the nearly full moon that was out so we knew we didn't see the full potential. The first photo above is what Melinda happened to capture by adjusting the exposure and shutter speed on the camera. Unfortunately we didn't get to see it to that extent in person, but it was incredible to know that that's what was really happening up there. Once about 5am hit, the sky started brightening and with no other Northern light sightings Melinda decided to also take a little snooze. We set the alarm for 6am to make sure we caught the sunrise over the mountains. 

We woke up and gradually watched the sunlight beam over the mountains and the fog roll in around them. The fog ended up getting pretty bad so we couldn't see the actual sunrise but we were more than ready to go to bed anyways. We headed back down the mountain, crawled into our cozy tent at 7:30am and slept the day away. We woke up around 1pm, planned our evening and finally got out of the tent around 3pm when it was time for breakfast 😂 We headed to Riverwest Bistro where we had become very fond of, grabbed a coffee and some food and headed back to the campground. We had a little more downtime and then we showered up and got ready for the crazy night ahead... 

After getting ready we started walking towards our first bar 'The Pit'. When we were panning for gold yesterday, we mentioned to the older lady working there that we were going to do a pub crawl and she said that The Pit is a must. We went into this little hole in the wall at 6PM... 6.. and there were about 20 people in there all completely wasted. We decided to not sit with the locals right away so we went to the far side of the bar and order a pint of Yukon Gold. After the first glass, we figured we might as well stay for another and that's when things got interesting. Now you know you're drinking with the locals when a man in a dress comes in completely pissed at 6pm, with a lit dart in hand, goes over to (I'm assuming his buddy) and plants a kiss right on his lips. I would've really been questioning the whole situation more if he wasn't with his girlfriend so we decided to just keep drinking. After getting a little buzz I had to ask the bartended why there's a cowtail attached to a long rope with a bell at the end. Apparently if you pull the cow tail and ring the bell, you gotta buy a round for everyone in bar. I'm glad we came here first because by the looks of things around the bar, we wouldn't have been getting out of there without making sure they got their free beer. We finished our second pint and I asked for a photo with the... beautiful man? His girlfriend said she wore it last week so it was his turn this week but I'm pretty sure he was just so drunk it sounded like a good idea. As Melinda was about to take the photo he told me to grab his boobs(which was stuffed with a ton of paper towel) and in that instant grabs my junk and takes the picture. I was kinda shocked/mad that he did it but I did ask for it lol. 

Wanting to make it to a couple more bars we headed out to the second pub. The Second pub was called the Sluice Box Lounge. It was a bar attached to the hotel so it was nothing fancy, but we grabbed a pint there and figured we might as well head out. When we were finishing up, two natives came in and were mad about what was on tv so the waiter grabbed the remote and let them change it. As I was coming back from the washroom I noticed they were watching The Last Samurai with Chinese subtitles, so I'm not entitely sure why they changed it. 

Anyways onto pub #3, Bombay Peggy's. Fun fact about this place is that it was an old brothel that was converted imto a bar. This place was recommended from Bobby our first bartender at The Pit. Apparently they make the best cocktails intown (I'm assuming besides the Sourtoe), so for a measly price of $11.50 each (😫) we both got a drink. The waitress looked exactly  like the girl from Good Will Hunting, and was an absolute delight to watch as she made our drinks like a professional bartender. Melinda's whiskey sour was made with real egg whites and tasted incredible and I got a missionary which was wild turkey, bitters, maple syrup and orange rind with the glass rimmed with orange. I felt like Jake Perolta from Brooklyn 99 when he goes to the secret bar and gets a super fancy drink (although his had orange soda chaser 😂). After our drinks we order my favourite, which is an Irish carbomb made with midnight sun stout. Melinda and I slammed em back, paid our bill and headed to bar #4, The Drunken Goat Tavern. Now despite the name, this was probably the nicest place we went to that night. It was a Greek restaurant that reminded me a lot of Greek garden in Guelph. We headed to the bar ignoring the tables and grabbed another pint. This is where Melinda told me a had to eat real food and not just drink beer. Between you and me, I think liquid bread is a food so that's debatable. We split the 3 dip platter that came with a whole wack of homemade pita, hummus, red pepper feta dip, tzatziki, spanikapita and cheese spanikapita without the spinach (I forget the name). After talking with our bartender about our pub crawl this far, and mentioning that Bobby recommend Bombay Peggy's, the bartender laughed and said that's my boyfriend.. he also works there. Small town huh? 

