Fun fact: The steeple of the Singapore church periodically disappears and reappears every few years as the dunes shift around. It’s currently buried and iirc has been gone for 6-8 years now. Maybe it’ll show back up soon!
If it's anything like buses here in the UK, it'll be another 6-8 years before it shows itself again...But then it _and two others_ will all appear at once! 🚌🚌🚌🇬🇧😉
Even with the knowledge of this being Singapore, Michigan, hearing the name constantly is really weird for a guy who's lived in Singapore, Singapore for all my life.
There are so many towns here in the US named after way bigger and better towns… like so many to the point you start to wonder if it’s all some really elaborate inside joke or we really just were way too lazy to come up with new names.
I'm actually from this area of Michigan! If you go to Saugatuck, MI and go take the Saugatuck Dune Rides, there's a point where occasionally you can see the top of the old bank poke out from the sands as the dunes shift. Also would just recommend visiting Saugatuck in general. There's a plaque in downtown near the city hall which talks about Singapore. Great summertime vacation spot on Lake Michigan. Edit: It's pronounced "SAW-guh-tuck," not "Sag-GUH-tuck."
@@matt-roden Can confirm it's not that, but Baldy's Meats has some good BBQ sausage. Unfortunate edit: the guy who ran Baldy's went bankrupt and the restaurant closed. Go try The Southerner instead for some of the best chicken north of the Mason-Dixon Line!
His pronunciation of Saugatuck really got to me lol but yeah! Visit! It's really beautiful in the summer. The hiking trails at the felt mansion are amazing and I go there all the time
Fun enough, the 'Dune' book (from where the 'Dune' film comes from) was inspired by real sand containment efforts in Oregon. Writing about the ecology of actual dunes made Frank Herbert ask himself: "Why if I write a book about the ecology of whole PLANET of dunes. With giant sand worms. And space bedouins. And everybody is on drugs. Space drugs". And nobody thought it was a good idea: the book was rejected by about THIRTY publishers.
Fun fact! The first publishers were in the auto manual business and had never published science fiction before. Remember, kids: you might have allies in places you'd never expect!
@@DNGNDriver this also applies to the series of Company's Coming cookbooks. The author was rejected by many publishers. Until she decided to self-publish and sell the books, not in bookstores, but in grocery stores! With unorthodox cerlox binding so the books would stay open easily.
2:37 "Sam's home address (No, is not P. sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney) ". Gosh darn, we were gonna rescue Amy from her kidnappe----I mean, her very nice employer. Now what.
Ironically, Singapore (the Asian one) has been criticized in the recent years for buying up sand from poorer Asian countries to fuel construction. There's even a strategic sand reserve under one of the beaches.
unfortunately beach sand isn't good for making concrete. they are buying river sand, which has jagged, freshly broken grains of rock rather than the smooth almost circular grains found in ocean and desert sand. it's certainly not a baseless accusation. nearly every country with the wealth to buy river sand from other countries is doing it to some extent. and it's causing many communities to essential mine the ground out from underneath themselves for money, these communities are being exploited as well, paid far less than the value of the sand and losing their homes and ways of life in the process.
@@arcanealchemist3190 hmm… 2:05 “The River Carries Sand From a lake” Sounds like Singapore Michigan has some River sand Perhaps Singapore can buy Singapore’s sand?
Great detailed explanation of how reckless actions like over-harvesting can lead to disastrous outcomes such as the case of Singapore, Michigan. The role of the white pine in stabilizing the sand dunes was particularly enlightening.
I had ancestors in Singapore. It’s a fascinating part of history. Today, Saugatuck is basically built over where Singapore once was, and you would never think there was once a city there. That is how the lake goes, though. Sometimes it just… buries a town for disturbing its peace.
I love Amy's dune demonstrations! This instantly made me think of highway ice plant in California, which was planted everywhere to stabilize coastal dunes (and highway embankments), but because the roots are so shallow it actually speeds up erosion. Also it burns surprisingly easy for a succulent, which is extra awesome for a wildfire-prone state!!
I hike the dune forests of West MI all the time. It's beautiful. I'm so lucky to have been born here. I'm just a bit north of that nearly buried house in Mears. Charles Mears did the same thing as Singapore, and now people go there to whip doughnuts in the sand at silver lake state Park.
Actually, I believe Singapore, Singapore has been _stealing_ sand to grow - they consume 5 tons of sand per resident per year. Asianometry has a video: ua-cam.com/video/ES2TWIcFOzw/v-deo.html
Saugatuck is a beautiful little resort town. Very quiet in winter and fills with tourists in the summer. It’s riverfront and pretty and ice cream shops, bars and restaurants, free live music in the parks in summer, kayaking, boating, playground, bookstore great drug store. So glad I retired here.
I mean this is about sustainable farming because this is exactly what will happen if you don't farm sustainably. Like the word sustainable isn't some fun hippy word, it refers to the ability to be able to keep doing something over the long term, if something is unsustainable then by definition it will collapse at some point and that is never fun.
@@warriyorcatThey knew what the word meant and they were well aware that land could be made permanently unproductive if it was managed improperly. Like they knew that if they cut down an entire forrest it wouldn't magically reappear.
@@SkunkApe407 Feel free to look up crop rotation. Farmers have known since Ancient Egypt that farming the same thing over the same place would lead to it being depleted, unusable, unproductive... Unsustainable if you will. Maybe they weren't calling it sustainability but they sure knew what they had to do to keep being able to farm.
Denmark was plagued with sand drift from the 1500s to the 1800s. There is a famous church called “The sand covered church” because that’s literally what it is. Another case is the 16th century village Torup which disappeared beneath the sand much like Singapore did, and was only found much later. A small part of it has been archaeologically excavated.
