Wildcat Cafe replica from Canadian museum up for grabs
Structure, plus furniture and other props, being offered by Canadian Museum of History
A piece of Yellowknife's history — or, rather, the closest thing to it — is looking for a new home.
The Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec, is getting rid of a variety of props and reproductions from its Canada Hall exhibit — everything from bed curtains and candlesticks from New France to furniture, wooden barrels and the entire structure of its Wildcat Cafe reproduction.
The Canada Hall exhibit, of which the cafe was only one part, closed in September. To make room for the museum's new Canadian History Hall, the museum is offering items from Canada Hall to the wider Canadian museum community on a first-come-first-served basis.
Willing buyers are only expected to pay shipping costs, according to the Canadian Museums Association, which is keeping a catalogue of available items.
The Wildcat Cafe exhibit replicated the restaurant's look from the late 1970s, when the iconic Yellowknife log cabin restaurant was renovated and reopened after many years of disuse, according to the museum.
"We would certainly be interested in parts of it," says Walt Humphries, the president of the N.W.T. Mining Heritage Society, which wants to open a museum in Yellowknife devoted to the territory's mining past.
"Having never seen it, I'm not sure what it would all entail getting it back up here."
The real cafe in Yellowknife looks different today: the City of Yellowknife completed a $400,000-plus renovation of the restaurant in 2013.