Sowerby dares to join Sourtoe Club

Things didn't sound quite right at the filling station up in Pelly Crossing in Canada's Yukon Territory. The gurgle of the fuel I was pumping down the filler neck had a frothy note, like when filling one of the diesel pickups I've owned over the years.

I smelled the nozzle before hanging it up, and at the instant my nose processed a "diesel, you idiot" warning, my eyes focused on the word "DIESEL" on the side of the fuel pump.

To say I felt stupid is an understatement. The gasoline-powered Chevy Blazer I had rented in Whitehorse, capital city of the Yukon Territory, would need to have its tank drained and the delay would cut the heart out of the six hours of daylight that mid-December offered 150 miles south of the Arctic Circle. It might even disrupt overnight plans at Bombay Peggy's, a renovated former brothel, where my wife, Lisa, had reserved a room called the Lipstick Suite.

"There's a silver lining thought," I tried to be upbeat as I confessed the fueling blunder to Lisa. "It's Friday the 13th and this should be enough of a fumble for clear sailing to Bombay Peggy's along with my quest to be ordained into Captain Dick's Sourtoe Cocktail Club."

The what?

Take a drink from a glass with the petrified toe of person floating around in it -- apparently there are eight different toes from as many men, each with a detailed story -- and you're in, just as long as the toe touches your lips. Gross, yes, but you'll even get a certificate for completing the challenge and everyone loves a certificate, right?

Lisa realized how sheepish I felt about the fuel debacle. The affable lady at the service station told me many people had filled their gasoline cars with diesel fuel. Her boyfriend David had the day off and could be on the scene in a few minutes. He had helped out some of the other fuel losers on the Klondike Highway between Whitehorse and Dawson City.

David arrived and after two hours of coaxing managed to siphon most of the fuel out of the tank, refilled it with gasoline and we drove off into the midafternoon twilight.

Dawson City, the capital of the Klondike gold rush, was once the largest Western-Canadian city. Bombay Peggy's turned out to be a comfortably restored home that had once been a bustling brothel. After 335 miles of icy roads, snow squalls and the diesel-fuel fiasco, the friendly host and lush appointments of the Lipstick Suite were a welcome change of pace.

After an hour of rest, the Sourtoe Cocktail beckoned, so we left the cozy hotel and moseyed across town to the Downtown Hotel and dropped in at the Sourdough Saloon. The streets were deserted. It's negative minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit and the clunk of our boots on the frozen wooden sidewalk makes me think of a the guy heading to the gallows in a 1950's western movie. What had I gotten myself into with this Sourtoe Cocktail thing?

"What if it is poisonous?" Surely I'd have heard about Sourtoe casualties on Fox News or perhaps seen bizarre headlines splattered across the front cover of National Enquirer at a supermarket checkout somewhere.

The Sourdough Saloon wasn't much livelier than the wintry streets of Dawson City. Three locals sat at a table hunched over glasses of beer from the tap. Lisa and I approached the rustic bar a few stools down from the only other patrons, a grizzled couple whispering to each other.

"What would you like?" Donna Nickerson, the chatty blonde bartender asked.

"We came for the toe," Lisa replied. The locals looked up from their drinks.

An hour later, on the walk back to Bombay Peggy's, I examined the authentication certificate Donna presented before we left the Sourtoe Saloon and pointed out to Lisa that I was club member No. 12224. There was a Web site (www.sourtoecocktailclub.com) where nonbelievers could get more information and see pictures of the toe. What taboos had I violated?

Back in the comfy Lipstick Suite, Lisa assured me my toe-touched lips were not high on her priority list, so I slipped my arm around her shoulder trying to warm things up a bit.

" ... And your sleeve smells like diesel fuel," she muttered.

I looked at my watch. Just an hour and 45 minutes until Friday the 13th would become a memory and story about a toe and a frosty evening.

Garry Sowerby, author of "Sowerby's Road: Adventures of a Driven Mind," is a four-time Guinness World Record holder for long-distance driving. His exploits, good, bad and just plain harrowing, are the subject of World Odyssey, produced in conjunction with Wheelbase Communications. Wheelbase is a worldwide provider of automotive news and features stories.