The extent of damage to the historic site of Forty Mile cannot be determined until crews are able to get into the area to make an assessment, a Yukon government spokeswoman said today.

Rebecca Jansen is the manager of historic sites for the Department of Tourism and Culture. She told the Star a jam caused extreme flooding of the townsite, its 10 historic buildings and a work camp.

“The whole site was flooded, which caused several buildings to lift off their foundations and they were displaced, both heritage buildings and some of the work camp infrastructure,” she said.

The jam broke and carried “extremely large chunks of ice into the community.” Some measure three metres deep and 10 metres long.

At the peak of flooding, only roof tops could be seen, and a two-storey building looked like a one-storey structure, she said.

In an earlier aerial photo of flooding at Forty Mile, staff could identify all the buildings, but in a later photo, it was hard to even see them.

“Once we can get to the site, we will have a much better idea of what we are dealing with.”

The ice jam is believed to have broken on May 11. A fly-over conducted last Saturday confirmed the jam had broken, Jansen said.

There is still standing water, but much of the water has receded, leaving behind the chunks of ice.

The Tr’ondek Hwech’in government is not commenting, but intended to send out a statement later today.

Forty Mile is located 88 kilometres downriver from Dawson City, at the confluence of the Forty Mile and Yukon rivers.

An historic guide to Forty Mile published in 2011 notes generations of First Nation people camped at Forty Mile to fish and hunt.

The guide notes that when gold was discovered in the upper Forty Mile River in 1886, miners and traders established what was the first Yukon town.

The town site is part of the Forty Mile, Fort Cudahy and Fort Constantine historic site.

Fort Constantine was the first Northwest Mounted Police post in the Yukon, established in 1894, says the guide.

It says Fort Cudahy was an American trading post established there in 1893.

The historic site is protected under the Tr’ondek Hwech’in’s final land claim agreement, as well as the Yukon’s Historic Resources Act.

The site is jointly owned by the Tr’ondek Hwech’in and Yukon governments.