Taiari / Chalky Inlet is one of the southernmost fiords in Fiordland, in the southwestern corner of New Zealand's South Island and part of Fiordland National Park. As with the neighbouring fiords of Tamatea / Dusky Sound to the north and Rakituma / Preservation Inlet to the south, Taiari / Chalky Inlet is a complex fiord with many channels and islands along its roughly length. Most notably, this includes the sections Moana-whenua-pōuri / Edwardson Sound and Te Korowhakaunu / Kanáris Sound, which split at Divide Head in the middle of Taiari and each extend for roughly inland in a V-shape.
Despite its remoteness, Taiari / Chalky Inlet has seen frequent waves of human interaction. Early European accounts suggest that a population of Māori inhabited the fiord for a time, while battles between iwi (tribes) are said to have taken place in neighbouring Rakituma, but the extent of this habitation is not known. The fiord was regularly visited by Europeans during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, with explorers including James Cook and Jules de Blosseville giving many of the features their European names. As with the rest of the Fiordland coast, the fiord was briefly inhabited by crews of whalers and sealers, until declines in the population of these animals made the industry uneconomic by the 1830s.
Following the departure of sealers from the fiord, human presence in Taiari has been at low levels, typically due to its isolation. Visits have been primarily for research or tourism, with photographs taken in the fiord during the late 19th century contributing to the campaign to establish the area as a national park. Unlike more developed fiords to the north (such as Milford Sound / Piopiotahi or Doubtful Sound / Patea), Taiari / Chalky Inlet has no defined land access, limiting human interaction to sea or air. This, along with pest control efforts on the islands within the fiord, has allowed for populations of native species to recover, although a number of invasive species remain a threat.
Geography
The geography of Taiari / Chalky Inlet is complex, as it is for the neighbouring fiord complexes of Tamatea / Dusky Sound to the north and Rakituma / Preservation Inlet to the south. There are two main entrances to the fiord from the Tasman Sea, separated by a string of islands – the Eastern Passage, which continues in a northerly direction into the main channel of Taiari / Chalky Inlet, and the Western Passage, which is connected to the eastern and main channel via a number of passages between islands. These include Bad Passage (separating Chalky Island and Motutawaki), Return Channel (separating Motutawaki and Great Island), and North Port (separating Great Island from the South Island mainland).
Islands of varying sizes are found in the sound, including those at the entrance, which separate the Eastern and Western passages. Chalky Island (or Te Kākahu-o-Tamatea, so named as it was said to be the location where the explorer Tamatea laid down his cloak, or kākahu, to dry) is the most seaward of these, with both the island and the sound likely owing their English names to the white cliffs found on the island's seaward southern edge. Further from the sea are the Passage Islands, the largest of which is known as Motutawaki, from the Māori words motu for 'island' and tawaki, referring generally to large penguins such as the Fiordland crested penguin. Further still from the mouth of the fiord is Great Island, or Ōteauau, the largest island in the complex at . Great Island contains two small lakes – Lakes Dobson and Esau – and reaches a height of above sea level. Although it is less than from the South Island mainland, the island is free of possums and is the site of multiple pest control initiatives to prevent pests from accessing other islands via Great Island. Little Island sits in the narrow channel between Great Island and the South Island. Beyond this primary chain of islands, there is a small group of islands known as the Small Craft Harbour islands, located about from the fiord's mouth, near its divergence into two separate fiords. Closer to the mouth, the Garden islands are another small group, located on the eastern edge of the fiord, at the entrance to South Port.
Approximately from the fiord's mouth, the fiord splits in two. Moana-whenua-pōuri / Edwardson Sound continues the roughly northeast–southwest orientation of the main length of Taiari, whilst Te Korowhakaunu / Kanáris Sound splits off from this in an east–west orientation. The head between these two fiords, on the northern edge of Te Korowhakaunu and the eastern edge of Moana-whenua-pōuri, is known as Divide Head in English. The Māori names of the point and the hill behind it are Te Tapuwae-o-Māui (the footprint of Māui) and Te Rereka-o-Māui (the leap of Māui) respectively. These names both come from the Māori creation myth for the fiord, in which the demigod Māui is said to have leapt ashore at that point. In one legend, Māui is said to have slipped over, with his extended arms creating both Te Korowhakaunu and Moana-whenua-pōuri in the process. In another account, Te Korowhakaunu already existed, with the mud and water kicked up when Māui's foot slipped creating Moana-whenua-pōuri.
Te Korowhakaunu / Kanáris Sound The main length of Te Korowhakaunu / Kanáris Sound extends for from its head at the Dark Cloud Range, in a roughly westerly direction towards the main channel of Taiari / Chalky Inlet. The fiord is slightly shallower than the main channel of Taiari, reaching a maximum depth of compared to for the main fiord. A small string of islands, the Small Craft Harbour Islands, lies close to the sound's junction with the main channel of Taiari / Chalky Inlet.