I’m from Holland, MI! I’ve hiked that area dozens of times and had no clue of the history! I love seeing the Lake Michigan deserves! Thanks for the video - DUNES DUNES DUNES
I'm from Holland too! Lots of cool history. I did know about Singapore and remember as a kid being able to feel a roof underneath the sand while frogging around up there (decades ago sadly), but my two favorites: 1) Kirk Park. Hundreds of Native Americans buried there. All unmarked, but one. The grave of a Chief's young son. Still can see the tombstone and surrounded by a fence to this day. Was tribe's summer hunting ground and also had exceptional clay in the area for pottery. The Chief was quite wealthy for the times and decided his son deserved to be buried like the settlers (big funeral, coffin, tombstone). 2) In Grand Haven Dunes there are a bunch of whiskey barrels buried somewhere in the dunes after a huge storm from back in the fur-trapping days. A ship had piled them up along the Grand River just inland from Lake Michigan and a massive storm hit later that day and buried them. Whiskey was one of the things the fur trading post would sell and also use to pay trappers and Native Americans. If found, they would be worth tens of thousands of dollars today (if intact with the whiskey of course... which is actually highly likely). They're just buried under sand somewhere waiting to turn up one of these days.
The Singapore, Singapore introduction is wrong too. I only ever hear expats talk about Chilli Crab. Hainanese Chicken Rice is actually the local favourite.
Your writer Ben is right! At 5:28 he stands at Mt. Baldy in Michigan City, Indiana. It is one of the better examples of a living dune. The dunes of the lakes are extremely special and all have rich history.
I live 30 miles east of there and yes its pronounced with a saw. Also fun fact, when the neighboring village of douglas wanted to convert to a city, they didn't want to waste yheir new welcome to the village of douglas signs. I kid you not, their offical name is The city of the village of douglas.
One of the things hammered into any Michigander's head as a child is "Don't touch the beach grass" our dunes are a matter of great pride and really are something to behold, and without those plants there are no dunes. If you ever get the chance to visit lake Michigan, go it's worth the trip any time of the year.
I thought it would be because Singapore (the country) ordered a metric damnton of sand to dump it in the sea and increase their land area, but it got sent all the way to Michigan.
4:03 You can find dune forests on the US west coast! Sand Lake Recreation Area in Oregon is just one area where it's pretty visible from the google maps photos, but they're all over the place, marvelous forests.
I spent a summer as a fellow at the Oxbow School of Art in Saugatuck Michigan. It was very weird to open one of these "cartography lore" videos and IMMEDIATELY recognize the Google satellite view because that obvious artificial channel is in fact the geographic feature which turned the natural oxbow of the river there into the Oxbow Lagoon that the art school there is named for. The sand dunes there are wild though. We had really specific restrictions about where we could wander around "off campus" because the natural topography is so delicate there. Simply *walking* around on the hills could erode the physical substrate of the local ecosystem and the weaky rooted flora that lived there. It was made very clear that if we wanted to go nature walking, we either had to go across the lagoon and actually hang out on the beach of Lake Michigan, or stick to areas that were clearly heavily forested and didn't have loose sand at high elevation that could be kicked away. (Other than Mount Baldhead, which I guess is well established enough that there's a staircase all the way up one side, and just a wild run down a sandy path through the woods to the beach on the other side. There's also a big old radio tower or something at the top of Baldhead, which was definitely fenced off and probably not safe to climb at night, but that didn't at all stop us.)
There are a lot of examples of much more stable dunes, too. Like the sleeping bear sand dunes, but those aren't as true of a sand dunes as you described.
There are a lot of the dunes in MI that you have to stick to established trails becomes of this. Even in the Sleeping Bears. They have some board down up by Glen Lake across from the dunes showing how far the dunes move each year and they are trying to slow it down cuz soon Glen Lake won’t be!
Fun fact! The Clinton and Kalamazoo Canal was planned to connect Singapore with Lake St. Clair across the width of the lower peninsula. It made it 13 miles before being abandoned following financial trouble stemming from the Panic of 1837.
Hey it’s being rebuilt and some part of it is still going. Some of Saugatuck city Michigan took up some of its land boundaries. Still they have today Singapore hotel, Singapore apartments, roads named after Singapore, beach named after Singapore etc. I may past a Facebook page that shows the homes in Singapore etc
This is actually how the Silver Lake Sand Dunes were formed (shown near the end as an example of dunes swallowing a building). If I recall correctly, there used to be a road and houses completely surrounding Silver Lake until the dunes swallowed half of it.
About 15 years ago my then wife took our kindergarten-aged, BIG Indiana Jones fan son on an archeological expedition to the Singapore site. Her parents lived not far from Saugatuck Dunes State Park, so they walked south about a mile to Singapore with some small shovels and went to work. Alas, no Indiana Jones-like discoveries were made that day. But they had fun.
Didn't expect to see a breakdown of a coastal plant function that I adore on this channel, and was extremely excited!!! Full support for the writer that loves plants
I live in Kenosha on the east side of lake Michigan and I've always wanted to take the ferry over to Michigan... I think a treasure hunt at the Singapore dunes is in order. Imagine all the cool stuff buried under that sand!! I am literally planning that trip right now! Will take lots of videos of course
my family has property on Silver Lake, the place "a little to the north" with the house they were trying to save, the once pictured in the satellite image I'm fairly certain is already gone, but that whole lake's housing is probably in trouble eventually... thankfully ours is on the far side so it'll be there my whole life at least :D
I see your dry death of Singapore, and raise you the wet death of Belvidere. Settled in 1835 where the Clinton River meets Lake St. Claire, the town was settled when brothers David and James L. Conger purchased land the area and began enticing settlers into the area in the hopes of turning the area into a bustling port city, expecting what would later become Detroit; a major economic center on the east side of the state. The town was named Belvidere. However the land they built on was very low, and very much a flood plain. So much so everyone who had been in the area for a long time; notably the still-extant Native American tribes said no: don't. Fast forward to 1838 and one three-story hotel, a post office, bank, and a thriving "liver tonic pills" business, flood waters permanently submerged the city. It was never rebuilt, but the bank notes printed by the Belvidere Bank remained in circulation for decades after the fact. (source for the curious: Lost Towns of Eastern Michigan by Alan Naldrett, chapter 2)
those paths you see on the dunes, those are used by a company that takes you on dune rides. idk what they're using now, but back in 2005, they were using 70's and 80's dodge vans with the roofs cut off. went there on a 6th grade field trip. and that big blue house closest to the canal, that at one point owned all that land that is now used by that housing development. at one point, it was listed for iirc 15 million with ~300 acres.
