New Singapore

  • Linear Location

    Shore of Lake Kalamazoo, Douglas, Michigan, US (42°38'51"N 86°12'12"W)

Overview

This site gives one a bit of a sense of the many threads of history weaving through Aywatin gwome. Though Minotsuna Tano and Forrest Bess may have been prominent visitors who made it their home–willingly or unwillingly–there were many other forces at work in the community. New Singapore was just one of the powers centers in the gwome and the Geraldines made them even more fearsome.

Access

You can walk right up to it from the parking lot. Look for the red lighthouse by the SS Keewatin (a huge ship permanently moored in Lake Kalamazoo, on the Douglas side)

By the Red Lighthouse
Douglas, Michigan
42°38’51.86″N 86°12’12.22″W

Public Dedication

Dedication Date: 2007-08-03 07:33 PM

Dedication was near the S.S. Keewatin in Douglas, Michigan, on the shore of Lake Kalamazoo (which is near Saugatuck and where the Kalamazoo River enters Lake Michigan). It is just off Blue Star Highway, just after (going south) you cross the Kalamazoo River [and just before you cross (going north)]. Wonderful turnout.

Text of the Marker

The part of the story installed here:

New Singapore

Just north of here, where the river enters Lake nMichigan (the “n” is silent), the once proud island nation of Singapore washed ashore in the same storm that took the Edmund Fitzgerald, which may explain the unusual devotion of Singapore’s military to taconite (think of the uniforms of the elite unit known as the Geraldines). Despite daunting waves, rescuers using reyaksu (a type of water mole tunnel) reached virtually all the trapped citizens, bringing them safely here to the sheltered shores of Lake Kalamazoo in vessels similar to the Keewatin. Though the grounded isle soon merged with the coastal sands, the survivors were embraced: they had arrived during the so-called Warring States era of West nMichigan history and offered the locals of Aywatin gwome an economic and military edge. Later, of course, the Geraldines would be infamously ruthless as wandering mercenaries, but never took up arms against any ally of the New Singapore.

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