Fox Glacier
glacier in New Zealand
Fox Glacier (Māori: Te Moeka o Tuawe; officially Fox Glacier / Te Moeka o Tuawe) is an 11.7-kilometre-long (7.3 mi) (2022) temperate maritime glacier located in Westland Tai Poutini National Park on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island. Covering about 32 km2 including its tributaries, Fox Glacier is the third largest glacier in New Zealand. Like nearby Franz Josef Glacier, Fox Glacier is one of the most accessible glaciers in the world, with a terminal face as low as 300 m above sea level, close to the village of Fox Glacier. It is a major tourist attraction and about 1000 people daily visit it during high tourist season.
Naming
The glacier is known by local Māori as Te Moeka o Tuawe ('The bed of Tuawe'). According to oral tradition, Hine Hukatere loved climbing in the mountains and persuaded her lover Tuawe to climb with her. Tuawe was a less experienced climber than Hine Hukatere but loved to accompany her, until an avalanche swept him from the peaks to his death. Hine Hukatere was broken-hearted and her many, many tears flowed down the mountain. Rangi the Sky Father took pity on her and froze them to form the glacier now known as Franz Josef / Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere; the glacier now known as Fox marks Tuawe's resting place.
In 1857 local Māori led Pākehā Leonard Harper and Edwin Fox to both glaciers, the first Europeans to see them.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1147722. VIAF identifies the subject as 312880225. Authority coordinates are -43.502, 170.081. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2022, 1000 and 1857.
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This entry incorporates text from “Fox Glacier” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.