
How an N.B. couple bonded over a love of satire and gave birth to a Manatee
CBC
To some people, New Brunswick might not seem the most exciting province in the country.
It might seem like a less razzle-dazzle version of upscale provinces like British Columbia, a less boasty version of powerhouse provinces like Ontario.
In fact, there are rumours — hotly denied and never openly spoken of — that some people refer to it as No Funswick.
Shauna Chase and Alex Vietinghoff are not those people.
To this Fredericton couple, born and raised No Funswickers, New Brunswick is such a hotbed of hilarity, outrageous goings-on and bizarre political antics they had to create a website to hold it all.
That website is The Manatee, and if you've ever taken even a casual look at it, three things probably happened: 1) you laughed out loud, 2) you bookmarked it and 3) you realized New Brunswick might just be the Most Funswick province of them all.
It started in 2014.
Chase and Vietinghoff were just friends back then, with a mutual fondness for the sort of sass and sarcasm served up on The Onion, a U.S.-based satirical website.
"We'd send each other Onion articles" and muse about how New Brunswick sort of has an Onion flavour of its own, Chase said.
It was a fact few seemed to be aware of.
There were other Canadian satirical websites, but they rarely covered anything that happened in Atlantic Canada.
"It was like they didn't know about the Maritimes," Chase said.
She and Vietinghoff mused that maybe they should start their own website.
"And so we decided to do that."

Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre faced the critical glare of the mega-popular Radio-Canada talk show Tout le monde en parle on Sunday in an attempt to woo francophone viewers, with the Liberal leader being pressed on his cultural awareness of the province and his Conservative rival differentiating himself against perceptions in Quebec he is a "mini-Trump."