The story behind Viktoriakyrkan begins in 1935, when residents of the Juktådalen valley, encouraged by the priest of Ammarnäs, Göte Haglund, decided to build a chapel. According to local tradition, the idea originated with a Sámi man, Johan Andersson Gran, who reported a dream in which a church was to be raised on a cleared plot called Svallsgäran. The story spread among both Sámi and Swedish inhabitants of the valley and eventually reached Haglund, who was inspired by how much simpler Sámi chapels elsewhere had meant to their communities, and hoped for a similar effect here.
A local society was formed to raise funds, but progress depended on a single large donation of 12,000 kronor from an anonymous giver, who asked only that the church should in some way commemorate the recently deceased Queen Victoria of Sweden. It later emerged, according to the sources, that the donor had been Axel Munthe, personal physician to the queen — though this remains a claim from a single historical account rather than something independently confirmed here.
Construction began in January 1936 to designs by the Stockholm architect Martin Westerberg. Haglund had originally envisaged a plain log-built chapel, but Westerberg, on seeing photographs of the site, felt that a proper spire should rise against the backdrop of the nearby mountain, Gáránasvárdduo (Korpberget). The church was completed and consecrated at midsummer 1938, taking the name Viktoriakyrkan in the queen's memory.
The building stands in a very sparsely populated area, some eighty kilometres from Sorsele, reached only by a minor road. The surrounding landscape is today recognised as being of national interest for its cultural heritage value. Inside, the church is simply furnished, with a harmonium among its few fittings.
By the early 2000s the church's isolated, weather-exposed position and the small number of services held there each year — reportedly only a handful, all in summer — had made its upkeep difficult for Sorsele parish, which around 2005 explored selling the building, without finding a buyer. In 2013 the parish reportedly hoped that a local support association might take over responsibility for the church, though its current status is not confirmed here.