As someone who really enjoyed the ecological section of Dune, I found this really interesting. Also, the section of plant growth brought back memories of my childhood in Ireland. Every summer we used to go camping by the beach in Dingle, which totally looked like your illustration of stage 1 plant growth. 💚
Whatever your research told you, that part about the rarity of dune forests was overstated. I've grown up IN dune forest on the Oregon coast, it stretches intermittently for about 80 miles. Much of it is ancient dune covered in successions of forest, over which newer dunes moving inland would still be encroaching in places. If it weren't for the European beach grass that was planted there to stop their movement, and which has spread out of control threatening to blanket the open dunes completely.
So, my friend told me about this and i believed it at the time then grew up and was like "nah she had an active imagination" so you can imagine my shock when I found out this was an actual thing that happened. My family visits this place like all the time. Damn.
So this explains why Saugatuck-Douglas are so far inland while all the other ports I’ve been at (from Holland originally) have harbors closer to the channels leading to Lake Michigan. Edit: they did turn the dunes into a dune-ride tourist attraction though!
The dune ride is well worth experiencing. It was far more interesting and educational than I was expecting. The land is privately owned and the ride is a way to keep funding it as a nature preserve.
Dune ride: Been there- still got a set of magnets from the gift shop :D I think my english comprehension wasn't up to the task of learning all the interesting stuff back then...
I love Singapore. I grew up very near there and before anything (modern) was built there, we used to occasionally find bricks and bring them home. I still have one or two… great story, beautiful area, great memories.
It appears there are parts of Singapore left, though some of it appears new. Strangely, the historic marker doesn't mention the same flood at all, just that the wood ran out, people left, and sand slowly seeped in.
1:59 - Sand dunes are also on the western shore of Lake Michigan, especially Illinois Dunes State Park, a wonder place where my family spent a lot of joyous hours...
Something similar was at the heart of the Dust Bowl - removing the prairie grass that held the topsoil in place, although in the case of the Dust Bowl that was followed by ploughing the topsoil which broke it up and of course the winds of the Great Plains then blew it away. Although that was coupled with the dry few years that added to the problem because crops couldn't grow with no (or extremely little) rain.
Reminds me of the amazing book, “The Woman in the Dunes” by Kōbō Abe, and it’s subsequent movie which is also excellent. It’s about an entomologist that finds a village swamped by sand dunes but the villagers have refused move. So they have to dig their houses out of the sand every day and are basically each living at the bottom of a hole in the sand. It’s a strange surreal and kind of claustrophobic story but it’s really good and I highly recommended for anyone interested.
Wow! Something from Michigan. Being on the eastern side, I'd never heard of Singapore, MI...but I've been to Saugatuck and in the dunes. And there are dunes on the east side of the state as well. Lake Van Etten near Lake Huron has some nice ones that still have forest.
Central Florida has done a great job encouraging plant growth on the dunes in the past 20 years. There's now quite a bit of vegetation anchoring the dunes.
SAG? SAG??? SAG-Uh-Tuck???? Saw-guh-tuck! Also definitely the "Dune dune dune dune" scene is from the exit of the south trail to the dunes in Saugatuck dunes state park. The camera is facing east-ish in the filming
This is why the dune that the Wright brothers flew off of is a quarter mile south of where the Wright Brothers actually took off at. Most people that visit the Wright memorial are completely perplexed as to why the official take off and landing spots are completely flat.
Imagine saying you've been there. "I've been to Singapore before" "Wow, did you stay at Marina Bay Sands?" "No, it was...sand." "What do you mean?" "ah...Singapore, Michigan...a...sand dune."
Actually Sam the dunes in Michigan formed because two bear cubs drowned trying to cross Lake Michigan with their mom and the mama bear was so heartbroken that she died looking out over the lake hoping to see her lost cubs and the sand eventually buried her and formed the dunes hope this helps 💙
Dang I think this is the only HAI video where I've actually been to the place they're talking about. Highly recommend the dune ride in the Saugatuck-Douglas area that drives over where the town used to be and you can learn a bit of the history. (Also the area is just nice to visit in general.)
Thank you for this video I specially appreciate the plant sequence that populates sand dunes and the photo of the last survivor of the town, it gives the story its human dimension
I love how the moral of most stories of humanity is: "humans are idiots." At our best, we love to congratulate ourselves when we think we've figured out what nature has been doing all along, and earn our PHD in self-congratulation if we learn how to replicate it-even if by accident.
We humans are terrible at thinking in the long term because we're egotistical. We'd rather be wealthy and live comfortably now than preserve and plan for the future. We see it at the individual level, impulse buying and eating junk food. In companies, ruining their own reputation for a quick cash grab and the climate destroying practices. In politics with scorched earth policies or voting against the best interests of the people because it won't benifit the political party. And much more.
I mean, for the most part we Do understand how nature works at this point, this is less a matter of human ignorance than one of a random small town in Michigan in the 19th century lacking any people with a basic education.
@@bluesquare23 Came out of your shell to say THAT, ya great and powerful internet wizard? 🙄 I'm a Nigerian prince, thank you very much. And I has much opportunity to rich with banking family after small assistance. bleep blorp.
As a surveyor I’ve been involved in those potential developments. Really interesting site and history. They glossed over the Christian camp and yacht factory that resided on the land. So far a couple of homes and a new road have been built. I’ll be curious to see what happens in the future in that dynamic environment. My quads ache thinking of all the days I’ve spent climbing those dunes with survey equipment in hand.
the book dune's writer, frank herbert, was inspired to write dune, in part, by a random sand dune in oregon, created by similar forces yo the ones you describe. there's a similar desert in ukraine in kherson that some may have seen while looking at maps of the area.
There are dune rides north of Saugatuck right off of I-196 that actually take very close to Singapore. You even go through one of the forests still remaining.
Silver Lake Michigan is being eaten up by the Dunes also. There is a whole line of cottages buried on the north shore of the lake. One of the last cottages was buried in the past two years.
