The Struve Geodetic Arc

I’ve been somewhat neglecting Testimony of the spade for the better part of a week and a half, but posts are coming. I had planned to visit the world heritage Struve Geodetic Arc, at least one of the points, but since there has come snow we’ll have to see about that.

I must confess I had no idea what Struve Geodetic Arc was or that it was a world heritage before I stumbled across it during work. I got interested and have done some general research into the matter to get a picture of what Struve Geodetic Arc really is. In short The Struve Arc is a chain of survey triangulations. It stretches from Hammerfest in Norway to the Black Seaand covers more than 2,800 km. The heritage is made up by 34 of the original 265 survey points. The survey was carried out between 1816 and 1855 by the astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve and was the first accurate measuring of a long segment of a meridian. Four of the points are situated in Sweden; they can be found on the mountains Tynnyrilaki, Jupukka, Pullinki, and Perävaara in the municipalities Haparanda, Kiruna, Pajala and Övertorneå in Tornedalen.

The visit I have in mind is at Alanen Perävaara in Haparanda municipally. It should be a 3-4 km hike to the spot that supposedly is marked by a cross and a cairn, but the weather is a factor if I’ll go or not.

A map of the can survey be found here.

Magnus Reuterdahl