Fiordland - Panorama of Milford Sound

The first European person to live at Milford Sound was the explorer and former soldier Donald Sutherland (1843 or 1844 – 1919), who arrived on 3 December 1877 and lived there for the rest of his life. The nearby Sutherland Falls, and Te Hapua/Sutherland Sound are named after him. After Sutherland married in 1890, he and his wife built an accommodation house; Milford Sound was visited by steamers twice a year during the 1880s. The government paid him to build a track to Sutherland Falls and in his first season in 1888/89, 40 tourists visited. In the following season, this increased to 70 tourists. His widow sold their accommodation house to the government in 1922.