When I was watching the newest Grand Tour special, they stopped in the ancient trading hub of Chinguetti, Mauritania, which had run into a similar problem of encroaching sand. But in their case it's the entire Sahara slowly creeping over the town.
The Netherlands is also subject to sand dunes due to past, poor land management. The Hoge Veluwe National Park has a thriving dune forest in an area that was previously a growing sea of dunes. It also has the Kröller Müller Museum of modern art. There is also an exhibit explaining how the growth of the dunes was stopped and how they manage the forest today. A small section of dunes has been preserved as a reminder of what the place used to be like and what it could return to if mistreated again. Cars are not allowed in this 13,750 acre park, so everyone gets to ride the free bikes to visit the park and get to the museum. It is a beautiful place, well worth the visit.
Had a friend from Trinidad who told a similar story from the fifties where hotels were built and a forest/jungle was removed. The hotels and the town were buried as a result.
Silver Lake sand dunes (the ones you mentioned farther north of Singapore) have actually swallowed about five cottages along that street! The current owner beside the dune spends quite a lot of money moving and pushing sand away from his cottage!
Went on a boat cruise in Saugatuck recently, and the funny thing is, there’s actually quite a bit of houses near Singapore, at least right up on the edge of the Kalamazoo River as it empties out into Lake Michigan in front of it. I guess they’re okay lol? Hopefully there’s enough trees. But I was seriously wondering how they’d fair since like… we were told the history and everything of Singapore RIP 😅
I live a few miles from Mears, where the Silver Lake dunes are slowly eating the town. The water as of now is catching most of it, but it's starting to get shallower and will soon disappear (which means no more safety from t h e s a n d. I think three houses were already buried. R.I.P. Silver Lake
“No thank you”, which is Midwestern for “over my dead body”
Made me cackle from how true it is
E
Oo yah, heard that's too many times growin up in Iowa
As a Michigander myself, I can confirm.
@@JasDCorneliusfake midwesterner
@@EEEEEEEEYou're goddamn right.
Fun fact: The steeple of the Singapore church periodically disappears and reappears every few years as the dunes shift around. It’s currently buried and iirc has been gone for 6-8 years now. Maybe it’ll show back up soon!
Whooooa that’s kinda spooky!
If it's anything like buses here in the UK, it'll be another 6-8 years before it shows itself again...But then it _and two others_ will all appear at once! 🚌🚌🚌🇬🇧😉
I think it was unburied this past summer when I went on the dune rides!
@@dieseldragon6756 poor
@@AndyAlert Don't even get me started on German sausages. My jokes about those are truly the wurst... 🌭🇩🇪🙃
Even with the knowledge of this being Singapore, Michigan, hearing the name constantly is really weird for a guy who's lived in Singapore, Singapore for all my life.
yep, as a fellow Singaporean… this is the first i’m hearing about this and now i’m REALLY curious how the name came about
@saint-miscreant probably heard the name before and thought, "That sounds cool!"
I did read about this in some short story book set in secondary school, forgot what they call it. Like a box of books in different colours
There are so many towns here in the US named after way bigger and better towns… like so many to the point you start to wonder if it’s all some really elaborate inside joke or we really just were way too lazy to come up with new names.
@@Shiestey you mean like everything named after European towns and cities? Hahaha
I'm actually from this area of Michigan! If you go to Saugatuck, MI and go take the Saugatuck Dune Rides, there's a point where occasionally you can see the top of the old bank poke out from the sands as the dunes shift.
Also would just recommend visiting Saugatuck in general. There's a plaque in downtown near the city hall which talks about Singapore. Great summertime vacation spot on Lake Michigan.
Edit: It's pronounced "SAW-guh-tuck," not "Sag-GUH-tuck."
so it’s not sau-sage-tuck?
I cringed at "hole-land"... Are we really sure he's not an AI?
@@matt-roden Can confirm it's not that, but Baldy's Meats has some good BBQ sausage.
Unfortunate edit: the guy who ran Baldy's went bankrupt and the restaurant closed. Go try The Southerner instead for some of the best chicken north of the Mason-Dixon Line!
His pronunciation of Saugatuck really got to me lol but yeah! Visit! It's really beautiful in the summer. The hiking trails at the felt mansion are amazing and I go there all the time
So, the dune rides are basically the site of an ecological disaster??
It's amusing to think that one day that town will be dug up by future archeologists much like other buried cities in history.
Yeah or like the set of The Ten Commandments in the Mojave desert.
And come up with a ridiculous reason that it's there 😂
@@catdogmousecheese Or the Tattooine movie set in Tunisia and Hobbiton in New Zealand.
They could lidar it now, no digging required.
@@pablodelsegundo9502 A better tool would be ground-penetrating radar.
Lidar is good for mapping surfaces.
5:32 HAI recognizes an independent Somaliland!
He did an HAI video on it in November 2022, so it's part of his lore at this point. Which is to say, yes he does, and has since making that video.
Unbelievable
RIP Somalia, a major world player has recognized your breakaway state 😢
Eh, most westerners blindly support the existence of breakaway states, regardless of their history
So, I am not the only one to notice that.
Fun enough, the 'Dune' book (from where the 'Dune' film comes from) was inspired by real sand containment efforts in Oregon. Writing about the ecology of actual dunes made Frank Herbert ask himself: "Why if I write a book about the ecology of whole PLANET of dunes. With giant sand worms. And space bedouins. And everybody is on drugs. Space drugs". And nobody thought it was a good idea: the book was rejected by about THIRTY publishers.
Fun fact! The first publishers were in the auto manual business and had never published science fiction before. Remember, kids: you might have allies in places you'd never expect!
@@DNGNDriver this also applies to the series of Company's Coming cookbooks. The author was rejected by many publishers. Until she decided to self-publish and sell the books, not in bookstores, but in grocery stores! With unorthodox cerlox binding so the books would stay open easily.
2:37 "Sam's home address (No, is not P. sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney) ".
Gosh darn, we were gonna rescue Amy from her kidnappe----I mean, her very nice employer.
