CEA’s Katherine McDougall drove across Canada in her EV and discovered the special charm of community charging stations
Dec. 4, 2025
Katherine McDougall (left) and her partner Grace drove from Charlottetown, PEI to Lethbridge, Alberta in this white Chevy Bolt EV in summer 2025.
The growing adoption of electric vehicles is resulting in a need for more charging infrastructure. In fact, many people believe that the current number of charging ports is limiting the uptake of even more EVs.
More charging stations are needed everywhere, but a CEA employee who recently drove her EV more than 4,600 km across Canada is quick to point out that quality matters just as much as quantity when it comes to EV charging.
Katherine’s journey
Earlier this year, Katherine McDougall moved away from Charlottetown, PEI. She and her partner, Grace, packed all their belongings into their Chevy Bolt and hit the red clay road. Ten days later (after a few extra excursions and an extended stop in Saskatchewan to visit family), they arrived at their windy new home in Lethbridge, Alberta.
No problems. Never experienced a dead battery and could always find chargers when they needed them. But that doesn’t mean every charging experience was enjoyable.
Katherine’s eyes were opened to what the charging experience could be when she and Grace arrived in Terrace Bay, Ontario, a small community on the northern shore of Lake Superior, about halfway through the trip.
“The charging station was just behind a lighthouse, a short walk away from the beach and a beautiful view of the lake. There were motels, restaurants, the mall, a playground, picnic tables and information signs,” says Katherine. “It was a great spot in a town that I had never even heard of before. If I was in a gas car, I would have filled up on the highway and probably just kept going.”
EV chargers are located by the Terrace Bay Lighthouse Lookout on Highway 17, which is near Terrace Bay Beach. Photo credits: Ontario’s Superior Country and Deana Renaud.
The experience got Katherine thinking about not just how to undertake her cross-Canada trip in an EV, but also what could make it better than what travellers in a gas car would experience.
“The cross-Canada EV road trip is certainly doable,” says Katherine. “But I started thinking—how can we make it fun, and how can it benefit the local community?”
Making EV charging work for the local community
Maximizing local benefits from EV-charging has been a priority for CEA for more than a decade. In 2014, we were part of a regional effort in the Kootenays to add charging stations across the region, largely to ensure communities could attract EV-driving tourists. Since then, CEA has worked with local governments, Indigenous communities, utilities, tourism and economic development organizations, and multiple levels of government in Ontario, Alberta, and BC and facilitated the installation of nearly 250 charging ports from Fort Nelson in the north, to Tofino on Vancouver Island, to Grand Forks on the US border, to Medicine Hat in southeast Alberta.
“Rural communities tell us they want EV drivers to stay a while and experience their town, support their shops and restaurants, maybe even decide to stay overnight,” says Danielle Wiess, CEA’s Director of Transportation Initiatives. “They don’t want EV-travellers to get in and out as quickly as possible. They view EV-charging as a local economic development opportunity.”
For Katherine, her cross-Canada drive gave her a new appreciation for how something as mundane as charging her car could also contribute to making her trip memorable.
“We wanted to make a trip out of this—who knows when (or if) we’ll get the chance to do it again! I love outdoor activities and visiting museums and nature interpretive centres. I also look forward to trying new food—I’d much rather eat at a local restaurant than have fast food for the umpteenth time. This is where the opportunity for strategic charger placement—informed by locals—comes in.
“With all the talk these days of ‘nation-building’ projects, I can’t help but reflect on my recent cross-Canada adventure and recognize that we need more charging infrastructure in every community. And not just fast-chargers on the sides of highways, but also chargers in the places residents of those communities are most proud of. They know their town and the best places in them; wouldn’t it be great if those were also the places you would go to recharge your EV? What an amazing experience it would be, automatically experiencing the best of every community.”
To get started planning your community’s EV charging locations, take a read through these CEA resources.
Accessible Electric Vehicle (EV) Charging Stations Design Guidelines and Siting Criteria.
How to spot a great EV charging station
Great community EV-charging stations have a few common features:
- Close to washrooms and a wide-range of amenities such as food and recreation.
- They are easy to access in open, well-lit locations so that all users feel safe.
- They are smack-dab in the middle of what local residents would say is the best part of their community.
Three model examples from Accelerate Kootenays and Charge North
Fernie: located at City Hall which is ground zero for one of BC’s most scenic communities, close to great restaurants and services, cable management, and no grade to the charger
Quesnel: the heart of the community, right off the highway, beside the museum and info centre, and a stone’s throw from great recreation and retail, including the best cafe in town.
Burns Lake: New to town and don’t know what to do? Burns Lake’s EV charging hub has signage that depicts many nearby local amenities.
