She sailed under the name Sir Colin Campbell on whaling trips from Scotland to the Greenland Sea and Davis Strait.

Nielson in Tønsberg it is reported that Magdalena, owned by Gustav C. Hansen, was the first ship to process blubber at the factory when it opened in 1883 (1,300-1,400 barrels of seal oil).

[3] In 1901 the ship was used to deploy stores on Shannon Island and Bass Rock, East Greenland for the American Baldwin-Ziegler Expedition.

In the meantime, in the summer 1909 she went on another voyage to Greenland, this time to Qaanaaq (Thule), before being sold in 1910 to the mining company Grønlandsk Minedrift A/S for the price of 15,000 kroner.

The ship continued to sail on Greenland, transporting ore and minerals to Denmark, until unfortunate events led to its loss in 1917.