I am absolutely not sure if this was the root error of the fault, but I was unable to access any copy of:
SuiteSparse-4.1.0_0+atlas.darwin_11.x86_64.tbz2
viz:
:info:archivefetch ---> SuiteSparse-4.1.0_0+atlas.darwin_11.x86_64.tbz2 doesn't seem to exist in /opt/local/var/macports/incoming/verified
:msg:archivefetch ---> Attempting to fetch SuiteSparse-4.1.0_0+atlas.darwin_11.x86_64.tbz2 from http://packages.macports.org/SuiteSparse
:debug:archivefetch Fetching archive failed:: The requested URL returned error: 404
:msg:archivefetch ---> Attempting to fetch SuiteSparse-4.1.0_0+atlas.darwin_11.x86_64.tbz2 from http://lil.fr.packages.macports.org/SuiteSparse
:debug:archivefetch Fetching archive failed:: The requested URL returned error: 404
:msg:archivefetch ---> Attempting to fetch SuiteSparse-4.1.0_0+atlas.darwin_11.x86_64.tbz2 from http://mse.uk.packages.macports.org/sites/packages.macports.org/SuiteSparse
:debug:archivefetch Fetching archive failed:: The requested URL returned error: 404
Of course, I subsequently got a raft of the tclIndex flagged errors, per numerous other tickets.
This is expected; we do not have binary archives for `SuiteSparse @4.1.0_0+atlas. As your pasted output shows, MacPorts correctly proceeded to try building from source.