A fire thousands of kilometres away hit close to home, destroying millions of artifacts including some from the west coast.
Flames tore through the National Museum of Brazil on Sunday. An estimated 20 million artifacts went up in smoke, including rare Andean mummies, relics from ancient Egypt and unique dinosaur fossils.
The museum's collection also included artwork from North America's northwest.
"It's a huge loss," said Karen Duffek from the Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia.
"Some of those things are absolutely unique and really, really distinctive to the northwest coast and the northern coast."
UBC has had a relationship with the museum for years. Duffek said the facility was a partner in the university's research network, which she described as a digital portal into collections from around the world.
"Some of the pieces they had there, there's no equivalent in any Canadian collection," she said.
Among those items was a set of Tlingit armour from the Alaska panhandle area, made of painted wooden slats and twine. She said it was extremely rare, dating back to the 1700s.
"Those kinds of things are so important to contemporary generations of Indigenous people who are studying those things from pre-colonial times, and they're also really important (because) they represent how all of northwest coast art has circulated around the world, even at such an early time."
The wooden armour, which Duffek described as a northwest version of samurai armour, would have travelled from Sitka, Alaska around to the Atlantic Ocean then to Portugal. It was a gift to the Portuguese royal family, then later made its way to Brazil.
"It really represents something about how Indigenous peoples also actively participate in sending their things out into the world as part of this international gifting between royal houses and makers of these special pieces," Duffek said.
There were also items in the collection from the Haida dating back possibly as early as the 1870s. They were collected and sent around the world then exchanged.
When the fire broke out, some researchers ran into the building. They were able to save thousands of items, but the flames were simply too intense. Even fossils and stonework can disintegrate in heat that intense, and the building had zero fire suppression.
Hot spots were still smoldering in the building days after the fire as crews began the painstaking task of sorting through wreckage, looking for what may have survived.
The museum, converted to its current use from a royal palace 200 years ago, had become dilapidated in some areas due to a lack of basic maintenance, resulting in termite infestations and other issues. It had never been updated with a sprinkler system.
"To maintain the infrastructure of a museum like this is absolutely vital, and it's not the most upfront, sexy thing that you can invest money in, but it's crucial," Duffek said.
Rio's museum will take years to rebuild, but UBC's Museum of Anthropology is ready to help by providing artifacts on loan to ensure the region's rich cultural heritage remains on display.
