The first Kautokeino Mountain Lodge burnt down at New Year 1963/1964. The new lodge was built and managed by the organisation Norges Samemisjon, which is a Norwegian Christian missionary association which works among the Sámi population in Norway and on the Kola Peninsula in Russia. The mountain lodge's primary function was to provide homely, safe and reasonably priced accommodation for people who came from far away to attend church or local political/cultural events as well as visiting the doctor or using other public and private services. The local population's settlement pattern has since changed with increased motorization of transport and the altered structure of reindeer husbandry, and as a result the original use of the mountain lodge was getting surplus to requirement. The property is now owned by a private company and run as a hotel.