A memorial gathering of friends of lifelong resident Hal Matthews will be held later this year.

Matthews, 62, died Dec. 14 of undetermined causes, said his brother Tom Matthews of Haines.

Matthews was found dead at his home at 31 Mile Haines Highway. No autopsy was conducted.

Tom Matthews said his older brother had been upbeat when he saw him about a week previous to his death. Hal recently was restoring a Nordic tug, the Bold Eagle.

"He wanted to travel around Southeast on it. He planned on hunting and fishing and setting crab pots. He'd just retired and he was pretty excited about life," Tom said.

Clifford Hal Matthews was born Nov. 4, 1958, the first of three children of Cliff Matthews, a DOT equipment operator, and wife Marge, a schoolteacher who later worked as librarian at the Haines Public Library.

Hal attended Haines schools and quickly took to welding, mechanics, carpentry and other industrial skills, said lifelong friend Kenny Waldo. "He was very talented. He was just one of those guys who could watch somebody do something, then just do it. He was a natural."

Matthews fished commercially, including at Bristol Bay, and also drove truck for Delta Western and Alaska Marine Lines. He bought and fixed up an old homestead at 31 Mile.

"He liked to hunt and fish and he liked working around mechanics. He was the typical Haines boy," Tom Matthews said of his brother's youth. "We drove all over these roads around here."

His brother was a tinkerer by nature, Matthews said. "He'd always have a welding project going. He was a decent mechanic. He didn't take it up as a job, but he was pretty good at it."

Besides brother Tom, Hal Matthews is survived by a sister, Patti Day of Boise, Idaho.