[2] On 12 September 1918, Auklet suffered substantial damage to her deckhouse while moored at Juneau in the Territory of Alaska when the Canadian passenger liner SS Princess Sophia struck her.

[2] On 25 October 1918, Princess Sophia sank with the loss of all 343 people on board after grounding on Vanderbilt Reef in Lynn Canal near Juneau;[5] it was the worst maritime disaster in the combined history of Alaska and British Columbia.

Auklet joined Murre and the BOF fishery patrol vessel USFS Osprey in a fruitless search for survivors that lasted into November 1918.

[2] They assisted the United States Department of War in inspecting active and abandoned fish traps as possible navigational obstructions,[2] and took part in routine stream improvements, which involved the removal of impediments to salmon – such as log jams and beaver dams – as they ascended to their spawning grounds.

[2] In 1934, Auklet took part in a Civil Works Administration project to clear log jams and other obstructions in salmon streams that were blocking the fish from reaching their spawning grounds.

[2] In 1936, she participated in the construction of a 70-foot (21 m) concrete fish ladder at the rapids of the Pavlof Harbor headwaters on Chichagof Island in the Alexander Archipelago of the Alaska Panhandle.

In the late 1940s, Auklet was engaged in salmon hunting and trapping winter patrol work,[2] and she was scheduled to conduct the FWS′s first downstream fish migration research in early 1949.