The Electric North: Exploring Route 16 by EV

Learn how electric vehicle travel is becoming one of the best ways to experience the province’s rural north, as Northern BC local and EV driver Malcolm Johnson reflects on his family’s next climate-friendly adventure, a low-impact, 720-km (447.4-mi) journey along one of BC’s most iconic routes: Highway 16,  from Prince George to Prince Rupert.

On a misty Sunday morning we’re following the Telkwa High Road through rolling farmland in Wet’suwet’en Territory, the fields dotted with hay bales and the creeks full of rushing meltwater from the Babine Mountains to the east. It’s the sort of landscape that makes you feel like you’re in an electric car commercial—quiet, tranquil and green, with the wheels on the road the only sound as the batteries power us silently through a panoramic opening scene. In the back seat, however, our kids seem most excited about the sights in the nearby fields, our four-year-old counting tractors while our two-year-old eagerly points out every horse she sees.

The backroads of the North are beautiful in any weather, and after days of heat this misty morning has come as a welcome change.

Earlier that morning, we’d been plugged into a free charging station in Smithers while the kids fueled up with steamed milk from an open-air coffee shop. Like many of the electric vehicle (EV) chargers in neighbouring communities, the Smithers station is part of an ambitious network called Charge North that aims to electrify almost 2,800 kilometres of scenic highway—stretching from Kamloops to the northern hub of Prince George, then westward along Highway 16 and onwards by BC Ferries to Haida Gwaii.

From our home in the Bulkley Valley, we’ve been using Charge North’s rapidly evolving infrastructure to help power more of our family’s adventures. And after a few more scenic twists and turns on the High Road—accompanied, to our girl’s delight, by another sighting of buckskins munching grass—we park at the trailhead for Malkow Lookout, a favourite local hike that leads up through peaceful stands of aspen and cottonwood. With packs full of water and snacks, we lace up our shoes and set out on foot. The kids, happy to be free from their car seats, trot along ahead, while my partner and I follow along, just as happy to be out on the move in the cool, clean air.

Once into the quiet of the forest, we stop to pick a few fresh Saskatoon berries, then pause again to watch a red-breasted sapsucker and admire purple fireweed blooming beneath the trees. Farther along, as we pull a gate closed behind us and emerge into another farm field, we find a more expansive view—across the valley to the west, the high ridges and tumbling glaciers of Dzilh Yez, or Hudson Bay Mountain, soar into layers of cloud. Though it’s a high-tech grid that brought us here, these kinds of connections with unspoiled nature are what we travel for—the moments that, pardon the pun, can swiftly recharge our own bodies and minds.

We needed to look at it holistically so reliable EV travel was built out with good connectivity and people could get wherever they need to go.

“We’ve all been working together,” explains Janice Keyes of Community Energy, “to make sure the charging stations are all in the right place. We needed to look at it holistically so reliable EV travel was built out with good connectivity and people could get wherever they need to go. You can’t achieve that by communities doing it on their own, so the collaboration is what has made Charge North so unique.”

Indigenous governments are also important members of the initiative, says Keyes—both the Nisga’a Nation and Stellat’en Nation will be installing Level 2 chargers to support EV drivers along Highway 16 and northward into the Nass Valley.