The length of the route is 34 km.
Multia settlement is recorded in the records in 1564 and in the same century the Nikara wilderness house was built in Nikaranperä.
The first inhabitants settled in the Nikara area in the late 1552s. At the time, there were no transport connections in the vast wilderness, except for water bodies. Residents cleared and planned a route towards Multia and Keuruu, where the first church was built in 1628.
Before that, from time to time the people of Multia and Keuruu visited the Ruovesi church to hear preaching and meet each others. The distance between Nikara and Ruovesi was more than 100 kilometres in its direction. Another church in Keuruu was built in 1656 and the third in 1738, which still stands in its place. Multia got it’s own church in 1796, and thus the trip of the Nikara people to church was greatly reduced. On the holy days, when Multia had no priest, they still went to church in Keuruu.
The route went from Nikara house to Kallionikara, where Kangasjärvi provided an ideal place to stop. There have been found to have wooden marks and carvings on trees, but unfortunately these trees have been cut down. The journey continued from Kangasjärvi towards Peuralanperä. Between them, Pienimäki served as a place to stay for travellers. After that, next destinations were Tiihala, Uitamo and Vilhula, through which they reached Multia church. The roadmakers at the time cleared and build the route through boreal forests and marshes. Bridges had been built over the rivers and marshes crossed along duckboards. On the narrow Uitamo lake, roadmakers build a ford and later a bridge was made over it.
In autumn 2005, a group of people representing Multia-Seura, Nikara village association, the Pienimäki family and Finnish Environmental Institute gathered together to coordinate the restoration of the route. The first part of the route, Nikara-Pienimäki (20 km), was decided to be cleared and the route was completed step by step at the end of the summer of 2009. A valuable church road was thus made available to wanderers.
The site has also been presented on Retkipaikka.fi and on Multian kylät / Nikara websites (both in Finnish).
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