There is a point on a bare hill in the far north of Norway that the world once used to measure itself. Stuor-Oivi is one of the stations of the Struve Geodetic Arc, a chain of triangulation points that stretches about 2,800 kilometres from Hammerfest on the Arctic coast to the Black Sea. Between 1816 and 1855 the astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve and his teams measured the arc with astonishing care, and the result was one of the first accurate calculations of the size and shape of the Earth. Thirty-four of the points, in ten countries, were inscribed as a World Heritage site in 2005, and this is one of the Norwegian ones.
What you find on top is modest, a small cairn or a marked rock, a drill hole in the stone and a view across a rolling plateau. The point of the place is the landscape. This is the Finnmarksvidda, the great high plateau of Arctic Norway, a country of low rounded hills, birch scrub, lakes and open tundra that stretches out in all directions. It is the home of the Sami reindeer herders, whose main centre, Kautokeino, lies about forty kilometres away, and in spring and autumn you may see herds moving over the hills and along the roads.
The riding here is another matter. The main road from Alta to Kautokeino is a wide, quiet, well-surfaced route with long open views, little traffic, and reindeer that wander across at will. Treat them with respect and slow right down, especially in autumn and winter, when they come to the road to lick salt. The north Norwegian summer is short, with the midnight sun in June and July and a lot of mosquitoes. The roads can have frost in the shoulders of the season, and winter is no season for a motorbike, with temperatures that can drop below minus thirty.
The station itself is not on a road, so expect a walk across rough ground, with boggy patches, so wear good boots, carry a map and keep an eye on the weather, which can change quickly. Kautokeino has fuel, a shop and basic lodging, and distances between services are long, so fill up whenever you can. The Sami culture is strong here, with the Sami parliament's cultural events, craftwork, and the Easter festival with its reindeer races.