SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Last week employees at the Northern Vistor's Centre showed up to work to find that one of the large corner windows, which provides a scenic view over Frame Lake to the south of the building, was smashed.

Tracy Therrien, general manager for the Northern Visitor's Centre, hugs one of the building's sinking pilings. A plan to insert pneumatic jacks in the middle of the pilings is expected to save the building. - Cody Punter/NNSL photo

The broken window was not caused by an act of vandalism, or extremely cold weather, but rather by pressure being exerted on the pane of glass as a result of the building gradually sinking into the marsh over which it hangs

It is no secret that the building's frame is buckling under its own weight. The reason: the stilts, more commonly referred to as pilings, which provide the foundations for the portion of the building that sits on the muddy area of the lake, shift every time the permafrost melts and freezes with the changing of the seasons.

In recent years, the situation has gotten worse, leading to large fissures in the walls, warped door frames and even the cracking of the pipes that feed the centre's heating system.

"There have been two piles that have been listing, which is causing the building to stretch in the middle," Colin Dempsey, president of the Northern Frontier Visitors Association, which owns and operates the centre.

Fortunately, it appears as if there may be a solution to the problem.

After receiving $200,000 from Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency (CanNor) last winter and consulting with several engineers over the past year, the centre's board has settled on a proposal by engineer Phil Nolan to correct the listing pilings.

According to Dempsey, Nolan plans to cut out large sections of the concrete posts and replace them with pneumatic jacks, which can compensate for their shifting by adjusting the height of the building.

"We'll just have to look at it every year and make adjustments as it moves," said Dempsey.

Dempsey added that if the jacks reached their maximum height, another section of the piles could be cut out and another jack inserted.

Dempsey said other solutions such as dredging the marsh and driving new pilings were proposed, but they were considered to be too impractical and expensive to implement.

In using Nolan's plan, it is expected the association will only have to spend approximately $50,000 of the $200,000, which CanNor pledged to help to stabilize the building last year.

"It's great that this is going to leave us with a little wiggle room," said Dempsey.

Dempsey said leftover funding will be needed in order to replace broken pipes and to repair other structural damages that have been incurred as a result of the shifting of the building.

$100,000 of that money is also being used towards paying for the centre's new wood pellet boiler, which was installed last year.

Tracy Therrien, general manager for the centre said work on the pilings is expected to take just one day to complete and will be done sometime before March 31.

To add to the good news, Therrien said the visitor's centre is expected to be profitable for the first time in years, having been $160,000 in debt as recently as June 2011.

Although the centre still has to replenish Guaranteed Investment Certificates (GICs), which it used to help pay off some of its debt, Therrien expected total operating revenues to be at least $30,000 in the black in 2013.

"We're striving to keep it going," she said.