Please ignore the previous post, I've made progress since then.
   
Make install seems to work fine, but I still can't compile my pkgsrc files.  
It still wants a new pkg_install.  
  
Here is what I've done so far:
  
~/mk.conf:
SU CMD= sh -c
  
ENV:   
  
MAKECONF=/arpa/ns/p/poff/mk.conf
PKG_DBDIR=/arpa/ns/p/poff/pkg/db
LOCALBASE=/arpa/ns/p/poff/pkg
BINGRP=arpa
ROOT_GROUP=arpa
BINOWN=poff

I run:

make PREFIX=${HOME}/pkg
        (if no PREFIX then it tries to use /usr/sbin/pkg_* for install)

make PKG_ADMIN=${HOME}/pkg/sbin/pkg_admin install
        (no PKG_ADMIN tries for /usr/sbin/pkg_admin)
   
Which results in: 
   
...
Stored 0 files from 0 packages in /arpa/ns/p/poff/pkg/db/pkgdb.byfile.db.
Done.

When I run make in, say, ~/pkgsrc/wip/ccrypt, it complains about needing a
newer pkg_install.

Any ideas?

Thanks a lot,
--
poff@sixbit.org