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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Andy Dupras doesn't understand how anyone could do what they did to his home.

"I just don't get it," Dupras said as he stared out the shattered double-paned window of the house he built with his bare hands. "It makes you really want to lose faith in humanity."

Andy Dupras looks at the partition wall of his cabin, which was ripped from the floor near the entrance to the living room area when the cabin was vandalized some time late last year - Andrew Livingstone/NNSL photo

Dupras, a former mine worker and prospector, made the trip out to his summer home 300 metres off the Dettah Road during the first week of January to get pictures for his recently deceased sister-in-law's family.

"Her kids didn't have any pictures, so I came out here to get them," said Dupras, 72. "I found this destruction. It was heartbreaking to see. I still get tears just thinking about it."

Upon arriving at the cabin, Dupras found every window in the house smashed, doors broken and his stove and water tank ripped out of the floor. Pictures of family and friends were torn off the wall, the frames broken and shards of glass littered the floor.

Dupras found the wing of a hand-carved eagle he had got from China on the floor of his bedroom, where a squirrel had left a trail of tracks in the snow covering his bed. Vulgar graffiti was sprayed throughout the cabin, in his cedar shower, on some old paintings and a on picture of his daughter.

He estimates the damage will take months to clean up and will cost upwards of $20,000.

Dupras isn't sure exactly when the vandalism occurred.

"I got a call from someone who had a cabin nearby wondering if anything had happened to my cabin, he said. "I told her I wasn't sure since I hadn't been out since the first snowfall."

Nine years ago, Dupras, a status aboriginal, and his wife Louisa, 74, were given permission by then Dettah Chief Jonas Sangris to build on the piece of property for which they hold a lease permit with the GNWT. They worked on the cabin for an entire summer, building it with the help of his grandson and his daughters.

"I remember my grandson chopping at the willows around the cabin," he said. "He was wearing gloves but he had blisters all over his hands. He's such a hard worker. We put such effort into this place. I don't get how anyone can just destroy something so great."

Dupras wondered if the vandalism was done because people thought he was squatting on the land.

"I was wondering if they were trying to send a message to me or something," he said. "But I'm not a squatter."

Dupras contacted the RCMP to let them know about the destruction. They told him to take pictures and bring them to the detachment. Three weeks since contacting the RCMP, he hasn't heard anything.

"I don't want the people who did this to go to jail and fed with a slingshot, but they need to be held accountable for their actions," Dupras said.

The RCMP was not available for comment at press time.

Dupras doesn't live year-round at the cabin anymore. The couple moved to Yellowknife a year and a half ago when his wife became ill, but they still enjoy it during the summer months.

"We've had a lot of great memories here," he said. "When I'm gone it's going to go to my family. I want them to be able to enjoy it. It's just sad what has happened.

"They didn't steal anything, there is so much expensive stuff in there. They just destroyed it all."