At its head, the fiord is split into two smaller coves, separated by the aptly-named Two Cove Head. The northernmost of these, Islet Cove, is fed by the Carrick River, one of the largest inflows into the entire complex. The other cove, Cliff Cove, does not have any inflows of the same degree. However, the cove marks the closest point between the Chalky Inlet complex and that of neighbouring Rakituma / Preservation Inlet, at just over 500 metres from Te Awaroa / Long Sound. The isthmus between the two fiords constitutes part of the Dark Cloud Range, which extends seaward to form the southern side of Te Korowhakaunu / Kanáris Sound and the eastern edge of Taiari / Chalky Inlet. This peninsula reaches a maximum height of at Treble Mountain, and was formerly given a name of French origin – Presqu'île Bréauté – by an 1826 French expedition, however this name fell into disuse. The name Cunaris Sound stems from this expedition, although the exact etymology is unclear. It was previously believed to be derived from the plural of the French name for the canary, canaris, in reference to the bellbirds prevalent in the area at the time. However, evidence has since suggested that the fiord was instead named after Konstantinos Kanaris, a hero of the Greek War of Independence, and in 2021 the spelling of the European portion of the name was altered to Kanáris Sound to reflect this naming origin.
To the north of Kanáris Sound lie two hill formations, separated by a small glacial valley. These constitute the Tower Hills on the east and Te Rereka-o-Māui on the west, and consist of primarily schist and greywacke, with small portions of gneiss.
Moana-whenua-pōuri / Edwardson Sound The hills that constitute the northern edge of Kanáris Sound also form the eastern edge of Moana-whenua-pōuri / Edwardson Sound. This fiord continues the northeast–southwest orientation of the majority of Taiari, beginning roughly from its junction with Te Korowhakaunu. Opposite the fiord from Te Rereka-o-Māui, the Kakapo Range continues roughly parallel to the fiord for much of its length with a maximum height of at The Stopper.
The northern limit of the fiord consists of a small sheltered cove known as Lake Cove, into which the two primary tributaries of this branch flow. To the east of the cove, Cora Lynn Falls drains the outflow from a series of lakes (from upstream to downstream, lakes Purser, Carrick, and Cadman) that extend towards Tamatea / Dusky Sound. The second inflow into Lake Cove is Lumaluma Creek, which drains a large catchment area including multiple small tarns. Numerous small creeks flow along both edges of the fiord, fed by the 2-4 metres of rain which falls around the fiord annually.
Moana-whenua-pōuri is significantly shallower than either Chalky Inlet or Kanáris Sound. Unlike many of the other fiords in the region, including the others in the Taiari complex, this fiord gets progressively shallower from its mouth, with no basins to speak of. The upper reaches of the fiord are as shallow as , a depth equal to only the sill depth of Eastern Passage.
History Not much is known about Māori habitation of Fiordland prior to the arrival of Europeans. The conditions in Fiordland were not hospitable to ongoing habitation, although expeditions for exploration, hunting, and gathering of resources such as pounamu took place soon after the arrival of Māori in New Zealand, roughly 700 years ago. More permanent occupation took place in the 18th century, when remnants of the iwi (tribe) Kāti Māmoe fled into the area following a Ngāi Tahu conquest of the South Island, constructing a pā on Matauira in neighbouring Rakituma / Preservation Inlet. Ngāi Tahu forces pursued Kāti Māmoe to this point, with the pā said to be the site of a battle between the two. Several European explorers noted evidence of Māori habitation in the fiords and surrounding areas, while evidence of seasonal habitation has also been identified through archaeological studies of the region.
Captain James Cook was the first European to see Taiari / Chalky Inlet during his second voyage in 1773, naming both it and Chalky Island after the white cliffs on the island's seaward side. Cook did not enter the fiord, owing to poor weather conditions, and sailed past en route to Tamatea / Dusky Sound. The first Europeans known to have entered and explored the complex came in 1813, when the cutter Snapper entered the fiord and established a camp in the upper reaches of Edwardson Sound, which they so named after the ship's captain, Captain Edwardson. The Snapper left after a few months, returning in 1820 once they believed bird populations in the area had replenished. Edwardson's account of this return described the environment around Lake Cove and the changes which he witnessed from his first experience. The cove, which had been a lagoon impossible to enter by ship on their first visit due to dangerous tides and silt, had opened up into a deep harbour large enough to hold a whaling ship, with two large river inflows instead of one.
Notes from Edwardson's visits were incorporated into a comprehensive account of the region by Jules de Blosseville, part of an 1826 French expedition. The French expedition named a number of features, although the majority of these have since been replaced by English or Māori names. These include Presqu'île le Chevalier at the northern edge of Western passage (now Cape Providence) and Presqu'île Bréauté (now the Treble Mountain peninsula). Other names, such as Kanáris Sound or Puysegur Point (in neighbouring Preservation Inlet) have been adapted from the French names from this expedition.