YELLOWKNIFE - One by one, the "Cathedrals of the North" are coming down, and mining buffs say if something isn't done soon to protect them there will be none left.

Ryan Silke, a member of the NWT Mining Heritage Society, holds up copies of historical books published by the group: Con Mine, a Pictorial History and Not only Gold - which documents mine sites around the territories. Behind him is Con Mine, which is slated for demolition over the next couple years. - Mike W. Bryant/NNSL photo

Ryan Silke, who developed a love of all things mining as a teenager and is now a university graduate with a degree in history, says within a few years the headframes - the tall wooden or metal frames used to hoist the cable equipment that carry the cages and skips to and from the underground - will all but be gone from the Northern landscape.

Headframes are the most obvious feature of any underground mine. Several stand within city limits at Giant and Con Mines, including Robertson's Shaft - the NWT's tallest man-made structure at 76 meters - but most are slated for demolition.

"If you're interested in finding an old building, these days it's getting harder and harder to find those in good shape because after 50 or 60 years they're collapsing," said Silke, a member of the NWT Mining Heritage Society. "These old mines, their time has come and gone.'

At one time, there were around 25 mines - mostly for gold but not exclusively - operating within a 100-kilometre radius of Yellowknife. None are operating today, and few sites offer any clues, other than a few piles of junk and old, rusted pipes, that they were once active mines.

Discovery Mine, 90 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife, had its own town site with a curling rink, theatre and post office between 1950 and 1969.

The site was demolished by the federal government in 2005.

Thompson-Lundmark, open during the 1940s and located 40 kilometres east of Yellowknife, once offered snowmobilers and canoeists an interesting glimpse into the North's gold mining past, but it burned down in a forest fire during the summer of 1998 along with several other old mine sites near the Ingraham Trail.

"You can still go out there and find a lot of ruins," said Silke.

"It's just that it's not that interesting any more. No one snowmobiles in there any more because there is nothing to see. It's just piles of pipe and debris."

Silke said the A-Shaft headframe at Giant Mine, which sits on the side of the Ingraham Trail at the entrance to the mine site, is likely the only Yellowknife headframe that will be spared the wrecking ball.

The NWT Mining Heritage Society is attempting to preserve the building to accompany the group's soon-to-be open museum next door, but it won't be cheap.

Walt Humphries, also a member of the society, said it will probably cost around $200,000 to fix it up.

Humphries envisions a day when tourists can visit the museum and climb to the top of A-shaft to take a look.

As for Con Mine's Robertson's Shaft, its days are numbered for sure. Miramar Mining Corporation, which owns the mine, received approval of its clean-up plan for Con mine earlier this year.

Humphries says it would be a shame if Yellowknife's most prominent landmark - which can be seen by air from 75 kilometres away - were to be torn down. He admits that the building will never be a moneymaker but it still has some tourism draw.

"I would like to see a bungee jump off the side, or a place for hang gliders to jump off of," said Humphries.

"Every tourist in town, if he could go to the top of that he probably would but you're not going to make a fortune doing it."

Moneymaker or not, the disappearance of mining sites around Yellowknife is robbing the city of its heritage, said Humphries.

In a few years time, as clean-up plans at Giant and Con accelerate, he doubts people will be able to recognize the place.

"The character of the place will change," said Humphries.

"Right now it's very visual that there is a mine on either end of town, that Yellowknife grew up between the two but when those headframes are gone people will forget that there are mines there, and that changes the character of the place and the feeling of it."

And it's not like any new headframes are going to sprout up again any time soon, said Humphries.

Mining companies today rarely build headframes any more. The preference is to build a decline - a sloping ramp underground where ore cars can travel directly to and from the surface.

Another prohibiting factor is the reluctance on the part of mining companies to take on smaller claims.

"If Discovery was found today, it would be a tough one to bring into production because there was only a million ounces (of gold) there," said Humphries.

"You talk to the mining companies now; they're not going to look at a mine unless it's got potential for millions of ounces of gold or billions of dollars in diamonds."

Mike Vaydik, general manager of the NWT Chamber of Mines, calls the demolition of headframes a "government sponsored vandalism of my cultural heritage."

"They're not doing anybody any harm," said Vaydik.

"They should clean up the environmental hazards and just leave the headframes there. Eventually they'll fall down, or we'll preserve them but what harm are they doing anybody?"