Vermilion Point is a remote, undeveloped shore in Chippewa County, Michigan, United States. Located west of Whitefish Point, Michigan, this historic spot lies on a stretch of Lake Superior’s southeast coast known as the "Graveyard of the Great Lakes" or the "Shipwreck Coast". 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. Vermilion Point was a popular stopover for Native Americans, early travelers, and explorers. Early settlers used its bogs and marshes to grow cranberries that were shipped to Chicago, Illinois, and Duluth, Minnesota. Today it is protected as a nature preserve for study of avian ecology and research of the piping plover and beach plant community succession. Ecology Its sand and pebble beach is intermingled with agates that are churned ashore during storms. Pounding surf and buffeting winds keep the low barrier dune paralleling the beach sparsely vegetated. Water filled Swales, bogs, and marshes occupy the land behind the barrier dune. Vermilion Point no longer exists as a peninsula. Sand Creek flowing out of the surrounding wetlands into Lake Superior is the only remaining geographical landmark for Vermilion The original forest cover was lumbered off and is now replaced with typical northern hardwoods and conifers. Shiras Expeditions 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. Many of the results were published under the general title "Results of the Shiras Expeditions to the Whitefish Point Region, Michigan", most by the University of Michigan (Occasional Papers series of several of the museums), the Reports of the Michigan Academy of Science, or the Michigan Geological and Biological Survey. Early history Vermilion was named for the nearby vermilion deposits used by the Native Americans for paint. There is no evidence that Native Americans permanently settled at Vermilion but it was a popular stopover for Native Americans, Voyageurs, Coureur des bois, trappers, and anyone who traveled the