The servicemen of Vermilion Lifesaving Station performed daring rescues of shipwrecks from 1877 until 1944 when it was closed after modern navigational technology made this service obsolete.

Today it is protected as a nature preserve for study of avian ecology and research of the piping plover and beach plant community succession.

Sand Creek flowing out of the surrounding wetlands into Lake Superior is the only remaining geographical landmark for Vermilion[2] The original forest cover was lumbered off and is now replaced with typical northern hardwoods and conifers.

[1] In the early 20th century the University of Michigan conducted, over several years, a comprehensive series of ecological investigations in the Whitefish Point-Vermillion region, supported by George Shiras.

Subjects included botany; ichthyology; ornithology; herpetology; and others, and provide nearly 100 years later a valuable set of baseline data for conditions at the time.

The report of the flora, for example, includes in addition to a list of plants found and their habitats and locations, many photographs of the area around the Vermillion Station and the nearby wetlands.

[2] Territorial governor Lewis Cass and geologist and Indian Agent Henry Schoolcraft passed through Vermilion Point with a party of 44 in 1820 on an official expedition along the south shore of Lake Superior.

The advent of bigger and better diesel freighters, better weather forecasting, and improved radio communication and navigational instruments such as radar greatly increased the safety of sailing.

[2] The low bog lands and surrounding wetlands, small lakes, ponds, and Sand Creek made Vermilion Point ideally suited for cranberry cultivation.

The cranberries were transported by flat bottomed boat to a large water wheel on Sand Creek that scooped them up from a trough and dumped them on a conveyor belt to a mill.