Franz Josef

For Poutini Ngāi Tahu and earlier iwi, this coast was a route for pounamu, the greenstone carried out of the Arahura and other rivers and traded the length of the country. Tradition links the glacier to Hine Hukatere, a woman whose tears for a lost companion were frozen by the gods, giving the ice its name, Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere. Travellers came through on foot along beaches and riverbeds rather than settling in the wet, forested valleys.

Europeans reached the glacier in the 1860s, during the West Coast gold rushes that filled the region with miners. The geologist Julius von Haast visited in 1865 and named it after Franz Joseph I, the Austrian emperor. A small settlement of hotel, store and guides grew up on the flats below, and by the early twentieth century guided ice walks in hobnailed boots were a set piece of New Zealand tourism. Road access improved through the 1930s, and the village became a scheduled stop on coach routes.

The glacier itself has shaped the village's fortunes. It advanced for much of the 1980s and 1990s, reaching close to the valley floor, then retreated quickly from about 2008, and rockfall from the unstable terminal area ended walk-in access to the ice face — since then, setting foot on the glacier has meant flying to it. Floods on the Waiho have repeatedly wrecked the bridge and riverworks, most severely in 2019, and the closure of borders during the pandemic emptied the village for a time. It has rebuilt around flights, guided walks and the wider rainforest and lake country.

Franz Josef is a working tourist village, and that shapes almost everything about it. Most of the people living there at any time are guides, pilots, mechanics, cooks, cleaners and receptionists, many of them young and from elsewhere in New Zealand or overseas, staying for a season or two. Shifts, weather forecasts and flight schedules set the rhythm, and the bars fill after the last helicopter of the day.

Underneath sits the older West Coast culture of the region: descendants of mining and sawmilling families, a tradition of independence and scepticism about distant authority, hunting and whitebaiting seasons, and a strong habit of mutual help in a place where the nearest hospital is hours away. Conservation and tourism now provide the jobs that timber and gold once did, and arguments about how much development the national park and the river should carry are never far away.

The mountains and the ice are treated with respect for practical and cultural reasons. Guides brief visitors on why barriers exist, and the glacier's Māori name and story are part of that briefing. Weather is a constant subject of conversation, cancellations are accepted with resignation, and anyone who complains about rain on the West Coast is gently reminded that the rainforest exists for a reason.

Only a few hundred people live in Franz Josef permanently, and the figure rises and falls with the season as staff arrive for summer and leave in the quiet months. Housing is a mixture of small houses, staff quarters and rented units, much of it owned by the businesses themselves, and shortage of accommodation for workers is a long-standing constraint on the village.

Almost all employment is tourism: helicopter and fixed-wing operators, glacier guiding, hotels, hostels, cafés, the wildlife centre, the supermarket and the petrol station, along with Department of Conservation staff looking after tracks and huts. Farming continues on the flats north and south, and a few residents commute to Whataroa or Hokitika. Everything is trucked in along the coast highway, which makes prices high and supply vulnerable when a slip closes the road.

Daily life is simple and weather-led. The school is a small full primary, the medical centre limited, the nearest secondary school is at Hari Hari some sixty kilometres north, and larger shopping and specialists mean a long drive to Hokitika or Greymouth. Long-term concerns are the state of the Waiho River and the flood defences that protect the village, the future of the highway and bridge, seasonal staffing, and how a settlement of this size copes with hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.

Eating in Franz Josef means a short, dependable list rather than a food scene: cafés serving big breakfasts, pies and flat whites before the first flights, pizzerias, a bakery, a pub and a few restaurants with venison, lamb, beef and fish. Portions are generous, because most customers have spent the day walking or are about to. Self-catering from the small supermarket is common among those staying in hostels and campsites.

The regional specialities are worth looking for. Whitebait, the tiny translucent young of native fish, are netted in West Coast river mouths in a short spring season and served in a fritter, usually with lemon and bread; they are a delicacy and priced like one. Venison and wild pork come from the surrounding hills, and the coast supplies blue cod, whitefish and, in places, crayfish.

Beyond that, the fare is standard New Zealand: fish and chips, meat pies, scones and slices, ice cream, and New Zealand wine and craft beer by the glass. Dairy farms on the coastal flats send milk to processing plants, so butter, cheese and cream are local in the broadest sense. Manuka and rata honey from the rainforest, and fudge and chocolate aimed squarely at visitors, fill the shelves of the village shops.