Point STUOR-OIVI Stuorrahanoaivi Enontekiö, Lapland Province, Finland

Point STUOR-OIVI Stuorrahanoaivi Enontekiö, Lapland Province, Finland is located in the area of Mount Tarvantovaara, Enontekiö. It is one of the most hard-to-reach points along the entire Struve Geodetic Arc. The Struve Arc point was established in 1850-1852 and marked by a pair of crosses engraved on the rocks. The crosses from 1852 have been preserved, and the authenticity of the point is based on its continuous use and confirmed by direct measurements related to a neighboring triangulation point. To reach it, visitors will have to spend almost a whole day hiking (Enontekiö-Kautokeino or Muonio-Kilpisjärvi roads).

The Struve Arc, once known as the "Russian" and later the "Russian-Scandinavian Meridian Arc," is one of UNESCO's World Heritage monuments. The arc consists of 265 triangulation points, along which measurements were conducted from 1816 to 1852, enabling the precise determination of the Earth's size and shape.

The reference points of this triangulation network were marked on site in various ways: hollows carved into rocks, iron crosses, stone pyramids, or specially installed obelisks. Often they were marked with sandstone bricks laid at the bottom of a pit; sometimes it was a granite cube with a cavity filled with lead, placed in a pit with cobblestones.

During the project to include the Struve Arc in the UNESCO list, which lasted 8 years, special search and geodetic work was undertaken in each country to locate the original points. All information from all the countries of the Struve Arc was collected, structured, and standardized.

Not all of the original points were found during the special search and geodetic work carried out in recent years with active cooperation from scientists of the interested countries, and many of them were found to be heavily damaged. Therefore, only the best-preserved points—34 in total—were included in the World Heritage site.

Sources:

http://www.gototrip.com/publications/geodezicheskaya-duga-struve

Photo: Sirkka Image/Markus Sirkka

https://www.maanmittauslaitos.fi/en/struvegeodeticarc