Now what.
that's the newest Pixar movie: Finding Amy
My theory is that we never see her face because then she could blink, in morse code, directions to the dungeon -- I mean office
Now what? Well you’ll need to pay the ransom in dollerydoos otherwise any is getting The Boot 👢
What if she already has Stockholm syndrome by this point and enjoys researching topics that are say about 50% interesting?
I love the Amyverse.
A real life case where “I don’t like sand. It’s rough, and coarse, and irritating, and it gets everywhere” has weight.
From my point of view the water is evil!
So said Anakin Skywalker
Ironically, Singapore (the Asian one) has been criticized in the recent years for buying up sand from poorer Asian countries to fuel construction. There's even a strategic sand reserve under one of the beaches.
unfortunately beach sand isn't good for making concrete. they are buying river sand, which has jagged, freshly broken grains of rock rather than the smooth almost circular grains found in ocean and desert sand.
it's certainly not a baseless accusation. nearly every country with the wealth to buy river sand from other countries is doing it to some extent. and it's causing many communities to essential mine the ground out from underneath themselves for money, these communities are being exploited as well, paid far less than the value of the sand and losing their homes and ways of life in the process.
@@arcanealchemist3190 hmm…
2:05 “The River Carries Sand From a lake”
Sounds like Singapore Michigan has some River sand
Perhaps Singapore can buy Singapore’s sand?
Dunes. Dunes. Dunes. Dunes! Dunes! DUNES! DUNES!
DUNES DUNES DUNES DUNES DUNES DUNES DUNES DUNES DUNES DUNES DUNES DUNES DUNES DUNES DUNES DUNES DUNES
Dune 2 is about to be out in theaters. Are you going to see it?
No. going to rewatch jetlag the game on Nebula again @@theenzoferrari458
@@theenzoferrari458 Haven't seen the first one, so sadly no.
@Martinorsomething it's great. It's as if star wars and lord of the rings had a love child.
Great detailed explanation of how reckless actions like over-harvesting can lead to disastrous outcomes such as the case of Singapore, Michigan. The role of the white pine in stabilizing the sand dunes was particularly enlightening.
This is the most normal thing in Michigan
As a michigander I can confirm
Can secondarily confirm that
sure is
Can fourthly confirm this
Northern brothers of Florida
I had ancestors in Singapore. It’s a fascinating part of history. Today, Saugatuck is basically built over where Singapore once was, and you would never think there was once a city there. That is how the lake goes, though. Sometimes it just… buries a town for disturbing its peace.
I love Amy's dune demonstrations!
This instantly made me think of highway ice plant in California, which was planted everywhere to stabilize coastal dunes (and highway embankments), but because the roots are so shallow it actually speeds up erosion. Also it burns surprisingly easy for a succulent, which is extra awesome for a wildfire-prone state!!
I hike the dune forests of West MI all the time. It's beautiful. I'm so lucky to have been born here. I'm just a bit north of that nearly buried house in Mears. Charles Mears did the same thing as Singapore, and now people go there to whip doughnuts in the sand at silver lake state Park.
I lived in Michigan for years and im so surprised I've never heard of this place lmfao
I know a Singapore that could use that sand for further land reclamation.
For anyone traveling to Michigan check out Sleeping Bear Dunes, a couple hours north of Singapore. A difficult hike but intensely beautiful!
Idea: move Singapore's sand to Singapore so Singapore has greater landmass.
Actually, I believe Singapore, Singapore has been _stealing_ sand to grow - they consume 5 tons of sand per resident per year. Asianometry has a video: ua-cam.com/video/ES2TWIcFOzw/v-deo.html
@@pizzablenderexactly why Singapore, Michigan’s sand should be in Singapore, Singapore
Idea: Put the federal government in charge of managing all that sand. Then Singapore shall be uncovered in no time!
And you don't have to pay the import tax, because it was always in Singapore.
@@vigilantcosmicpenguin8721exactly
Saugatuck is a beautiful little resort town. Very quiet in winter and fills with tourists in the summer. It’s riverfront and pretty and ice cream shops, bars and restaurants, free live music in the parks in summer, kayaking, boating, playground, bookstore great drug store. So glad I retired here.
lots of gay people too
@@welfaiewfb8802 and tall people and people with brown hair…
@@welfaiewfb8802 another great reason to retire there
I mean this is about sustainable farming because this is exactly what will happen if you don't farm sustainably. Like the word sustainable isn't some fun hippy word, it refers to the ability to be able to keep doing something over the long term, if something is unsustainable then by definition it will collapse at some point and that is never fun.
You are aware that this happened in the 1800s, right? Sustainable was not a word in their lexicon
@@warriyorcatThey knew what the word meant and they were well aware that land could be made permanently unproductive if it was managed improperly. Like they knew that if they cut down an entire forrest it wouldn't magically reappear.
@@hedgehog3180 no, they didn't. And your profile pic tells me that there's no speaking logically with you. Don't you have a riot to start?
@@SkunkApe407 Feel free to look up crop rotation. Farmers have known since Ancient Egypt that farming the same thing over the same place would lead to it being depleted, unusable, unproductive... Unsustainable if you will. Maybe they weren't calling it sustainability but they sure knew what they had to do to keep being able to farm.
Denmark was plagued with sand drift from the 1500s to the 1800s. There is a famous church called “The sand covered church” because that’s literally what it is. Another case is the 16th century village Torup which disappeared beneath the sand much like Singapore did, and was only found much later. A small part of it has been archaeologically excavated.
