Can You Charge an EV at Canadian Campgrounds? We Checked 77 Parks Coast to Coast

March 20, 2026

We crossed the border. Fifty-two Canadian parks across seven new provinces, from Manitoba to Newfoundland, plus a big Ontario expansion. The numbers tell a clear story: 73% of Canadian parks with published policies welcome EV drivers in some form, compared to 58% in the US. Parks Canada deserves a lot of the credit.

Total Parks Added

✅ Charging Allowed

🔌 Charging Stations

Highlights This Month

Seven new provinces join the directory: Manitoba, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Labrador, plus a big Ontario expansion. Canada now has 77 parks across 10 provinces
Parks Canada is the story. Tesla donated Level 2 chargers to 27+ national parks and historic sites back in 2019, and they are still running, free to use. From Grasslands in the Saskatchewan prairie to Cape Breton Highlands on the Atlantic coast, every Parks Canada site in this batch has charging stations
Prince Edward Island National Park has 27 chargers spread across six locations. For an island you can drive across in three hours, that is remarkable coverage
Sunset View Campground in New Brunswick charges $0.50/kWh for its Level 2 stations and threatens a $250 fine plus immediate removal if you plug into a campsite pedestal. The carrot and the stick, all in one policy
New Brunswick's provincial parks run NB Power eCharge stations at parks like Mactaquac and New River Beach, part of a 2018 government initiative. When a province commits at the policy level, every park benefits
Georgian Bay Park in Ontario does something we have not seen before: they reduce your site fee by 5% if you book a metered pull-through for EV charging, then bill actual hydro usage at market rates. Transparent, fair, and they are actually incentivizing EV drivers to book the right sites

Trends & Insights

→The numbers are in, and Canada is more EV-friendly than the US. Across 77 Canadian parks, 73% allow charging in some form (campsite or stations). Across 305 US parks, that number is 58%. That is a 15-point gap. The difference is not vibes, it is infrastructure: Canadian national and provincial park systems invested in dedicated charging stations at scale, while American parks are still making decisions one campground at a time
→Canada leans heavily toward dedicated stations over campsite charging. Only 6.5% of Canadian parks allow campsite charging compared to 18% in the US. But 66% offer dedicated stations versus 40% stateside. The Canadian approach is more controlled: here is a charger in the parking lot, do not touch the pedestal. The US has more of the "plug in at your site" openness, for better or worse
→KOA is even more restrictive in Canada than in the US. Fifteen of 17 Canadian KOAs prohibit charging outright, using identical boilerplate language about pedestal damage. Only Niagara Falls KOA and Grande Prairie KOA have stations. In the US, a growing number of KOAs are adding dedicated chargers. Canadian KOAs have not gotten the memo
→Quebec's SEPAQ park system is a quiet powerhouse. Twelve national parks, every single one with Level 2 chargers, using the Circuit electrique network. Mont-Tremblant alone has eight stations. No other provincial park system in either country matches that consistency
→Riding Mountain National Park offers free Tesla-donated chargers at the Wasagaming waterfront, while Grand Marais gives you three free hours. Manitoba is small in park count but generous in approach