The headline was to the point, as usual: “Woman whose ancestors stole entire continent suspects Indigenous person shoplifting.”

Tim Fontaine wrote the story quickly for Walking Eagle News, because the longer he dwells, the more he second-guesses himself.

Often he’s writing satirical stories off the news, but this one was born out of anger.

“My partner is an award-winning journalist, and she can’t walk into a lot of stores in Winnipeg without someone following her around,” he says. “That’s what happened after a very particular bad experience.”

Fontaine’s Walking Eagle News started as a bit of fun after he left his journalism career behind in 2017. After nearly two decades covering Canadian politics and Indigenous affairs for the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) and the CBC, he was burned out. He had wanted to leave for a while, but he didn’t want a communications job. So he kept going, and sometimes, he’d drop a joke, or a wry observation about the way Canada treated Indigenous people, on Twitter.

He pushed the limits of what he could say, but it was his own experience, and it was an outlet.

When he quit, he wrote a few op-eds, and then decided to turn a few of those old Twitter jokes into stories and publish them online. He almost called his website “Honeypot News,” for the portable toilets common on First Nations communities, but felt it too niche. So he went with Walking Eagle.

“There’s this joke. It’s usually a president, or a prime minister or some figure who goes to a reserve or a First Nations community and this elder gives them the name (Walking Eagle), and they’re all happy, and somebody asks the community what it means,” he says.

It sounds grandiose, but is actually a bird “so full of crap it can’t fly,” he says.

Once he started writing the dispatches, he couldn’t stop.

“Assembly of First Nations’ annual ‘Boys of Summer’ Calendar misses printing deadline”

“Parliament Hill skating rink to be melted to provide drinking water for First Nations: feds”

“Canada to present full-grown Indigenous man to Royal Couple as engagement gift”

The stories ricocheted around social media, and they changed Indigenous comedy, says Ryan McMahon, a comedian, podcaster and writer who is Anishinaabe. “We’re not sitting through some didactic 18-minute TED talk,” he says. “You read a Walking Eagle News headline and no more words are needed. That’s pretty goddamn good.”

Fontaine, 43, is Anishinaabe. A member of the Sagkeeng First Nation in Manitoba, he grew up mainly in Hollow Water and in Winnipeg. He and his family now live in Winnipeg, but this year, they are in Toronto until the summer while his partner is on a fellowship at Massey College. (Toronto is a funny town, he says. People honk like it might actually make traffic move, and line up for anything: “They could be handing out unnecessary dental work and people would stop.”)

He was 12 when he read his first Kurt Vonnegut novel, and he was struck by his absurd deadpan style. Then the Kids in the Hall started shouting about salty ham and singing about the Daves They Knew and he watched every single sketch, including Bruce McCulloch being forced to apologize for causing all that cancer. “Why is this so funny when it’s so nuts?” he wondered.

He had a soft spot for bittersweet humour. The novelist Thomas King had it down. Fontaine remembers a scene in one book where a quiet child was mistakenly taken from a reserve for surgery: “They grabbed the wrong kid, but he just loved it because he was getting ice cream.” As he grew up, he realized that you didn’t have to be Benny Hill to get a laugh. Odd things could be funny, too.

He was anonymous for the first few weeks, but outed himself when a reporter wanted to write about the site. Fontaine was proud and he also wanted to clear the air. Some people worried a non-Indigenous person might be behind it. He came forward, somewhat nervously. People knew him as a journalist, but not as someone making jokes.

“It was a good day when Tim decided to hit ‘publish’ on his first story,” says Ryan McMahon, who was an early supporter on Patreon, the online platform. “To take that risk and to start something brand new on a whim and on a hope was pretty gutsy.”

On Walking Eagle, Fontaine covers the Assembly of First Nations like a sports team, writing about fictional hazing trouble and key trades between the AFN and the Métis National Council, using the same meaningless talk you might hear from a hockey player between periods: “Obviously, this is a bittersweet move for me and I’m facing quite a steep learning curve,” a senior bureaucrat says after a trade outside the “MNC dressing room.”

Indigenous people live with a lot of bureaucracy, so Fontaine peppers his stories with references to memorandums of understanding (MOUs), those “meaningless agreements with governments that make us feel like they’re doing something,” he says. He wrote a holiday story about National Chief Perry Bellegarde giving out personalized Christmas MOUs to “gleeful staff” last year.

Most names are made up, except for the majority of politicians and Indigenous leaders.

