Fox Glacier is the quieter sibling of the famous Franz Josef, just half an hour away: another tongue of blue ice that flows down from the peaks of the Southern Alps into the lush temperate rainforest of the West Coast, but with fewer people, a smaller town and a calmer feel. It lies inside Westland Tai Poutini National Park, part of the Te Wāhipounamu World Heritage Area, one of the last great wilderness areas on the planet.
Fox has an ace up its sleeve that its neighbour doesn't: Lake Matheson, one of the most photographed lakes in New Zealand. Its still waters, darkened by tannins from the forest, mirror the country's two highest mountains, the snow-capped Aoraki/Mount Cook and Mount Tasman, perfectly. On a windless sunrise the view is simply magical. Then there's the glaciers' headline experience: the heli-hike, a helicopter flight that drops you onto the ice to walk among crevasses and blue caves.
This guide takes a practical look at Fox Glacier: how to get there (no train, no airport), what a heli-hike costs and what to do if the weather grounds the flights, how and when to walk the Lake Matheson loop to see Aoraki's reflection, and why many people prefer Fox's calm to the crowds at Franz Josef. A corner of the world where ice, rainforest and the country's highest mountains meet.
The glacier's European name comes from Sir William Fox, Premier of New Zealand, who visited it in 1872. Its Māori name is Te Moeka o Tuawe, 'the bed of Tuawe', tied to the same legend as neighbouring Franz Josef: the story of Hine Hukatere and her lover, here called Tuawe, who died on the mountain. The area is the rohe of the Ngāi Tahu iwi, who travelled the West Coast (Te Tai Poutini) in search of pounamu (greenstone). The national park was created in 1960 and in 1990 it became part of the Te Wāhipounamu World Heritage Area. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The wild western coast of the South Island, ancestral home of Ngāi Tahu pounamu (greenstone), transformed by the 1864 gold rush and by coal. A remote rainforest shoreline where the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers come down almost to the sea, and where the stacked rocks of Punakaiki stand.
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Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Like its neighbour Franz Josef, Fox Glacier had a Māori name long before Europeans arrived, and that name is tied to the same legend of love and tragedy. Māori called it Te Moeka o Tuawe, 'the bed of Tuawe'. The story, which belongs to the Ngāi Tahu iwi, is about Hine Hukatere, a young woman who loved the mountains, and her beloved, here called Tuawe, whom she persuaded to climb with her to the heights of the Southern Alps. Less experienced than she was, Tuawe fell from the peaks and died. Hine Hukatere's grief was so great that her tears were frozen by the gods and became the glaciers. The place where Tuawe's body lay is marked by the glacier that bears his name, 'the bed of Tuawe'.
This legend is shared by the two neighbouring glaciers (Franz Josef is Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere, 'the tears of Hine Hukatere'). It shows how Māori read this extraordinary landscape through stories that gave it meaning and emotional depth. To them, these rivers of ice weren't abstract geological features. They were the lasting trace of a love and a loss.
The west coast of the South Island, Te Tai Poutini, was the territory (rohe) of the Ngāi Tahu iwi (and before them of Waitaha and Kāti Māmoe). Its great draw was pounamu, New Zealand jade or greenstone. This sacred and highly prized stone was found in the region's rivers and used for tools, weapons and ornaments. Māori made long, difficult journeys across the alpine passes to get it, and it was traded the length of the country. The Māori name for the South Island, Te Waipounamu, 'the waters of greenstone', shows just how important this resource was, and how closely it was linked to the west coast where the glaciers lie.
The glacier got its European name in honour of Sir William Fox, a British-born politician who served as Premier of New Zealand several times in the 19th century. Fox visited the area in 1872, and the glacier was named after him, a name that has stuck to this day. As with Franz Josef, the European name stood for a long time while the Māori name was officially forgotten, until it was given recognition again in recent times. Today the glacier carries both names: Fox Glacier / Te Moeka o Tuawe.
The first Europeans to explore this part of the west coast, in the mid-19th century, were amazed by the same geographical quirk that makes Franz Josef famous. Fed by the huge snowfalls of the Southern Alps, Fox Glacier drops steeply to a very low altitude and reaches almost into the lowland temperate rainforest. It is one of very few places in the world where a temperate-latitude glacier comes so close to a lush, damp forest of ferns and mosses.
Like the rest of the west coast, the area also felt the impact of the gold rush of the 1860s. Prospectors poured into the rivers and black-sand beaches of the west in search of their fortune. It was a hard, adventurous time that left traces you can still see, such as the remains of mining at places like Gillespies Beach, near Fox Glacier village. Gold, jade and later the beauty of the glaciers gradually drew more people to this remote, rainy corner of New Zealand.
Like Franz Josef, Fox Glacier is dynamic, advancing and retreating in response to changes in snowfall and temperature. It went through several cycles during the 20th century, with phases of advance, such as the one between the 1980s and the 2000s when the glacier grew and its terminal face pushed well down the valley, and phases of retreat. Since around 2008, though, Fox has been in a marked retreat, losing ice and pulling back a long way up the valley.
This retreat makes the glacier a direct and telling witness to global warming. People walking up the valley can see for themselves how far the ice has retreated in just a few decades. Scientists warn that if the trend continues, glaciers like Fox and Franz Josef could shrink drastically in the future, completely changing these unique landscapes.
The glacier's constant movement also has a dangerous side. The terminal face and the valley of Fox are very active zones, with falling blocks of ice, rockfalls and sudden floods from the meltwater river. On top of that, the access road to Fox Glacier has been badly damaged by weather and landslides in several years, leading to closures and repairs. For a long time, guides took visitors walking straight onto the glacier on foot from the valley. After several serious and fatal accidents caused by collapses, that access was closed for safety reasons. Today the only way to set foot on the ice is to fly by helicopter (heli-hike) to the higher, stable parts, always with expert guides. Like the whole west coast, the glacier demands respect and caution.
Formal protection came with the creation of Westland National Park (now Westland Tai Poutini National Park) in 1960. It covers the Fox and Franz Josef glaciers, the peaks of the Southern Alps, temperate rainforest and a strip of wild coastline. The park protects an extraordinary ecological gradient that runs from snowy summits and glaciers down to rainforest and the sea in just a few kilometres. In 1990 Westland Tai Poutini became part of the Te Wāhipounamu World Heritage Area, together with Fiordland, Aoraki/Mount Cook and Mount Aspiring national parks. UNESCO recognised the area for its outstanding natural value and for representing the geological and evolutionary history of Gondwana.
Like Franz Josef, the village of Fox grew on the back of tourism, though always in the quieter, less crowded shadow of its more famous neighbour. Its trump card is Lake Matheson, the mirror lake that reflects the country's highest mountains and one of New Zealand's most iconic images. Along with tourism came the challenges of conservation and safety in a setting that is very beautiful but also full of natural hazards.
As everywhere on the South Island, the story of Fox is bound up with the long process of redress towards the Ngāi Tahu iwi. Unjust Crown land purchases in the 19th century stripped Ngāi Tahu of much of their territory and of resources such as the pounamu of the west coast. After more than a century of claims, the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act of 1998 brought a formal apology from the Crown and compensation. Of particular importance for the west coast, it also returned ownership and control of the region's pounamu to Ngāi Tahu, recognising their ancestral relationship with this sacred stone. The glacier's dual name, Fox / Te Moeka o Tuawe, stands for that recognition and for the revival of te reo Māori. It recalls a 19th-century British premier, yes, but also, and more deeply, the eternal bed of Tuawe, the lost beloved of the legend Māori told long before anyone arrived to give it another name.