After having another beer we decided it was time to make our way to The Downtown Hotel and come face to face with the decaying toe. We went inside where we were met with a line of about 20 people all eagerly awaiting their turn. I went to the bar, got 2 pints of Yukon Gold as well as 2 glasses of Yukon Jack. Yukon Jack was a honey whiskey made in the Yukon and apparently compliments the taste of the toe very well. After about 20 minutes we made it to the front where we were met with Captain Terry- the keeper of the toe. As I sat down I asked if I could put the toe in my mouth for a picture but apparently after a couple thousand shots its starting to get brittle so it's against the rules. After writing your certificate, he then begins his speech and waves the toe infront of your mouth " You can drink fast, you can drink it slow, but your lips must touch the toe". He then drops the toe in your drink and down the hatch. As the toe was touching my lips all I could think was 'wow, this whiskey tastes pretty good and yup there's definitely a toe nail touching my lips'. It was pretty wild experience to say the least. He then takes the toe out, wipes it off on a paper towel and then places it back on a mound of salt. It was now Melinda's turn to take the shot. With whiskey in hand and Terry reciting "You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow, but your lips must touch the toe' and a splash, Melinda guzzled it back like a champ and then we decided to stay for one more beer. This is where we hungout with some locals for a bit and played darts (which was terrible for all of us), got know them a bit better and then headed over to Diamond Tooth Gerties for bar #5. 

DTG was the first casino in Canada and home to 3 nightly Cancan shows with the last one at midnight. Our plan was to go to the 10 o'clock one so we could get a good rest and not too hungover, but after hanging a good night and making many new friend we managed to just make it to the midnight show in the nick of time. We sat down, order yet another pint of that delicious Yukon Gold, and watched the dancers and singers put on a show. Now the night was pretty hazy by this point, but from what we can recollect of it, it was a pretty damn good show. We then ventured back to our tent around 2am passed out and called er a day.

Day 28

As we woke up with the taste of old beer in our mouth and our heads pounding, we talked and remembered bit by bit of what happened the night before. It was about 10:20 and we had to pack up the tent, reorganize the truck and get out before 11. Then it started to rain. So we packed up our stuff soaking wet, hung over and hungry, and headed to Riverwest Bistro (yet again). We got a nice greasy breakfast sandwich with curly fries to split and as we ate our breakfast we saw a couple familiar faces pop in. The three beside us were about our age and had the Sourtoe Cocktail behind us, and then had a drink with us at Diamond Tooth Gerties. They were looking a little more rough than we were and when I asked the guy how he was feeling he replied with "not too bad, I got most of the alcohol out last night" Hahah nice, judging by the fact the three of them each had a coffee and nothing else, I figure we were doing alright. Well Melinda was, I felt like death lol 

After filling up our water jug we headed back to Whitehorse. Our plan was to go to Chicken, Alaska but figured we wouldn't enjoy it as much if we could barely function so that's tomorrow's objective hahaha. We made it about 2 hours into the drive when Melinda and I decided to go to a pull off and have a quick nap. We crashed for about an hour and then got up to keep on heading to Whitehorse. We needed to stop for gas so once we found a APD we pulled in. This isn't a normal gas station where you have a little convince store with a clerk. It's essentially a telephone booth you walk into, prepay with visa and then pump your gas which only tells you how many litres you pump. It was definitely a different experience and took about 10 minutes to figure out. We made it to Whitehorse around 9pm and went to wolf creek campground where we pitched out tent. After crawling into bed the rain started once again, frequently scaring us and thinking that bears were around the tent. I mean who knows it might be, but hopefully it's just the rain.