In the site’s early days, Fontaine wrote a story about Quebec and Labrador Regional Chief Ghislain Picard singing a “haunting” rendition of R.E.M.’s “Everybody Hurts” to break an impasse at the Assembly of First Nations. Picard appeared pretty serious to Fontaine, and seemed like the most unlikely person to pin it on.

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Picard laughs on the phone, recalling how some people actually thought he sang. “People I know have always said, ‘You know the reason why we stuck this long as Indigenous people is because of our humour,” Picard says. “So to me, it didn’t scratch me the wrong way.

“To tell you the truth, sometimes there are situations in Indigenous politics, where you say, well maybe this is the right time for a song.”

Fontaine doesn’t advertise. His most widely read story is “How are my Indians? Queen asks Trudeau,” which racked up close to 100,000 views and 20,000 shares on social media.

He believes there was something in the timing of his site that has led to its success. In the last few years, more mainstream coverage of Indigenous issues has brought new frustrations to communities who find themselves featured, he says.

The way news is written is “sometimes too objective,” he says. He says his stories can sometimes translate the news, and other times, highlight how ridiculous coverage is. “They cut through that, and say OK, this is actually what it feels like when you write stories like that.”

Fontaine never wanted to fool people, but with his journalism language, it happens. A story about APTN launching a 24-hour rez dog channel was picked up by a radio station in Winnipeg. About six months ago, Fontaine put a disclaimer on the site, reminding readers this was satire, comedy and parody — stories “ripped from the headlines,” but “entirely fictional.”

Comedy is central to Indigenous culture, embedded in the trickster figures that are a staple of storytelling, and embedded in daily life, says Ryan McMahon. There are comedians who tour like he does, others who are making it happen at open-mic nights, and many who aren’t looking to make it a career, but just happen to be the funniest people in whatever room they’re in.

“So to call yourself an Indigenous comedian,” he says, “you damn well better be funny,” he says.

For Fontaine, the site is a also a way to say things he never could. It has become more of a calling card than a money-maker, but has led to new opportunities. A Canadian network picked up his idea for a comedy about the often absurd intersection of Indigenous and Canadian politics, which he’s busy writing now. He’s also had a few appearances on satirical news show “The Beaverton,” and a couple of stints in their writing room. And even though he tried to leave journalism behind, he’s finishing up a feature-length documentary for APTN about Idle No More, to be released this year.

Comedy is too important not to take seriously. That’s what the legendary Charlie Hill, an American comedian from the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, told McMahon when they toured together. McMahon says some comics might want to riff about getting high with their cat, but when he tours, he sees a chance to change somebody’s mind.

“Every time we tell jokes, they’re unique offers for people to walk though the doorway to consider something they may not have considered before. That’s the power and the essence of good Native comedy.”

McMahon, who is originally from Couchiching First Nation, says he’s often the “grumpy uncle” who contacts other comics when he thinks they’ve crossed a line.

“There’s nothing funny about missing and murdered women,” he says. “You can’t make a joke about being an absent father … (when) there are more kids in child welfare now than the height of residential schools.”

He thinks Fontaine has found a good balance with Walking Eagle. Fontaine says he doesn’t want to “punch down,” but he notes that a couple of stories were misinterpreted that way.

“Tim might tell you he’s missed the mark once or twice — I know a couple of stories he ran where I was like, ooh that’s close,” McMahon says, “But that’s where comedy lives.”

Canadians want to learn more about Indigenous people, McMahon says, but that doesn’t always translate to the lighter side of life. “It’s not the golden age of comedy,” he says. “It’s the golden age of sadness.”

McMahon thinks it’s also important to pay attention to creative work — “the Cherie Dimalines of the world,” he adds, citing the Métis bestselling writer of “The Marrow Thieves” and “Empire of Wild.” McMahon is currently working on another season of his acclaimed “Thunder Bay” podcast for Canadaland, but he’s also writing a sitcom, and developing a “kung fu inspired Indian heist” movie.

“We can keep giving Canada death for the rest of our lives, but I believe something happens to us when we just focus on that,” he says. “I think we can have the same conversation about a pathway forward through comedy as we do with drama,” he says.

He doesn’t agree with the premise that Indigenous people are “better at laughing and better at joking” because of trauma they’ve experienced.

“Yes, laughter is medicine, yes, we’ve been through a lot, and we use laughter in healing, but it’s inherent in who we are culturally,” McMahon says. “That is far more rich of an explanation as to why we lean on humour to teach others … much like what Walking Eagle does. These jokes teach us a lot.”