Sakrisoya is the name given to the latest region setting from the combination of Dandelion Rabbit (formerly Tolla Crisp) and Dandy Warhlol Terry Fothrington), and presented under Tolla’s Frogmore estate brand.
I’ll note up front that it is a setting with access restricted to members of the Frogmore Land Management Group, which requires a payment of L$500 – but this does include rezzing rights and unfettered access to all of the estate’s public locations, many of which I’ve covered in these pages. In this case, my own attraction to the setting is that it is inspired by Lofoten, a dramatic archipelago extending into the Norwegian Sea from Norway, lying within the Arctic Circle.
Lofoten is not a place I’ve visited, but I have seen photographs of several of the islands and as a result have often wondered about visiting. They are marked bay dramatic mountains as well as stunning bays and sheltered beaches and largely untouched beauty, despite attracting up to a million visitors a year. The link between the region and Lofoten is stated in the region’s About Land description:
Lofoten:
Picasso’s brush strokes reflect
onto the fjord’s arctic mirrored surface
ethereal landscape expanding
where mountains meet the sea
It’s a perfect description of both locations, with Sakrisoya beautifully encapsulating much of Lofoten’s renown: towering mountains and peaks, a rugged landscape carpeted by hardy grass and the presence / passage of water have had a particular role to play in shaping the land.
This is a place showing limited signed of human habitation – a wooden chapel, an dry stone barn and a couple of cosy cabins (one of which is furnished) sitting above a stretch of coast. These in particular added a touch of familiarity for me personally, having visited similar turf-roofed homes in Iceland.
The setting is surrounded by water, allowing it to have a rocky coast complete with shallows and deep waters coming directly up to the shoreline, much as might be found in a landscape formed by fault-derived ridges and graben. The Landing Point sits towards the centre of the region, close to the junction of two highways rushing through the region to split it into three parts.
The Landing Point faces north over the longer of the two streams and towards rocky uplands marked by two square peaks and from which wall falls to fill a large body of water split by a smaller fall, before dropping down to the surrounding water. A broad shoulder of grassland lies between the stream and the peaks, on which the local chapel can be found. This shoulder of land extends out into a lower-lying finger of land extended out to the west and offering a couple of places to sit and look back at the rest of the island.
The portion of the island on which the Landing Point sits forms the lowlands of one half of a high horseshoe of rock with its back to the southern waters. Falls drop on the inland side of this horseshoe to where it has formed a deep, open-ended bowl largely walled by basalt columns, suggesting something of a volcanic past to the island. It is on this portion of the island that the cabins mentioned above sit, dry stone walls marking their property, with outdoor seating for people to enjoy. Close to these is one of the two bridges connecting the north sides of the setting to the southern.
The remaining portion of the setting, lying to the south-west, offers a further semi-rugged area, backed to the south by the remaining half of the rocky horseshoe, the lower portion of the land given over to rough grazing for a local herd of horses, the dry stone barn offering them some shelter for them against harsher weather.
There are two ways to reach this side of the island: take a plunge into the waters of the stream separating the north side of the island from the rest and then crossing back over the stream via the bridge sitting below the chapel, or by walking up to the bridge mentioned above and then along the northern island and down to the second bridge. Doing so is worthwhile for explorers, as there is a walk to be taken out to the setting’s lighthouse, and another that is neatly tucked away among the rocks that leads up to the flattened heights of the southern horseshoe.
The one small regret I have with the setting – and it is purely personal – is that it doesn’t directly abutting the off-region mountain surround. Had it done so, I feel that it would give the location greater depth, allowing it to feel a part of something much larger in terms of a mountainous, rugged island in the manner of those forming Lofoten. Doing so might not be easy, hence why I call this a very minor quibble.
That thought put to one side, Sakrisoya is an engaging and highly photogenic region that sits well on the eye and easy on the viewer. Yes, there is a fee to access it, but as noted, that does allow rezzing and unfettered access to all of the public settings within the Frogmore estate.
SLurl Detail
- Sakrisoya (Dulcis, rated general)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 