ALBUM REVIEW: Saltwater Hank Honors Indigenous Past and Present in Country Music

Saltwater Hank brings country music to its roots on G̱al’üünx wil lu Holtga Liimi, an album written entirely in Sm’algyax, the language of the Ts’msyen people of Kxeen (Prince Rupert, British Columbia). Sm’algyax is older than Ancient Greek, but today there are no first-generation speakers under the age of 60. When not on stage, Hank (née Jeremy Pahl) works in the Ts’msyen nation’s archives. His stage name honors his father and great-uncle, both named Hank. Pahl’s work as a cultural keeper prompted him to translate — literally and figuratively — Sm’algyax into country music.

Saltwater Hank (photo by J. Joshua Diltz)

However, “translate” is not necessarily the word to use here. After all, many of country music’s distinctive elements — bent notes in singing, yodeling, crying guitar solos, and of course the steel guitar — are rooted in American indigenous music. Musicality aside, G̱al’üünx wil lu Holtga Liimi is a project that asserts the dignity and versatility of Sm’algyax, not to mention of Indigenous peoples across the continent. It’s no accident that there are so few Sm’algyax speakers: Up until the 1960s, the Canadian government engaged in ethnic cleansing via its residential schools program.

For country music purists, though, Saltwater Hank brings the heat. “Na Waaba Gwa̱soo” rolls along with a mighty groove, anchored by Hank’s rich baritone. The song is a dirge that ends in a major key. Listeners may perceive it as a murder ballad or a work song, and they wouldn’t be far off: It decries police violence on the reservation, ending on a note of defiance. The Western swing of “Liimi Maḵ’ooxs” brings a dapper sensibility to a traditional song about picking salmonberries.

“Dm Yootu Stukwliin” is the only song on the album with a few lines in English, proclaiming Hank’s intent to barbecue rabbits captured on the Nanaimo University campus — a jab at the cultural assimilation expected in Western academic institutions and Hank’s cheerful noncompliance. “’Nii Wila Waalt” is a hard-edged blues rocker whose lyrics exhort listeners to follow the traditional order of stripping the bark from cedar trees before harvesting seaweed.

By diving into these disparate styles, Saltwater Hank stakes a claim for Ts’msyen, and all Indigenous cultures’, place in country music. Is there anything more (North) American than treating history as a malleable material? Country music originated in urban areas, an amalgamation of regional styles brought by lonely rural migrants, then was exported to the world, flattening the disparate cultures and influences it absorbed. Go to Nashville and you will find tourists gussied up in cowboy gear — cultural symbols that denote whiteness more than the music’s actual past. On G̱al’üünx wil lu Holtga Liimi, Saltwater Hank resurfaces deep patterns in our cultural fabric and bends the rest to his needs.

Saltwater Hank’s G̱al’üünx wil lu Holtga Liimi is out July 1 — Canada Day.