By 1905, service was shifted from the Juneau and Skagway region to the Valdez - Cordova, then eventually to Nome, where Alaska Steamship was ready to capitalize on the bonanza by switching its ships accordingly.

[1] Their ships supplied the growing number of religious missions that were being established and the burgeoning fish cannery industry.

[1] When the Klondike Gold Strike took place in 1897, Charles Peabody reorganized the company and rapidly expanded his fleet of ships to meet the sudden demand for service.

Their competitor the Pacific Steamship Company had committed their entire fleet of ships to the Klondike run and were unprepared to switch to alternates when the gold rush subsided.

[1] The Canadian Pacific Railway, their other potential competitor, decided at first that would not compete on the Victoria route, and chose to concentrate on their Empress ocean-going sleek steamships which fed passengers into their rail route across the Canadian Rockies and to their Empress Hotels in Victoria and Vancouver.

On May 2, 1903, Peabody and his associates purchased the controlling stock of La Conner Trading and Transportation Company.

[1] In 1907 the Alaska Syndicate, funded by Morgan & Co. and the Daniel Guggenheim, bought the company to service its growing copper mining operation in the Wrangell Mountains.

[1] The company's business was slowly eroded due to the end of federal war-related subsidies, rising fuel and labor costs, and new competition from the trucking industry and cargo airlines.

In an effort to reduce costs, the Alaska Steamship company added tugs, barges, and container ships to their fleet.

After World War II, when the freight business slowed, the company decided to focus on tourism and introduced their ship the Alaska in January 1946.

Intermediate ports of call included Wrangell, Petersburg, Skagway, Sitka, Cordova, Valdez, Kodiak and Seldovia.