Ron Kanutski brings traditional flute, drum, and original songs to Chippewa Park

By Rick Garrick

THUNDER BAY — Red Rock Indian Band’s Ron Kanutski enjoyed performing songs on the traditional flute, hand drum, and guitar on August 9 at Chippewa Park as part of Thunder Bay’s Sundays in the Park Concert Series.

“We did traditional flute, we did bibigwan, which is what they call it in [Anishinaabemowin],” Kanutski says. “I brought the drum out today and the guitar, which was probably a traditional instrument for my family as well because we used to play a lot of music around the table.”

Kanutski says he wrote the songs he performed between 2008 and 2010.

“I went through a mid-life crisis as a musician and I just went on a song writing bender,” Kanutski says. “I wrote a few songs, but I never played them anywhere — I brought them out today just to share them. Some songs I shared at an event maybe once or twice, but most of them I’ve never played in public.”

Kanutski says his father gave him a drum kit when he was young, but he didn’t get into music until he began performing with a neighbour in the Dryden area in northwestern Ontario.

“He wanted to be a rock star,” Kanutski says. “I started as a percussionist, and then I learned to play guitar and bass when they would go for breaks.”

Kanutski says he is now a vocalist for some rock bands in Thunder Bay.

“I think I delivered a little bit of something for everybody,” Kanutski says about the concert, noting that this was the third year he performed for the concert series. “Normally I get asked to sing on the drum a lot more, but this time it was different. They said to play a flute, and I said, ‘Wow, that’s a change’.”

Kanutski says he was introduced to the traditional flute at Lake Louise during a family trip to Vancouver.

“While I was there, there was an Indigenous fellow, I don’t know what tribe he was from, but he was playing on the lake and there was an echo coming off the lake,” Kanutski says. “It was beautiful.”

Kanutski says he was gifted a traditional flute by an Anishinaabe man in Chicago.

“In America, they call it the Native American flute but we’re in Canada so I’m just going to call it the traditional flute,” Kanutski says, noting he learned how to play the traditional flute in five minutes, but after returning to Canada, he kept it on the counter for the longest time before starting to play it again. “Then I got addicted to it, and I started buying all these different flutes because you can’t just buy one flute and it covers all your bases. All these flutes are made in different keys, so if you want to play in A you’ve got to get an A.”

Kanutski says he now has a “house full” of flutes.

“I brought a handful of them with me today so I’m going to give you a sample of that music,” Kanutski says. “It’s an instrument that soothes the soul.”

Kanutski says he shared an Anishinaabe-nagamon (Anishinaabe song) on the hand drum to open his performance.

“It’s a song that comes from the land,” Kanutski says. “These are Ojibwe songs that I’m going to sing with you and they’ve been passed on from generation to generation. This particular song comes, some people say, from the United States, from the Chippewa people down there. Some people say the song comes from Treaty #3.”

Information about the upcoming concerts on the Sundays in the Park Concert Series, which are being held from 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. on Sundays until August 23, is posted on the Chippewa Park Facebook page.