Fig Island (Edury)

Fig Island is an island and amalgamated township on the east coast of the Peninsilaplace Peninsula. It is known for its laws and ordinances regarding automobiles, heavily restricting them, and for its very small aesthetic. It is made up of three villages, each with its own local regulation.

The island was bought by the wealthy sportsman, Bert Hijt, in order to build a village for the fishermen there whose homes were destroyed in a flood. As he built the first village, the town of Rodebay, he implemented his own view of how town and urban planning should go; he believed that people were unhappy because there were those who took way more space than they required. So, he built the houses small (but certainly not miniature), close together, and close to the streets. The streets themselves were small and meant for pedestrians and bikers. Soon, the project expanded onto the island itself, with another village, Hogedam, under construction. Needing to connect the two, the Rodebay and Hogedam Railway was constructed, a 15 inch gauge railroad.

Early History
The island was sporadically inhabited before the 20th century. It is theorized that the Myrish pirate Yekel Guilloux may have stayed for a time on the island. From the 14th to 15th centuries, a fishing community lived on the north end of the island, but after the 1650's it diminished and eventually ceased to exist. Afterwards, small fishing villages would pop up and dissolve a few times each century.

Bert Hijt
In the 1920's, a small fishing village existed on the southern end of the island. This village had been there for around a decade and a half, but in 1922, the village was destroyed in a flood. Some of the fishers appealed to Bert Hijt, a sportsman who owned some land nearby, to allow them to stay there. He did them one better, and built them a whole village.

The village of Rodebay was built on a small cove, deep enough for the fishers to moor their boats there, and is also where he moored his yacht. The village was built on the principle of taking as little space as was reasonable; the fishermen were used to smaller cottages, and some of them had previously lived in shacks that were actually smaller than their new abodes. Either way, their new residences represented a definite improvement in living conditions, including running water indoors, gas water boilers, and limited electricity.

Expansion
The village of Rodebay was a massive success, with all of the fishermen and their families happily resettled, and the population of the town actually expanding. With this success under his belt, Hijt bought the island from the (often mistranslated as Committal) Hijgam family. He partnered with his builder to form the Fig Island Development Company, and began building the village of Hogedam. Bigger and more planned, Hogedam would be the full realization of Hijt's philosophy on urban development. The town, like its predecessor, consisted of small but cozy houses- some of which were now two or three story townhouses, so as to take as small a footprint as possible- and roads explicitly with pedestrians and bikes in mind. The building of Hogedam required a connection to Rodebay on the mainland, and while a bike and walking path was built, biking was often uncomfortable in the cold and wet weather of Penninsulaplace, and walking could often take in excess of a half hour to an hour. So, Hijt was interested in a railway; however, giving his builder is budget estimates, the engineer told him that he could not afford anything bigger than a 15 inch hobby train. Undeterred, Hijt would begin laying a 15 inch gauge mainline from Rodebay to Hogedam, including a lift bridge over the small channel separating the island from the mainland. He then ordered 5 locomotives as well as passenger coaches and freight cars.

Hogedam would eventually sell or fill all the lots and houses built, but was not the immediate commercial success that Hijt and his partners were hoping for. They would continue development and investing in Fig Island for another ten years, including expanding the towns, draining the marshes on the inland side of the island, and improving the railway. Eventually, with his immense family fortune mostly gone, Hijt accepted that he would never get profit from the island, but could get happiness from his project. He sold off his townhouse in Godenhaven and bought the equity in the development company, selling off the assets it didn't need, before building the village of Daspoort on the north end of the island. Daspoort would hold less strictly to his ideals than the previous two villages, as it was intended for even poorer fishermen and holiday homes for lower middle class families. The railway would be expanded to the village in 1933. Hijt moved into Kleindorf Mannor, a corner house 1/4th of the square footage of his old home, in the village of Rodebay. He died in 1949.

Amalgamation and modern day
The three villages were amalgamated in the 1970's. Following amalgamation, the three villages had the pooled resources to sue the state to receive ownership of the Fig Island Development Company, which owned most to all of the land on the island, and which was taken by the state after it was not mentioned in Hijts will and he had no heirs or living relatives. They were successful, and now most of the land belongs to the people who live there, with most of the remainder being owned by the municipality.

Today, the villages of Fig Island make most of their revenue from tourism, although there are other businesses that support the town that are not tourism based. The railway is technically the property of the national rail carrier, the preservation society is allowed to run the local railway as a heritage line, so long as there is year long service, and timetables are able to adequately serve the locals.