I’m from Holland, MI! I’ve hiked that area dozens of times and had no clue of the history! I love seeing the Lake Michigan deserves! Thanks for the video - DUNES DUNES DUNES
I'm from Holland too! Lots of cool history. I did know about Singapore and remember as a kid being able to feel a roof underneath the sand while frogging around up there (decades ago sadly), but my two favorites: 1) Kirk Park. Hundreds of Native Americans buried there. All unmarked, but one. The grave of a Chief's young son. Still can see the tombstone and surrounded by a fence to this day. Was tribe's summer hunting ground and also had exceptional clay in the area for pottery. The Chief was quite wealthy for the times and decided his son deserved to be buried like the settlers (big funeral, coffin, tombstone). 2) In Grand Haven Dunes there are a bunch of whiskey barrels buried somewhere in the dunes after a huge storm from back in the fur-trapping days. A ship had piled them up along the Grand River just inland from Lake Michigan and a massive storm hit later that day and buried them. Whiskey was one of the things the fur trading post would sell and also use to pay trappers and Native Americans. If found, they would be worth tens of thousands of dollars today (if intact with the whiskey of course... which is actually highly likely). They're just buried under sand somewhere waiting to turn up one of these days.
The Singapore, Singapore introduction is wrong too. I only ever hear expats talk about Chilli Crab. Hainanese Chicken Rice is actually the local favourite.
Nah THE TRUE LOCAL FAVORITE IS HOR FUN
@@MonsieurArlequinthink they meant food, not the red light district
@@davidjennings2179 Gotta go a little further up north to Bangkok for some real "Hor Fun" 😉
"Expats" is a group larger than the population of Singapore. If expats are talking about it, it's famous
Us singaporeans don't even eat Chili Crab on a routine basis lol
Your writer Ben is right! At 5:28 he stands at Mt. Baldy in Michigan City, Indiana. It is one of the better examples of a living dune. The dunes of the lakes are extremely special and all have rich history.
Seems like someone failed to return the slab
Elementary school kids in this area actually learn about Singapore as part of their curriculum.
(also, it's pronounced Saw-gatuck)
I'm calling BS on the pronunciation. :P
@@samiraperi467 They mean that's how Saugatuck (mentioned in the video) is pronounced. "Saw-" not "sag-"
I thought you meant singapore is pronounced saw-gatuck
I live 30 miles east of there and yes its pronounced with a saw.
Also fun fact, when the neighboring village of douglas wanted to convert to a city, they didn't want to waste yheir new welcome to the village of douglas signs. I kid you not, their offical name is The city of the village of douglas.
One of the things hammered into any Michigander's head as a child is "Don't touch the beach grass" our dunes are a matter of great pride and really are something to behold, and without those plants there are no dunes. If you ever get the chance to visit lake Michigan, go it's worth the trip any time of the year.
I thought it would be because Singapore (the country) ordered a metric damnton of sand to dump it in the sea and increase their land area, but it got sent all the way to Michigan.
What happened to this Singapore is kinda ironic given the Asian Singapore struggles to get enough sand for their land reclamation projects
4:03 You can find dune forests on the US west coast! Sand Lake Recreation Area in Oregon is just one area where it's pretty visible from the google maps photos, but they're all over the place, marvelous forests.
Came to say this as well. I love the Oregon Dunes and the Forests amongst them
I spent a summer as a fellow at the Oxbow School of Art in Saugatuck Michigan. It was very weird to open one of these "cartography lore" videos and IMMEDIATELY recognize the Google satellite view because that obvious artificial channel is in fact the geographic feature which turned the natural oxbow of the river there into the Oxbow Lagoon that the art school there is named for.
The sand dunes there are wild though. We had really specific restrictions about where we could wander around "off campus" because the natural topography is so delicate there. Simply *walking* around on the hills could erode the physical substrate of the local ecosystem and the weaky rooted flora that lived there. It was made very clear that if we wanted to go nature walking, we either had to go across the lagoon and actually hang out on the beach of Lake Michigan, or stick to areas that were clearly heavily forested and didn't have loose sand at high elevation that could be kicked away. (Other than Mount Baldhead, which I guess is well established enough that there's a staircase all the way up one side, and just a wild run down a sandy path through the woods to the beach on the other side. There's also a big old radio tower or something at the top of Baldhead, which was definitely fenced off and probably not safe to climb at night, but that didn't at all stop us.)
There are a lot of examples of much more stable dunes, too. Like the sleeping bear sand dunes, but those aren't as true of a sand dunes as you described.
There are a lot of the dunes in MI that you have to stick to established trails becomes of this. Even in the Sleeping Bears. They have some board down up by Glen Lake across from the dunes showing how far the dunes move each year and they are trying to slow it down cuz soon Glen Lake won’t be!
Fun fact! The Clinton and Kalamazoo Canal was planned to connect Singapore with Lake St. Clair across the width of the lower peninsula. It made it 13 miles before being abandoned following financial trouble stemming from the Panic of 1837.
Hey it’s being rebuilt and some part of it is still going. Some of Saugatuck city Michigan took up some of its land boundaries. Still they have today Singapore hotel, Singapore apartments, roads named after Singapore, beach named after Singapore etc. I may past a Facebook page that shows the homes in Singapore etc
This is actually how the Silver Lake Sand Dunes were formed (shown near the end as an example of dunes swallowing a building). If I recall correctly, there used to be a road and houses completely surrounding Silver Lake until the dunes swallowed half of it.
Another place scrub can be found is hanging out the passenger side of your best friend’s ride trying to holler at me.
Not to worry, he will be replaced with a tree shortly.
I love that HAI recognises the country of Somaliland. It's not exactly the recognition they really need, but they still absolutely deserve it.
First Ethiopia, and now HAI. Looks like the Somaliland Republic is finally gaining some traction!
About 15 years ago my then wife took our kindergarten-aged, BIG Indiana Jones fan son on an archeological expedition to the Singapore site. Her parents lived not far from Saugatuck Dunes State Park, so they walked south about a mile to Singapore with some small shovels and went to work. Alas, no Indiana Jones-like discoveries were made that day. But they had fun.
2:38 enjoyed the Finding Nemo easter egg. Little things like that are what makes an okay channel into a good channel
Didn't expect to see a breakdown of a coastal plant function that I adore on this channel, and was extremely excited!!! Full support for the writer that loves plants
Love the exceptionally vivid explanation at 4:27 and the obviously natural occurrence at 4:33.
You guys spare no expense.
