The Haines Borough’s population has increased nearly 5 percent since 2000, according to 2010 U.S. census figures released Wednesday.

“Haines has actually been one of the more stable communities over the last five or six years,” said Robert Venables, former borough manager. “It is a bit of an anomaly for the region, which is still bleeding folks from the rural areas, mostly because they’re job hunting. Haines has the blessing of being an attractive spot to retire.”

The borough’s 2010 population was 2,508, up from 2,392 in 2000, a 4.8 percent increase.

Haines showed 13 percent growth between 2000 and 1990, when the population stood at 2,117. That decade saw a real estate boom and a surge in large cruise ship traffic after reconstruction of the Port Chilkoot Dock in 1995.

“We’ve seen the retiree sector give stabilization to our population base and our economy, but, unfortunately, we haven’t grown the job base very much,” Venables said. “I don’t know how long that trend will continue.”

The census showed approximately 20 percent of the borough’s population was under 18. Of the overall borough population, 230 people identified themselves as American Indian or Alaska Native, or 9.2 percent.

Over the past decade, the U.S. population grew about 10 percent. Alaska’s population gain was more than 13 percent, from 626,932 to 710,231.

Klukwan’s numbers, though, mirrored an overall decline in Southeast. The village population dropped to 95, from 139. Fourteen of the villagers counted were under age 18.

“When we look at Alaska regionally, one of the largest regions where a lot of boroughs are actually losing population or growing very slowly are concentrated in Southeast, although not only Southeast by any means,” said Neal Fried, a state economist.

Census numbers for 2000 and 2010, respectively, in other Southeast communities show increases in Juneau (30,711 to 31,275); Sitka (8,835 to 8,881); and Skagway (862 to 968) and losses in Ketchikan (14,070 to 13,477); Petersburg (3,224 to 2,948); and Wrangell, (2,448 to 2,369).

Fried said Southeast “literally lost thousands of jobs over that period of time.”

“The timber industry has been hit very, very hard, fishing was hit hard for a while – although that’s been coming back – and the visitor industry had some slow years, as well,” he said. “Timber was the first big hit, and that was huge, and that was particularly big on places like Wrangell, Sitka and the Ketchikan/Prince of Wales area of Southeast.”

Census data is available at http://www.census.gov and live.laborstats.alaska.gov/cen. The state site has the option of breaking the numbers down into places, to reflect communities that are within a wider census area.

Fried said Haines was “on the upswing” in the census because “an older population tends to be more stable.”

“One of Haines’ strengths is a lot of people live there because that’s where they want to live; they’re not living there necessarily for economic opportunity,” he said.

Planning commissioner Rob Goldberg moved to Haines from Fairbanks in the 1980s.

“I think that there are a certain number of people who just want to live here, and they figure out a way to make it work,” Goldberg said.

He noted that, as an artist, “I have a profession that I can take with me anywhere, and I think a lot of people here do, but we choose to live here because the place offers us a combination of things we can’t find anywhere else.”

Goldberg said Haines also benefits from a mailbox economy, with people drawing income from outside the area. “I came here because of the landscape. I wanted to be by the ocean and close to mountains, and in a place where I could grow things and do subsistence fishing.”

The census will impact legislative redistricting, which Venables has worked on as part of Southeast Conference. Some have speculated Haines may be lumped into a House district with Juneau.

“At the end of the day, Haines as a community wants to be in a district in which it can have a role in determining who their representative’s going to be and what the priorities might be for that district, and if you’re a suburb of Juneau, your ability to have much impact is greatly diluted,” Venables said.