Wildcat Cafe replica from Canadian museum up for grabs

A piece of Yellowknife's history or, rather, the closest thing to it is looking for a new home.

The Canadian Museum of History inGatineau, 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 barrelsand the entire structure of its Wildcat Cafe reproduction.

TheCanada Hall exhibit, of which the cafe was only onepart,closed in September. To make room for the museum's new Canadian History Hall, the museum isoffering items from Canada Hall to the wider Canadian museum community on afirst-come-first-served basis.

Willing buyersare only expected to pay shipping costs, according to the Canadian Museums Association, which is keepinga catalogueof available items.

The Wildcat Cafeexhibitreplicatedthe restaurant's look fromthe late1970s, when the iconic Yellowknife log cabin restaurantwas renovated andreopenedafter 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 toopen a museum in Yellowknife devoted to the territory's mining past.

"Having never seen it, I'm not sure what it would all entailgetting it back up here."

The real cafein Yellowknife looks different today: the City of Yellowknife completed a $400,000-plus renovation of the restaurant in 2013.