LIFE ON A LONELY SHORE: A HISTORY OF THE VERMILION POINT LIFE-SAVING STATION by Edward J. Canfield, D. O. and Thomas A. Allan, Ph.D. Third Printing by Little Traverse Conservancy, 2023. 86 pages. Paperback.

Readers whose imaginations are captivated by the dramatic sweep of Lake Superior maritime history will be drawn to these stories of the shipwreck rescues and the lives of the keepers and surfmen of the U.S. Life-Saving Service Station at Vermilion Point, located on a remote shore almost ten miles west of Whitefish Point. 

The book chronicles the earliest use of Vermilion Point by indigenous Anishnaabe people, who mined the red-pigmented mineral Cinnabar on the shores, contributing to the name “Vermilion” by French fur traders.  The narrative proceeds from the founding of the U.S Life-Saving Service Station in 1876 (one of four along the south shore of Lake Superior) to the descriptions of the lifesavers’ daring rescues of mariners from the wrecks of the Joseph Paige, the Alex Nimick and the Ora Endress, among others.  The dramatic telling of the shipwreck rescues is balanced by well-documented and illustrated descriptions of the daily lives of the keepers and surfmen, who practiced Capsizing and Beach Apparatus Drills with specialized equipment, in accordance with the rigorous standards of the U. S. Life-Saving Service.