I live in Kenosha on the east side of lake Michigan and I've always wanted to take the ferry over to Michigan... I think a treasure hunt at the Singapore dunes is in order. Imagine all the cool stuff buried under that sand!! I am literally planning that trip right now! Will take lots of videos of course
Absolutely love the Jet lag cameo! Ben and Adam are stars again :)
my family has property on Silver Lake, the place "a little to the north" with the house they were trying to save, the once pictured in the satellite image I'm fairly certain is already gone, but that whole lake's housing is probably in trouble eventually... thankfully ours is on the far side so it'll be there my whole life at least :D
I see your dry death of Singapore, and raise you the wet death of Belvidere.
Settled in 1835 where the Clinton River meets Lake St. Claire, the town was settled when brothers David and James L. Conger purchased land the area and began enticing settlers into the area in the hopes of turning the area into a bustling port city, expecting what would later become Detroit; a major economic center on the east side of the state. The town was named Belvidere. However the land they built on was very low, and very much a flood plain. So much so everyone who had been in the area for a long time; notably the still-extant Native American tribes said no: don't. Fast forward to 1838 and one three-story hotel, a post office, bank, and a thriving "liver tonic pills" business, flood waters permanently submerged the city. It was never rebuilt, but the bank notes printed by the Belvidere Bank remained in circulation for decades after the fact.
(source for the curious: Lost Towns of Eastern Michigan by Alan Naldrett, chapter 2)
The pronunciation of Saugatuck in this video is a crime
Sow-guh-tuck
I've been to all of these locations - I live in Grand Haven. It's so interesting to actually see a big video about a place right down my road haha
those paths you see on the dunes, those are used by a company that takes you on dune rides. idk what they're using now, but back in 2005, they were using 70's and 80's dodge vans with the roofs cut off. went there on a 6th grade field trip. and that big blue house closest to the canal, that at one point owned all that land that is now used by that housing development. at one point, it was listed for iirc 15 million with ~300 acres.
As someone who really enjoyed the ecological section of Dune, I found this really interesting. Also, the section of plant growth brought back memories of my childhood in Ireland. Every summer we used to go camping by the beach in Dingle, which totally looked like your illustration of stage 1 plant growth. 💚
That 3 story boarding house I feel like one day could be a remarkable archeological find.
Good old Singapore Michigan
Whatever your research told you, that part about the rarity of dune forests was overstated. I've grown up IN dune forest on the Oregon coast, it stretches intermittently for about 80 miles. Much of it is ancient dune covered in successions of forest, over which newer dunes moving inland would still be encroaching in places. If it weren't for the European beach grass that was planted there to stop their movement, and which has spread out of control threatening to blanket the open dunes completely.
I'm sorry, but as a native Wisconsinite I cannot let the way Sam pronounced "Peshtigo" at 1:14 stand
As a Wisconsinite your pronunciation of Peshtigo made me wince so hard I need compensation.
He needs to emphasis the first syllable PESH tee go
So, my friend told me about this and i believed it at the time then grew up and was like "nah she had an active imagination" so you can imagine my shock when I found out this was an actual thing that happened. My family visits this place like all the time. Damn.
So this explains why Saugatuck-Douglas are so far inland while all the other ports I’ve been at (from Holland originally) have harbors closer to the channels leading to Lake Michigan.
Edit: they did turn the dunes into a dune-ride tourist attraction though!
The dune ride is well worth experiencing. It was far more interesting and educational than I was expecting. The land is privately owned and the ride is a way to keep funding it as a nature preserve.
They should a video on the Felt Mansion/melonheads legend
Dune ride: Been there- still got a set of magnets from the gift shop :D
I think my english comprehension wasn't up to the task of learning all the interesting stuff back then...
I live in Saugatuck-Douglas year round, and absolutely love our inland harbor on the Kalamazoo River.
I’m also from Holland! Dune rides are great
You're back! Thought you got kidnapped by the Wendover guy for imitating him.
Oregon has significant amounts of dune forest on the coast.
I love Singapore. I grew up very near there and before anything (modern) was built there, we used to occasionally find bricks and bring them home. I still have one or two… great story, beautiful area, great memories.
It appears there are parts of Singapore left, though some of it appears new. Strangely, the historic marker doesn't mention the same flood at all, just that the wood ran out, people left, and sand slowly seeped in.
Interestingly, Frank Herbert was inspired to write Dune when he saw the coastal dunes of Florence, Oregon.
1:59 - Sand dunes are also on the western shore of Lake Michigan, especially Illinois Dunes State Park, a wonder place where my family spent a lot of joyous hours...
Something similar was at the heart of the Dust Bowl - removing the prairie grass that held the topsoil in place, although in the case of the Dust Bowl that was followed by ploughing the topsoil which broke it up and of course the winds of the Great Plains then blew it away. Although that was coupled with the dry few years that added to the problem because crops couldn't grow with no (or extremely little) rain.
I grew up in SW Michigan and had never heard of Singapore, MI before today.
Reminds me of the amazing book, “The Woman in the Dunes” by Kōbō Abe, and it’s subsequent movie which is also excellent.
It’s about an entomologist that finds a village swamped by sand dunes but the villagers have refused move. So they have to dig their houses out of the sand every day and are basically each living at the bottom of a hole in the sand. It’s a strange surreal and kind of claustrophobic story but it’s really good and I highly recommended for anyone interested.
you are so good at finding and using stock images and b-roll. its like my 3rd favorite thing about your videos
Wow! Something from Michigan. Being on the eastern side, I'd never heard of Singapore, MI...but I've been to Saugatuck and in the dunes.
And there are dunes on the east side of the state as well. Lake Van Etten near Lake Huron has some nice ones that still have forest.
If you're ever in the area go to the Saugatuck Dune Rides. You get to see the dunes and they tell you the history of the area (including Singapore)
Central Florida has done a great job encouraging plant growth on the dunes in the past 20 years. There's now quite a bit of vegetation anchoring the dunes.
I was legitinately worried that you werent going to post "dunes! Dunes'! Dunes!". Thank you, i will have a good week now.
🗣️🗣️WEST MICHIGAN MENTIONED‼️‼️🎊🎉
West Side Best Side! Suck it Eastern Michigan!
