Each station had a keeper, often called "Captain," who had overall responsibility for the station. He was chosen for his skill as a boatman coupled with his ability to read and write. The keeper supervised a crew of six to eight surfmen hired from the local community. The main qualification for a surfman was the ability to row an open boat in a storm. The surfmen were ranked by skill, the best man being #1, while the least experienced would be #6, #7 or #8, depending on the size of the crew. The men worked their way up through the ranks. On the Great Lakes, the surfmen worked during the shipping season from April to mid-December, while the keeper worked year-round.
The Sleeping Bear Point Life-Saving Station
By the turn-of-the-century, there were about sixty life-saving stations along the Great Lakes. This included one at Point Betsie, about 19 miles southwest of Sleeping Bear Point, and one on North Manitou Island about 15 miles north of Sleeping Bear Point.
The Manitou Passage, the channel between the Manitou Islands and the mainland, was a heavily-used shipping lane. Ships traveling between Chicago and the Straits of Mackinac favored the Manitou Passage over the open waters of Lake Michigan because of the shorter distance and access to the harbor-of-refuge on South Manitou Island. However, the waters of the Manitou Passage could be treacherous and shipwrecks occurred frequently. In 1901, two identical life-saving stations were constructed to guard the Manitou Passage, one on South Manitou Island and one at Sleeping Bear Point.