Winter can grow long in the tooth in March and April.

The calendar marks the start of spring but Alaskans who have been snowed on in May know the seasons by temperatures, and those may not be comfortable for another month. Holidays are a distant memory, household budgets are tight, and the novelty of cold weather wears thin for everyone but visiting skiers and a few diehards.

Maybe this is the time of year we should celebrate Thanksgiving. We could stand to appreciate that:

● The school board and assembly are sitting on fat wallets, which should spare us from any deep cuts this year and buy time to find ways to creatively rework budgets.

● Judging by usership, the borough’s Picture Point project is a success. A new sign, picnic tables, trails and a shelter are inviting without obstructing the lookout’s views and natural values. The Chilkoot Indian Association trail at Sawmill Creek also is a great addition, attractively exposing the beauty and productivity of wetlands.

● The Alaska Arts Confluence and several businesses have brought life back to Main Street. If you doubt this, stop by the Confluence office, where passersby on the sidewalk outside recently could watch and listen to a Honduran traffic jam. Now that’s different.

● Residents here are still interested in a civil discussion of local issues, as evidenced by forums hosted recently by Tresham Gregg and Brenda Josephson. To move ahead as a community, we’ll need many more gatherings like them, where people with opposing views can start to untie knotty questions away from the heat of decision-making.

● Our town continues to attract new residents, who choose this place as a sanely-paced alternative to social problems and alienation in the Lower 48. Many of those individuals are making valuable contributions to local organizations.

Haines is a part of state and national economies that are sliding, but there are qualities of our town that will serve as buffers to those forces, including rich natural resources and a lively and creative populace.

Life here may become a little harder, but we live in a good place.

- Tom Morphet