SAG? SAG??? SAG-Uh-Tuck???? Saw-guh-tuck! Also definitely the "Dune dune dune dune" scene is from the exit of the south trail to the dunes in Saugatuck dunes state park. The camera is facing east-ish in the filming
This is why the dune that the Wright brothers flew off of is a quarter mile south of where the Wright Brothers actually took off at. Most people that visit the Wright memorial are completely perplexed as to why the official take off and landing spots are completely flat.
I live close here and after time whole houses get buried under sand this place is really unappreciated glad you made this vid!!!
Imagine saying you've been there.
"I've been to Singapore before"
"Wow, did you stay at Marina Bay Sands?"
"No, it was...sand."
"What do you mean?"
"ah...Singapore, Michigan...a...sand dune."
I hope that the reason this video went up so early is because there's gonna be a bonus video later, like that one week. That was a good week.
The good news is thousands of years from now archeologists may discover the remnants of these towns, like modern man did for the Egyptians.
Actually Sam the dunes in Michigan formed because two bear cubs drowned trying to cross Lake Michigan with their mom and the mama bear was so heartbroken that she died looking out over the lake hoping to see her lost cubs and the sand eventually buried her and formed the dunes hope this helps 💙
Funniest hits close to home. My friends own the land that used to be Singapore. Love the spotlight on the story!
I'd be curious to visit this place, I've lived Michigan my whole life and never heard of it
I appreciate you doing your research and referring to the Upper Peninsula as the UP! Awesome!
real i got so excited when he actually mentioned the UP by name instead of just saying Northern Michigan or sth else 😭
Dang I think this is the only HAI video where I've actually been to the place they're talking about. Highly recommend the dune ride in the Saugatuck-Douglas area that drives over where the town used to be and you can learn a bit of the history. (Also the area is just nice to visit in general.)
Thank you for this video I specially appreciate the plant sequence that populates sand dunes and the photo of the last survivor of the town, it gives the story its human dimension
I love how the moral of most stories of humanity is: "humans are idiots."
At our best, we love to congratulate ourselves when we think we've figured out what nature has been doing all along, and earn our PHD in self-congratulation if we learn how to replicate it-even if by accident.
We humans are terrible at thinking in the long term because we're egotistical.
We'd rather be wealthy and live comfortably now than preserve and plan for the future.
We see it at the individual level, impulse buying and eating junk food.
In companies, ruining their own reputation for a quick cash grab and the climate destroying practices.
In politics with scorched earth policies or voting against the best interests of the people because it won't benifit the political party.
And much more.
I mean, for the most part we Do understand how nature works at this point, this is less a matter of human ignorance than one of a random small town in Michigan in the 19th century lacking any people with a basic education.
Bot. Look at that username. They seem to be very active in this comment section.
@@bluesquare23 Came out of your shell to say THAT, ya great and powerful internet wizard? 🙄 I'm a Nigerian prince, thank you very much. And I has much opportunity to rich with banking family after small assistance. bleep blorp.
Tbf studies on environmental consequences were not a thing in the 19th century.
As a surveyor I’ve been involved in those potential developments. Really interesting site and history. They glossed over the Christian camp and yacht factory that resided on the land. So far a couple of homes and a new road have been built. I’ll be curious to see what happens in the future in that dynamic environment. My quads ache thinking of all the days I’ve spent climbing those dunes with survey equipment in hand.
the book dune's writer, frank herbert, was inspired to write dune, in part, by a random sand dune in oregon, created by similar forces yo the ones you describe. there's a similar desert in ukraine in kherson that some may have seen while looking at maps of the area.
There are dune rides north of Saugatuck right off of I-196 that actually take very close to Singapore. You even go through one of the forests still remaining.
Silver Lake Michigan is being eaten up by the Dunes also. There is a whole line of cottages buried on the north shore of the lake. One of the last cottages was buried in the past two years.
When I was watching the newest Grand Tour special, they stopped in the ancient trading hub of Chinguetti, Mauritania, which had run into a similar problem of encroaching sand. But in their case it's the entire Sahara slowly creeping over the town.
The Netherlands is also subject to sand dunes due to past, poor land management. The Hoge Veluwe National Park has a thriving dune forest in an area that was previously a growing sea of dunes. It also has the Kröller Müller Museum of modern art. There is also an exhibit explaining how the growth of the dunes was stopped and how they manage the forest today. A small section of dunes has been preserved as a reminder of what the place used to be like and what it could return to if mistreated again.
Cars are not allowed in this 13,750 acre park, so everyone gets to ride the free bikes to visit the park and get to the museum. It is a beautiful place, well worth the visit.
Had a friend from Trinidad who told a similar story from the fifties where hotels were built and a forest/jungle was removed. The hotels and the town were buried as a result.
Silver Lake sand dunes (the ones you mentioned farther north of Singapore) have actually swallowed about five cottages along that street! The current owner beside the dune spends quite a lot of money moving and pushing sand away from his cottage!
The funny part is this mistake created a multi-million dollar tourist attraction attached to a lake that connects 3 states, and almost 5 major cities.
Where do we get that 65 page dune paper by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers?
I grew up about 5 miles north of Singapore, MI, and I didn't know about it until I was in my 30s.
This is a great example of Fuck around and Find out.
This style of video is maddening.
Went on a boat cruise in Saugatuck recently, and the funny thing is, there’s actually quite a bit of houses near Singapore, at least right up on the edge of the Kalamazoo River as it empties out into Lake Michigan in front of it. I guess they’re okay lol? Hopefully there’s enough trees. But I was seriously wondering how they’d fair since like… we were told the history and everything of Singapore RIP 😅
They were built more recently and the damage is done I think
I live a few miles from Mears, where the Silver Lake dunes are slowly eating the town. The water as of now is catching most of it, but it's starting to get shallower and will soon disappear (which means no more safety from t h e s a n d. I think three houses were already buried. R.I.P. Silver Lake
I never heard of any of this and I live about 20 minutes from where this is at. Very interesting.
San Francisco's Golden Gate Park was famously a bunch of sand dunes until quite recently (as in late 1800s).