The Seaforth River is a river in

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, flowing into

Dusky Sound Tamatea / Dusky Sound is a fiord on the southwest corner of New Zealand, in Fiordland National Park. Geography One of the most complex of the many fiords on this coast, it is also the largest at 40 kilometres in length and eight kilometre ...

. About and up from Supper Cove in Dusky Sound is Lake Maree. The river rises about another to the north, on the slopes of the Black Giants, at about . Like many former British Empire locations, it and its lakes have

Scottish names A formal Gaelic language name consists of a given name and a surname. First names are either native or nativized (i.e. borrowed and made to fit the Gaelic sound system). Surnames are generally patronymic, i.e. they refer to a historical ancestor. ...

. The river was first mapped in 1896 by

Thomas Mackenzie Sir Thomas Mackenzie (10 March 1853 – 14 February 1930) was a Scotland, Scottish-born New Zealand politician and explorer who briefly served as the List of Prime Ministers of New Zealand, 18th prime minister of New Zealand in 1912, and ...

, who was briefly Prime Minister in 1912. He described cataracts of , and between the Sound and the Loch and named the river after himself. However, in 1897 E. H. Wilmot discovered that the Mackenzie and Seaforth were the same river and removed the former name. The route Mackenzie followed is now part of the

Dusky Track Tamatea / Dusky Sound is a fiord on the southwest corner of New Zealand, in Fiordland National Park. Geography One of the most complex of the many fiords on this coast, it is also the largest at 40 kilometres in length and eight kilometre ...

. It was thought that few had followed the route until at least 1950.

Carbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...

beech Beech (''Fagus'') is a genus of deciduous trees in the family Fagaceae, native to temperate Europe, Asia, and North America. Recent classifications recognize 10 to 13 species in two distinct subgenera, ''Engleriana'' and ''Fagus''. The ''Engle ...

tree stumps in Lake Maree indicate it was formed when a large rock fall dammed the river during the 1826 earthquake. Near Kintail Hut, Gair Loch is another debris dammed lake. Further debris fell, probably during the

2011 Christchurch earthquake A major earthquake occurred in Christchurch on Tuesday 22 February 2011 at 12:51 p.m. local time (23:51 UTC, 21 February). The () earthquake struck the entire of the Canterbury region in the South Island, centred south-east ...

. Mackenzie described the vegetation as mainly birch, with red-pine,

rata Rata may refer to: Biology * Some plants of the genus ''Metrosideros'' from New Zealand, including: ** '' Metrosideros albiflora'' (Large white rātā) ** ''Metrosideros bartlettii'' (Bartlett's rātā or Cape Reinga white rātā) ** ''Metrosider ...

, and some

totara ''Podocarpus totara'' (; from the Maori-language ; the spelling "totara" is also common in English) is a species of podocarp tree endemic to New Zealand. It grows throughout the North Island and northeastern South Island in lowland, montane and ...

. He said that there were also ribbon-wood,

panax The ''Panax'' (ginseng) genus belongs to the ''Araliaceae'' (ivy) family. ''Panax'' species are characterized by the presence of ginsenosides and gintonin. ''Panax'' is one of approximately 60 plant genera with a classical disjunct east Asian and ...

, mikimiki, pepper-tree, mokomoko, tutu, ferns and mosses. A 1981 survey identified six native fish -

Anguilla dieffenbachii The New Zealand longfin eel (''Anguilla dieffenbachii'') is a species of freshwater eel that is endemic to New Zealand. It is the largest freshwater eel in New Zealand and the only endemic species – the other eels found in New Zealand are the n ...

, Prototroctes oxyrhynchus,

Galaxias maculatus The common galaxias (''Galaxias maculatus'') or inanga (from the Māori ''īnanga'') is a very widespread Southern Hemisphere fish in the family Galaxiidae. It is a slim, narrow fish with a forked tail and a mottled, spotty pattern, typically a ...

Galaxias fasciatus ''Galaxias'' is a genus of small freshwater fish in the family Galaxiidae, and are frequently referred to as the galaxiids. These highly adaptable fish are typically found at temperate latitudes across the Southern Hemisphere. Galaxiids are s ...

Galaxias brevipinnis The climbing galaxias or kōaro (''Galaxias brevipinnis'') is a fish of the family Galaxiidae found in Australia, New Zealand, and nearby islands. The name climbing galaxias is used in Australia, and koaro or kōaro in New Zealand. Further vernac ...

and Gobiomorphus huttoni.

Moose The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family. Most adult mal ...

were liberated in the valley in 1910, but it is not thought that they survived.

References

Rivers of Fiordland {{Fiordland-river-stub

See also

References