A wolverine took his toe on a Tuesday.
Edouard Marsh was checking traps on the north line when it happened: fast, committed, no warning, the way wolverines did everything. The wolverine disappeared into the scrub. It took part of his boot with it. And his right big toe.
He had four days to walk to Dawson City. The toe was gone whether he got it back or not. But the toe had somewhere to be: the Sourdough Saloon in the Downtown Hotel, where a tradition had been running since 1973 without interruption, and where a man could still drink his own toe in a shot of whisky and earn his certificate and make the loss mean something.
First he had to get it back from the wolverine.
The Toe is a story about a man, a mustelid, and the stubbornness required to survive the Yukon with your dignity more or less intact.
It is part of the Warriors of the Last Days series, a post-apocalyptic saga set across Canada, one province and territory at a time.
