CALGARY—Tyson Kucheruk got into YouTube in 2006, when the young platform was just starting to take off.
Now, he’s one of many farmers across North America who use YouTube to share their day-to-day experiences, from baling hay to swathing canola.
Known online as Northern Farmer, Kucheruk runs a 2,000-acre farm in High Prairie, Alta., where he grows a variety of crops and manages 200 cattle. The farm has been in his family for multiple generations, and Kucheruk works closely with his nephew and brother, as well as his father, who is semi-retired.
Kucheruk said he likes the independent nature of farming, and that he has always wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps.
In 2006, he started using YouTube, though rural internet often made it difficult to access. At first, it was just for fun, filming videos for his own records. But over the years, he noticed farm-oriented videos gaining in popularity, and finally decided to put more time into the project.
“It just grew from there,” he said. “I started to get a few followers and they were curious about how we farm up here.”
Most of those early followers are other farmers, mainly watching from the United States, where the seasons are different than in northern Alberta.
“They were very interested in how we do things here,” said Kucheruk, adding that he was also interested in the different practices the American farmers used.
Questions also started to trickle in from curious non-farmers, he said. The YouTube algorithm responded well to his channel, and Northern Farmer took off.
“The more it took off, the more I got the incentive to do more,” said Kucheruk, who now has almost 27,000 subscribers.
He said some of his most popular videos are the ones he thought people might find boring, such as videos about heavy equipment or about auctions. What might be a mundane, daily activity for a farmer in High Prairie is a learning experience for many viewers, he explained.
Kucheruk mostly uses his phone to shoot the videos, and he has a GoPro and a drone for the trickier shots.
Kucheruk said he’s still small compared to some other farming YouTube channels — for example, he follows American YouTube account onelonleyfarmer, which has 140,000 subscribers — but growth is steady. This year, he has redesigned his logo and will be putting it on merchandise, like hats and T-shirts.
Starting out, Kucheruk said he took inspiration from onelonleyfarmer, shooting videos at arm’s length as he took viewers with him.
“After watching him, I kind of thought, ‘Well, I can do that, too,’” he said. “I can provide a different perspective on farms up here compared to down there.”
Kucheruk’s father is “more old-fashioned” and doesn’t usually appear in the videos, though his nephew and brother sometimes do. But after a while, the elder Kucheruk did begin watching his son’s videos.
“He thinks it’s kind of cool,” he said, adding his father is “amazed” at how many people are interested in watching farming videos.
Rosa Saba is a reporter/photographer with Star Calgary. Follow her on Twitter: @rosajsaba