海角大神

In recent days, loss has led the news in Lahaina, Hawaii. Wildfire tore through the historic West Maui town a week ago today.

The deadliest U.S. wildfire in more than a century has claimed at least聽99聽lives. As聽stunned locals grieve, search and rescue continues. As do聽donations and hope.

Once the capital of the Kingdom of Hawaii, Lahaina聽has been home to culturally significant sites for Native Hawaiians. Those聽include the Na 鈥楢ikane o Maui Cultural Center that burned.

Six museums run by the Lahaina Restoration Foundation also fell to the flames. But though their artifacts are gone, not all is lost.

鈥淭he beauty is, COVID actually gave us time to digitize a large amount of our archives,鈥� says Kimberly Flook, deputy executive director of the foundation.

The pandemic 鈥渁llowed us to take better care of our collections,鈥� she adds. 鈥淚f this fire had happened three years ago, we would鈥檝e lost the information as well as the object.鈥�

Once finished, the digitized collection, spanning the 1820s through 1980s, will include missionary family letters, photos, and records from the sugar plantation era. That includes the names of millworkers, whose diversity shaped the island鈥檚 identity: Native Hawaiian, Asian, European, and beyond.

鈥淚f someone puts in their grandfather鈥檚 name, it will pull up any document that he鈥檚 referenced in,鈥� says Ms. Flook.

The work should eventually appear in the extensive, free聽聽from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. (A preexisting app,聽, offers another chance to explore from afar.)

Online archives can鈥檛 bring back Lahaina, of course.聽But they can help ensure its history survives as more than memory.聽