Intergenerational Resistance:
A look at the community effort behind folk/country artist Saltwater Hank’s new record G̱al’üünx wil lu Holtga Liimi
By: Laura Stanley | Photo by: J. Joshua Diltz; Art by: Laura Stanley
Before joining our Zoom call, Prince Rupert-based Ts’msyen musician Jeremy Pahl, better known as folk and country artist Saltwater Hank, made a quick run to the grocery store. He saw a couple of people (who he affectionately refers to as uncles) in the parking lot and chatted with them in Sm’algyax, the language spoken by the Ts’msyen people who have occupied what is now the North coast of British Columbia for thousands of years.
This parking lot exchange is far from commonplace. As a result of governmental policies and legislations intended to subjugate Indigenous Peoples, there are only 67 first generation Sm’algyax speakers left. Pahl has fully immersed himself in learning Sm’algyax over the last five years thanks in part to his day job in the archives at Gitga’at First Nation in Hartley Bay where he translates and transcribes Ts’msyen history alongside a fluent Sm’algyax speaker and educator.
For the latest Saltwater Hank album, G̱al’üünx wil lu Holtga Liimi, Pahl brings his language into his artistic practice. The album is written almost entirely in Sm’algyax with a mix of traditional Ts’msyen songs, originals, and even a Sm’algyax version of Hank Williams’ “My Sweet Love Ain’t Around.” Every word Pahl sings in Sm’algyax is the direct result of the perseverance of the Ts’msyen people in the face of colonial suppression. As Pahl notes in the album’s press material: “The fact that I’m singing in my language is an act of resistance.”
“It really took a community to make the record,” Pahl says about G̱al’üünx wil lu Holtga Liimi. “In order for it to be made there had to be a number of first language speakers willing to teach me. They would have learned from their families, but also they would have gone through the hardships of residential school and the pressures of colonialism that [don’t] make room in the capitalist economy for Sm’algyax language. They continued to use the language and have stayed resilient through that and have been generous and patient enough to share it with me.”
Sm’algyax was Pahl’s grandparents’ first language but he did not speak the language at home growing up. “My grandpa managed to only spend two years in residential school although, obviously, it was super fucking hard and he almost died but he didn’t speak any English until he was about 10 years old— that’s when they took him away,” Pahl explains.
Pahl started learning Sm’algyax at 17 but when he moved away from Prince Rupert, he stopped. Before getting the job in the archives, Pahl hadn’t spoken Sm’algyax in nearly a decade. He finds the language still comes easily to him though, which he credits to his great-grandmother who spoke Sm’algyax to him when he was a baby. “I’ve been told that in language acquisition, when infants are hearing all of these sounds it stays in their memories. So it wasn’t like I was ever completely absent from hearing the language,” says Pahl.
Family is at the root of Pahl’s love of music, particularly country music, as well. He comes from a long line of performers including his great-great grandmother (a singer and songwriter), his great-grandmother (a dancer and fiddler), and his grandpa who used to tour up and down the BC coast in a country band.
Pahl’s parents bought him his first guitar when he was 11 and he eventually learned the banjo and fiddle too. In 2016, Pahl released Tape Sessions, his first collection of songs as Saltwater Hank. Recorded live and straight to tape, it’s a raw, old-timey sounding original recording full of timeless stories and colourful characters. It makes you feel like you are hanging out with friends on a porch during a summer evening.
“I have a hard time getting into a lot of modern music that is very heavily compressed,” Pahl says about his lo-fi approach. “But tape takes all of that harshness and the high frequencies out and tunes that down and there’s also a realness to it. Everything I’ve ever done with this project has been live off the floor and there’s a realness to that as well. While a lot of our world, especially with social media, has become this cesspool of inaccurate representations of our lives, so has music.“
In the years that followed, Pahl released a number of similarly raw sounding records including Stories from the Northwest which is highlighted by the yodel-filled two-part trickster tale “Coyodel #1” and “Coyodel #2.” He also released a four-part series of EPs entitled That’s Not How Tommy Played It, which is composed largely of songs by Appalachian singer-songwriter, fiddler, and banjo player Tommy Jarrell.
With its gritty country-rock and bluesy sound, G̱al’üünx wil lu Holtga Liimi, compared to other Saltwater Hank releases, is jarringly boisterous. Waves of an electric guitar pummel sections of the standout track “‘Nii Wila Waalt,” but when you dive into the lyrics (English translations are included on Saltwater Hank’s Bandcamp page), Pahl is singing about harvesting traditional foods: “We will pick blueberries when the weather is good / That’s how it goes, that’s how it happens, that is the way of the ancestors.” The energy of the guitar matches Pahl’s resolute spirit to keep traditions alive.
When talking about G̱al’üünx wil lu Holtga Liimi, Pahl returns to his community and the future of Sm’algyax. He tells me that the Prince Rupert school district has a Sm’algyax program which gives students the opportunity to learn Sm’algyax instead of French. Recently there’s been a push to establish an immersion program that would produce fluent Sm’algyax speakers.
Considering this is the first time that a Saltwater Hank album has garnered a lot of press coverage, Pahl admits that it has been an odd experience to be the person in the spotlight when so much of the album is a result of the work of others and those that came before him. The songs on the album, Pahl notes, are a collaboration with Elders. “I wrote the songs first in Sm’algyax and then brought them to the Elders that I work with to proofread and to make sure they were good to go,” he explains. “The uncles of mine who have taught me through the years and all the grandmas that I work with. They’ve done so much,” he adds. “I’m really grateful for them and that we’ve had so much time together.”
Through the work of Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and Indigenous communities it has become more common to hear songs sung in Indigenous languages. Inuk musicians like Beatrice Deer and Elisapie sing in Inuktitut and Jeremy Dutcher sings in Wolastoqey, a language considered endangered spoken by the Wolastoqiyik people.
“Well, the first thing is that apparently, if your name is Jeremy, you have a pretty good chance of making a record,” Pahl jokes when I ask him if he has any advice to other Indigenous folks wanting to learn and write songs in their language. But then he shares an anecdote that shows how bright the future is.
“A friend from Vancouver Island shared with me that they were giving a ride to a couple of young people in their late teens or early twenties and my album was playing in the car. These two young people, who were Indigenous from down there, also played music and they listened to this record and they said to each other, ‘We should do this too.’”
