For most of the 20th century, Franz Josef Glacier/Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere was only a few kilometres from a main road. For a long time that ease of access was relative, though. It wasn’t until 1930 that all the streams on the road from Hokitika to Franz Josef/Waiau village were actually bridged. Even in 1940, the glacier was advertised in the New Zealand Alpine Journal as being a "mere"36 hours' travel from Christchurch.
Photo / Mark C. Lysons, Dorothy Fletcher Collection, Hokitika Museum, Print 36/2FJG
For most of the 20th century, Franz Josef Glacier/Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere was only a few kilometres from a main road. For a long time that ease of access was relative, though. It wasn’t until 1930 that all the streams on the road from Hokitika to Franz Josef/Waiau village were actually bridged. Even in 1940, the glacier was advertised in the New Zealand Alpine Journal as being a "mere"36 hours' travel from Christchurch.
Photo / Mark C. Lysons, Dorothy Fletcher Collection, Hokitika Museum, Print 36/2FJG
New Zealand’s most famous glacier has been given at least six different names. But the original is the best, writes Lynley Hargreaves
When German geologist Julius Haast began exploring New Zealand, he proposed to create “a kind of Pantheon or Walhalla for my illustrious contemporaries amongst those never-trodden peaksand glaciers”.
This self-serving glorification was convenient for Haast’s career, since he wrote to those scientists to inform them of their namesakes.
And so it was natural that when Haast first heard of a glacier descending to near sea level on the western side of Mt Cook, he dubbed it the “Lyell Glacier” after prominent 19th century geologist Charles Lyell.
But after Haast actually visited the glacier himself, he upgraded his proposed name to commemorate the Austrian Emperor instead, giving a lecture in Christchurch describing “the enormous ice masses of the Francis Joseph glacier appearing between the rich forest vegetation”.
Then, two years later in 1867, a survey party visited and drank Scotch whisky diluted with glacier water while christening it the Victoria Glacier instead.
Castle Rocks Hut and the icefall of Franz Josef Glacier/Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere in 2011. Photo / Petr Hlavacek
This may not actually have been the first time someone tried to name the glacier after the long-serving English Queen. It is sometimes said that Franz and its neighbour, Fox Glacier, used to be called Victoria and Albert, after the then Queen and her husband. This is possibly in relation to a claim that Canterbury politician Leonard Harper had reached the glaciers as a young man while being guided down the coast by Māori in 1857.
But there appears to be no firm evidence of this, and in the 1860s the Okarita Times opined: “It is a curious fact that, although the people of New Zealand boast of being so very loyal, we have neither a “Victoria” mountain, hill, valley, river, or plain on our maps, so that we can safely afford one Glacier to our beloved Sovereign.” [i]
Arguments over Victoria vs Franz may have continued for some time, because five years later the Ross News stated: “This wonder of the world is troubled with aliases as badly as any poor wretch who has figured in the felon’s dock.” The paper offered the opinion that the glacier should have a Māori name and, ignorant of the fact that one already existed, suggested Waiho Glacier.
Haast had actually anglicised the Austrian Emperor’s name from Franz Joseph to Francis Joseph. But over time the glacier had become known as Franz Josef, with people mistakenly thinking Josef was the correct Austrian name. This was then almost overthrown in the 1940s when one geographic board decided to change it to Franz Joseph, only for a new board – faced with protests from the Tourist Department – to stick to Franz Josef after all.
Through all of this, and for decades after, there seems to have been no public awareness that the glacier had an original Māori name the entire time: Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere. Instead of jockeying for favour with a foreign scientist or ruler, this is a tale of romantic derring-do.
A woman of ancient times who had a passion for the alpine life, Hine Hukatere is said to have led her sweetheart, Wawe, up into the mountains, where he tried his best to keep up. But while traversing the mountain region at the head of the glacier, Wawe lost his footing and fell to his death. Hine Hukatere was so stricken with grief and her tears so excessive that the gods froze them into a glacier as a perpetual memorial to her sorrow.
Snow-covered seracs of Franz Josef Glacier/Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere in 2015. Photo / Petr Hlavacek
Haast wasn’t the only early scientist naming glaciers and mountain peaks, nor the only one making no attempt to find and use the original Māori names. In fact, our mountains now read like a history of science and imperialism, with the protagonists of major scientific debates scattered across the map.
In some ways these connections are amazing. The cute little Brewster Glacier above Haast Pass is named for the inventor of the kaleidoscope. The Murchison Glacier in Aoraki/Mount Cook National Park can be a lesson in how wrong geologist Roderick Murchison was about the power of glaciers to shape the Earth. And pairing an ancient Māori mountaineer with a long-dead Austrian Emperor in Franz Josef Glacier/Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere has a certain whimsical global appeal.
But it’s worth remembering how chaotic 19th century naming efforts were, and how much jockeying for favour was involved. Western science was integral in erasing Māori names off the map. It should now help to put those original names back.
