Fancyland

What is Fancyland?

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Fancyland is a queer-identified land in Northern California. It is set on 12 acres of hilly terrain in the mixed fir and oak woods of Humboldt County, a half-hour east of Arcata. The land was established in 2001 as the dreamchild and rural home of Sacha. Currently there is only one person living and managing things here. It is a home that is very welcoming to community involvement, but it is not an open door. I particularly welcome friends, friends of friends, queer and trans folks, and those who share a common goal of dismantling oppressions, addressing privilege, and keeping up the fight.
The intention of the land project is to provide a home for collective do-it-yourself type living where visiting or resident folks can pursue their political and creative activities as well as land-based endeavors. Fancyland is also interested in fostering queer and radical communities and individuals by being a small-scale rural resource in the following ways: acting as a site to plug into homestead projects; providing a feminist environment for learning and sharing useful rural living skills such as alternative building, appropriate technology, gardening, and land stewardship; being a place that champions clever and handsome subversive culture; creating a space for people to come together to move forward in our capacity to dream bigger, fight harder, and love more; giving people a chance to live with simple technologies that put direct control into our own hands and challenge disengagement, consumerism, and isolation; and being a destination for visits, artist and activist retreats, and host to small groups and events.
Fancyland is inspired by the goals and visions of anti-authoritarian, radical feminist, & grassroots social justice movements. It has its heart’s desire set on creating resistance and alternatives to the soul-revolting oppressive systems that insidiously dominate our lives. Committed to a free and just world, liberation, accountability, interdependence, autonomy, fanciness, and celebrating the precious and queer. Fancyland is off the grid. On the make. Low-tech. High-fashion. Forward thinking. Rustic living. Prissed out. In the woods, in the hills. A small place with big heart and big lamplit dreams of resistance.

Facilities
It’s a bit like glorified camping here. The place continues to be in development and is still quite rough and rustic. Structures are a combination of natural building, salvaged, and new materials- all built with lots of love and help from friends. Facilities include an indoor common space with a kitchen, living room, dining area and an upstairs studio, a guest cabin with a woodstove and double bed, a tree platform for sleeping out, two other sleeping platforms, camping spots, an outhouse composting toilet, an outdoor wood-fired hot tub and solar shower, campfire pit, organic garden and a fine hammock with a view. Keep in mind that Fancyland is off the grid and there is NO ELECTRICITY, no indoor bathroom, no running hot water, and no refrigerator.

Physical Accessibility
Fancyland is only somewhat accessible for people with disabilities. The common space and kitchen, campfire, and parking are all at the main flat and accessible, but not paved. There are surrounding slopes that are challenging, with a couple of paths smoothed out for a manual wheelchair or walker. These lead to the guest cabin and composting toilet, which are accessible to most wheelchairs. Everything else involves hilly terrain, including the solar shower. The indoor bathroom is not set up yet but will eventually be accessible and will include a composting toilet and on- demand hot running water for a shower tub and sink. The guest cabin has a double bed. There is no heat other than a woodstove, and no electricity in any of the structures. There is running water in the kitchen, but it’s not hot. As the land develops, effort will be made to make the main parts of it as accessible as possible. Please contact Fancyland for more specific information.

Visiting
Fancyland likes visitors, but you need to make arrangements in advance and not just show up. Whether you are just passing through or looking for a longer stay, invite yourself for a rest, a rendezvous with a date, help out with gardening or homestead projects, or just simply visit and enjoy the magic and calm brilliance of the place.
Visitors are welcome for up to a one-week stay, though longer stays can be negotiated. There is no fee to visit. Just pay for your own food and be fairly self-sufficient. Depending on how long you stay, maybe pitch in for small expenses. Mainly it is nice to have visitors that are not a drain and help with basic chores, but you don’t have to work trade or do any kind of exchange to visit. You can do your own thing. If you want to work on projects, there is definitely opportunity to participate and you can find out what is going on. In the warm months, there’s almost always something going on.

Projects on the Horizon to Plug Into 2009, 2010, & Beyond
Interior finish work on the newly built common space, exterior earthen plastering, trail work, landscaping, maintaining and expanding the organic garden, building a tool shed, and eventually a pedal-powered battery system, root cellar, blacksmith and welding shop, and sauna…

Artist or Activist Retreats

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A Rustic Retreat and Community Resource
for
radical dreamers & creative schemers
Being of a small size, Fancyland offers artists and/or activists nothing more than the precious chance to work uninterrupted and fairly unencumbered in a natural setting. This is an informal set up to encourage people to utilize the land as a rustic retreat for working on their creative endeavors or political projects. You don’t have to identify as an artist AND an activist, just one or the other. But these terms are meant to be defined in broad open-ended terms, not to be pretentious or limiting. Fancyland welcomes anyone who can seriously pursue their work without the benefit of electricity including visual artists, writers, musicians, political activists, community organizers, schemers, radical dreamers, visionaries, dancers, performers… This arrangement is geared towards those that are self-directed, with the idea that the space is merely provided and then you do your thing without needing much else.
This year (09), retreats can take place between the months of June-October for a duration of up to one month. Availability is based on a first come first serve basis. There is a possible small stipend available for queer artists who need it.

Host an Event or Group Retreat

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Fancyland can currently only handle small-scale events for a duration of 2-4 days. It can accommodate groups of 5-20 people ideally. Sponsoring an event can happen in the warm months from May 15 to October 15. Keep in mind that it is basically rough, outdoor camping with limited amenities. It is a supportive environment for small social, political, community events, gatherings, creative and focused workshops, activist projects, skillshares, affinity group or political strategizing meetings, group retreats, and more. Contact Fancyland to see if your idea for an event or retreat is a good match for the space. Then a date and details can be discussed further.
How it works Fancyland provides the space and facilities ready for the event. Event sponsors will be oriented to the facilities and delegated necessary tasks for their operation. Sponsors may need to arrive a little early for orientation before the event starts. Fancyland will assist you with the smooth operation of basic infrastructure and land logistics if any questions or problems arise. Event sponsors will completely set up and run the show. They will be responsible for promoting the event, communicating with participants, handling any participant conflicts, bringing their own food and feeding everyone, hauling out their trash and recycling, assisting with composting toilet maintenance, and clean up, etc.

Contact
Feel free to let others know about these opportunities BUT keep it word of mouth. Friends of friends. Do not post, mass reproduce, or publish this elsewhere, as it is just one person living here and a small place desiring slow development. I cannot handle broad advertising. Thank you.

For more details or further inquiries about any of the above-mentioned opportunities, contact fancylandy@gmail.com. I don't check emails often, but due to this being on the internet it is the most appropriate way to be in contact. Feel free to call if you have the phone number.