Māori describe how the demi-god Tu-te-raki-whanoa shaped Fiordland with an adze, carving out the steep-sided mountains and profound fiords with blows from his adze. If you imagine that the adze was made of ice, then geologists largely agree—glaciers cut a path toward the sea over millions of years during the last ice age, cutting deep valleys as they went, with the shattered remains rendered as islands at the mouth of the fiord.