Fifty years after their arrival in the Yukon, the now-legendary Jacquot brothers raised the largest building ever constructed in Burwash Landing to that time.

The Jacquot resort, completed by 1948 and owned by Gene — one half of the French duo — comprises a two-storey lakeside lodge with oak floorboards and private rooms — no mere rooming house.

Beneath its low hip roof tramped pack-laden traders as well as buckskinned hunters and trappers on the prowl for big game with guides working at the Jacquots’ outfitting business.

“It was a key spot on the Alcan Highway,” said Hank Jacquot — Gene’s son — now 80. “I remember tearing through there as a little guy, plenty of space.”

Hank, who moved to Haines, Alaska, decades ago, remains a member of the Kluane First Nation; his maternal grandmother was Southern Tutchone.

“In some ways, I never really did get away from Burwash there,” he told the Star by phone this week.

Now, the oldest lodge on the Yukon’s portion of the Alaska Highway is ripe for demolition.

The Kluane Community Development Corp., which bought the property several years ago, prepared an analysis of the “asset.” It also hosted meetings over the past 18 months as to what to do with the land.

Three options were on the table, according to Kluane First Nation Chief Mathieya Alatini: restore the run-down lodge; consider alternate uses for it, along with the upgrades that would entail; “and third was tearing it down and using the land for other things.”

Alatini said the decision to bulldoze the building was “unanimous” among the shareholders — Kluane citizens.

Future options include a brand new resort, expanded RV park and residential development, she said.

“Really, do we want to spend a couple million dollars to repair a building that may not even last another 25 years?” Alatini asked.

The building is costing the corporation cash by the day. It would take a major investment to restore or renovate the structure and bring its heating, electrical and water systems up to code.

Colin Asselstine, the development corporation’s general manager, had no comment.

Jordan Clark, its executive director, was on vacation when the Star phoned Monday.

Charles Eikland, Sr,. a former Kluane chief, said he dreads the day the lodge turns to rubble.

“It can be used by the community. It can be used for handicrafts. It can be used for lots of different things,” he said.

Eikland, who was born 80 kilometres north of Beaver Creek in 1940, noted the lodge is “a matter of yards” from the Alaska Highway and could be used as a roadside historical attraction.

“The old boat they used for freighting is still there too, parked on the shore,” he noted.

Cecille Cox, who, like Eikland, now lives 16 kilometres down the highway in Destruction Bay, had more forceful words: “I think it would be a bloody shame to have it go up in smoke.”

Jim Robb, the Yukon’s unofficial chronicler of colourful characters and places — including log lodges — supports preserving the building, now called the Burwash Landing Resort.

“It could be good too to get people in the community thinking, ‘Well maybe we should preserve it.’”

He warned against knocking down the dilapidated structure only to replace it with a mockup or re-creation, like Skookum Jim’s “home” in Carcross.

“His original house was damaged, and for a make-work project, they tore the building down, and then they rebuilt it,” Robb recalled. “But it’s not the original....”

Barbara Hogan, the historic sites manager at the Tourism and Culture department, confirmed the lodge — between 66 and 70 years old — could easily qualify for designation as a Yukon historic site.

“The owners just have to fill out a nomination form.”

From there, the request would go for review by the Yukon Heritage Resources Board, with the whole process taking six to seven months.

Grants are also available to subsidize restoration work, though they likely pale in comparison to the amounts needed.

The government’s historic properties assistance program matches repairs related to heritage preservation dollar for dollar up to $10,000 each year.

“It definitely has potential. It does provide an aspect of history of that era,” Hogan said.

She saw the site “not necessarily as a tourist attraction,” but as an educational opportunity to connect community members to their past and “give a sense of how the territory developed.”

Sally Robinson, president of the Yukon Historical and Museums Association, stressed the historical significance of the former Jacquot hotel.

“I’m absolutely sure it’s the oldest lodge on the highway,” she said.

The structure is identical to a newer one built by the same contractor in Johnson’s Crossing and later torn down, leaving the resort in Burwash Landing as the only one of its kind still standing.

“The whole story around what happened in Kluane Lake is the story of that lodge,” Robinson told the Star.

“The Jacquots were essential in the wagon road coming across and helping with the Slims River Delta that was impassable,” she said.

She noted the central role the brothers played in the region from the time they built the first trading post on Kluane Lake — the Yukon’s largest — at the dawn of the last century.

She pointed out the potential importance of the building to local residents as well.

“Their lifestyle and their sense of place depend a lot on these built structures.”

Robinson echoed Robb in her view of historical re-creation: “You can’t just tear a structure down and rebuild the same building; it doesn’t have the same feel, there’s almost no point.”

Heritage buildings evoke an “emotional response” that is inimitable, she said.

“You can’t reproduce character.

“It’s a hard fight. It really takes people to step forward and say, ‘Don’t do this. Please don’t do this.’”