Longtime Klukwan resident Jud Cranston died of heart failure Saturday at Juneau's Bartlett Hospital. He was 80.

Friends and family said Cranston will be remembered as a stalwart subsistence fisherman and hunter who put others at ease. "He had a great sense of humor. He was always joking," said Joyce Simons, his oldest daughter.

Judson William Cranston was born at the former 19 Mile village of Kluktoo on Oct. 3, 1919 to Louise and Walter Cranston, the youngest of their five children. He grew up around Klukwan and served in the U.S. Army in World War II, stationed in Aleutians.

Walter Cranston was a miner in the Porcupine and Jud had boyhood memories of traveling by horse-drawn wagon to the mining district and to Pleasant Camp, as well as of traveling on the "grease trails," the precursor of the Haines Highway, used for centuries by Chilkats to trade with Interior tribes.

Jud married Daisy Johnson in 1938, and had 13 children.

Cranston worked in Skagway on the railroad and spent many years as a commercial gillnetter and seiner. Nephew Bosh Hotch said Cranston also worked a commercial setnet site off Letnikof Point.

Cranston enjoyed hunting and was usually first to have his subsistence net in the river. "He was mostly an outdoors man. Fishing and hunting I think he did all his life," said Hotch.

Cranston spent most of his years in the Chilkat Valley, but also lived in Skagway, Juneau, Hoonah and Yakutat. He was a member of the Haines ANB. His Tlingit name was Kaandagein. He was an Eagle of the Thunderbird House.

Cranston is survived by sister Esther Hotch and wife Daisy Cranston of Haines, by daughters Joyce Simons and Loraine Bell of Haines, Katherine Logan, Yakutat, Beryl Sheehan, Sitka, Delia Commander and Tessie Chilton of Anchorage and Jewel Stevens and Dawn Mitchell of Juneau, Judean Nielsen of Cheshire, Conn. and sons Gary Cranston, Sitka, Judson Cranston Jr., Santa Fe, N.M., and Eric Cranston, Port Angeles, Wash.

He is preceded in death by a son, Carl Lee Cranston.

A funeral service was scheduled for 2 p.m. Thursday at the ANS Hall in Klukwan. Cranston will be buried in the village.