MILWAUKEE — With Old Man Winter avoiding much of Wisconsin over the past few months, communities that depend on winter tourism— especially those up north— continue to try to find ways to support themselves and their local business owners with spring on the horizon.

"We are really at a point now that [everyone living here] and every visitor that had plans, that's still coming up, we're really focusing on that aspect," said Krystal Westfahl, president & CEO of 'Let’s Minocqua!' "We really need to support our businesses to get them through this crunch time here."

To that end, Westfahl said more area business owners have been taking advantage of the recently approved Small Business Administration disaster loans as they try to put this winter-that-wasn't behind them.

"We had quite a few [business owners] who've been utilizing those SBA loans," Westfahl said. "Hopefully that'll help get them over the hump— that was really the push we initiated here the north was just to find something to get folks through the rest of this long winter."

Watch the full interview above.