 In early September, American-Hawaiian announced that "Dakotan" would sail on a route from New York via the canal to San Francisco and on to either Seattle or Tacoma.When landslides closed the canal in October 1915, all American-Hawaiian ships, including "Dakotan", returned to the Straits of Magellan route.In 1916, "Dakotan" was one of several American-Hawaiian cargo ships chartered by the DuPont Nitrate Company to carry sodium nitrate from Chile to the United States.