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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Despite unexpected ground conditions that were expected to add a "significant" amount to the cost of the Wildcat Cafe reconstruction, the project will be completed "on time, on budget," Mayor Gordon Van Tighem said Tuesday, after consulting the project engineer.

Rick Muyres, contractor for the Wildcat Cafe reconstruction, shovels gravel to divert water flowing from a hole Muyres drilled in search of rock under the historic site. - Jack Danylchuk/NNSL photo

The mayor initially estimated that the added cost could raise the price "probably in the low five figures, not six," but later revised that, saying, "I guess they had a contingency plan for the foundation."

According to the original plan, concrete pads were to support the historic building. That plan was abandoned when reconstruction contractor Rick Muyres found a slurry of silt beneath the decaying landmark.

"It was determined the only foundation that would work was rock socket piles," Van Tighem said, reading from an engineering report.

A crew worked through the weekend driving piles, ending a month-long wait for analysis of the soil and for a solution to the unstable ground that was slowly pulling apart the 74-year-old building and threatening to slide it into Back Bay.

The city budgeted $496,200 for the renovation project, with $348,735 going towards the foundation and structural repairs. The remainder of the money will cover ventilation and plumbing, and a 10 per cent contingency fund.

The project was a point of contention during the 2011 budget process.

Councillor Cory Vanthuyne couldn't justify the cost.

"I'm really having a problem trying to wrap my head around a project that essentially is putting $500,000 into a 450-square-foot building," he said in December.

Coun. David Wind suggested at the time that the cafe be closed and turned into a photo opportunity for tourists until other funding could be found.

The Wildcat Cafe was built by John Mainland (Smokey) Stout and Willy Wylie in 1937 and is one of the earliest permanent buildings in Yellowknife.

The Wiley Road structure hasn't had a major renovation since the late 1970s when the now-defunct Old Stope Association took on the challenge of renovating and reopening the restaurant, which had been closed for more than a decade.

In 1992, the city designated the Wildcat a heritage site and assumed ownership of the building.

Van Tighem said there have been minor improvements made to the building since then, but nothing to address the severe structural damage it has sustained since it began inching its way down the hill around 2003.

This year's renovations include replacing the foundation, fixing the sagging roof, replacing rotten logs, chinking logs, replacing the floor in the dish pit and bathrooms, re-framing windows and doors, and replacing the washrooms.

The city hired Muyres, a Norman Wells-based contractor who specializes in log cabins, to take the cafe apart, pour a new foundation and then put the structure back together.

Muyres, along with longtime Yellowknifers Anthony Foliot and Andrew Spaulding, took the cafe apart, log by log, in June and constructed a new base of logs. But the project has been delayed by complications with the foundation.

The project is expected to be complete in the fall and the cafe should be back in business the summer of 2012, said Van Tighem.

The mayor said the building is the underpinning of the city's heritage preservation.

"A lot of people, when they think of Yellowknife, they recognize the Wildcat Cafe."

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