For the next thirty years she worked along the Alaska coast, transporting people, mail, and goods, as well as ore from mining operations at Kennecott.

[4] On 14 February 1909, Northwestern sighted a flare from the sloop Nugget, which had been blown out into the Gulf of Alaska off Cross Sound by a storm on 9 February during a voyage from Lituya Bay to Juneau, Alaska, and whose crew was abandoning her 75 nautical miles (139 km; 86 mi) off Cape Fairweather (58°48′30″N 137°56′45″W / 58.80833°N 137.94583°W / 58.80833; -137.94583 (Cape Fairweather)) after a second storm struck and destroyed her sails and rigging.

[9] On 6 October 1915 she grounded on Potter Rock just south of Pennock Island in the Tongass Narrows near Ketchikan, Alaska Territory.

[10] On 25 July 1933, Northwestern ran aground off Alaska's Sentinel Island Lighthouse and subsequently was beached on the Eagle River Sand Spit.

[11] Northwestern was pressed into service by the United States Navy during World War II, and was serving as housing for workers at Dutch Harbor on Unalaska when the area was bombed by the Japanese in June 1942.

Despite U.S. Navy records indicating that she was towed to Seattle, she in fact remained in Captains Bay, and eventually sank around 1946; there are differing accounts as to the circumstances of the sinking.