SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Standing in his orange coveralls in the afternoon sun, Rick Muyres used his hammer to remove some of the oldest nails in Yellowknife from logs that a week ago made up the 74-year-old Wildcat Cafe.

Rick Muyres, a Norman Wells-based contractor, stands outside the Wildcat Cafe Tuesday. He and two other men will be taking the 74-year-old building apart log by log this summer before putting it all back together again on a new foundation. - Ian Vaydik/NNSL photo

As each nail freed itself from its long-time home, Muyres placed them in his back pocket.

This is the first stage of deconstructing the city's oldest restaurant, which was built by John Mainland "Smokey" Stout and Willy Wylie in 1937.

The cafe has been sinking under the pressure of its age for many years, causing the roof to sag and the floorboards to shift.

Muyres said he was instructed not to speak to the media by the city but Mayor Gord Van Tighem said the building is "slipping down the hill and leaning. Imminently it was going to destroy itself."

To avoid the building's destruction, 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 long-time Yellowknifers Anthony Folio and Andrew Spaulding, started taking the cafe apart, log by log, last week.

Each log the men remove is numbered, so the building can be put back together the way it was, with as much of its original material as possible.

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 washroom.

The work will cost $496,200, with $348,735 going toward the foundation and structural repairs. The remainder of the money will cover ventilation and plumbing, and a 10 per cent contingency fund.

The nearly $500,000 repair was a point of contention during the 2011 budget process.

At that time, city councillor Cory Vanthuyne said although he values the heritage site as an important part of Yellowknife's history, he 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 agreed with Vanthuyne's budget concerns and suggested at the time that the cafe be closed and turned into a photo opportunity for tourists until other funding could be found.

The city usually leases the building out to a chef each summer.

For the last three years, Pierre LePage, owner of Le Frolic, Chef Pierre's Catering and Rental Service and Le Stock Pot, has run the small restaurant.

In response to Wind and Vanthuyne, Coun. Mark Heyck said in December that the beauty of the cafe is that it's not only a heritage site for people to stand in front of, but "it's a living, breathing, functioning building."

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.

Grant White, director of community services, refused to comment on the project.

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