As climate disasters come to museums’ doorsteps, curators decide what to save or leave

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It’s a tiny community museum that collects and displays artifacts from the area. Established in 1978 by a local couple as a retirement project on their own property, the museum moved to the old RCMP building in downtown Westbank in 2011.

Questions they asked themselves as they drew up the list: What is irreplaceable? What would insurance cover? What will fit into fire-safe bins? Or into the other storage containers they have, whose fireproofing ability is, as Mr. Ryder put it, “TBD?” “At the end of the day, there’s a lot of stuff that we’re just going to have to hope for. And that’s tragic.”

Ryder brought home the museum’s chequebooks and other paperwork. The plan, should need be, was for the precious artifacts to go to homes of employees or board members – as long as those homes were far enough away that they were not in a fire zone, not at risk of an evacuation alert or order. At least, not yet.

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Climate change is exacerbating many of the already clear and present dangers to cultural institutions. Risk management is crucial for any museum or gallery, to protect items from what’s commonly known as the 10 Agents of Deterioration. These include fire, water, physical forces (including earthquakes), temperature, humidity and pests.

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