Tesla Wants to Build a Supercharger Above the Arctic Circle in Inuvik

Tesla has approached the Town of Inuvik in the Northwest Territories about building a Supercharger on town-owned land, about 200 km north of the Arctic Circle, and town council has voted to keep the talks going.

The details are in a request for council decision, RFCD 2026-061 in the town’s August 10 and 12 council package, as spotted by MarcoRP on X. It says the station would have two to four charging stalls and operate 24 hours a day, year-round. Tesla would install and maintain the equipment and may also add solar panels and an energy storage system, while the town would handle regular site maintenance, including snow clearing. The proposed license would start with a 10-year term once the station is operating, followed by automatic five-year renewals unless the agreement is ended, and Tesla is proposing to pay the town $200 per month in rent.

Staff had identified the Inuvik Gateway Welcome Sign property at 25 Carn Street as a possible location, with other town-owned sites that get winter maintenance also on the table. The town’s Public Works and Protective Services Committee discussed the proposal on July 7 and supported continuing. On August 12, council carried a motion directing staff “to continue discussions and due diligence with Tesla Motors Canada ULC regarding a proposed Tesla Supercharger station at the Midnight Sun Complex,” according to the meeting minutes in the September 9 council package. Council was not asked to approve an agreement. Staff still have to review site suitability, accessibility, utilities, insurance, maintenance, and legal and operational risks, then return with a final agreement or recommendation before anything is signed.

MarcoRP’s reaction was “This can’t possibly be real.” His second screenshot, a Google Maps route from Inuvik south into northern Alberta, shows why it caught his eye: 2,718 km and roughly 33 hours of driving. There are no Superchargers in the Northwest Territories or Yukon today. The closest one in Canada is in Grande Prairie, Alberta, and the nearest overall is in Fairbanks, Alaska, about 1,400 km away by road.

Driving to Inuvik means taking the Dempster Highway, a mostly gravel road that runs north from the Klondike Highway near Dawson City. Since 2017, the 138 km Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway has carried traffic the rest of the way to the Arctic Ocean. EV owners have done it anyway, including one Tesla driver who drove to the Arctic Ocean in winter by leaning on locals and highway maintenance yards for power.

Inuvik had 3,137 residents in the 2021 census, and every driver heading up the highway to Tuktoyaktuk passes right through town. The council report nods to that, noting the station “may also support visitor services and electric vehicle tourism.” For a town that already plows a lot of snow, adding one more lot to the route may be the easy part.

Tesla has been filling in northern gaps in its Supercharger network lately. It opened new sites in Terrace and Vanderhoof in northern B.C. in September, and Tok, Alaska, near the Yukon border, was named a Supercharger voting winner in May. An Inuvik site would sit a long way from any of them, and the town’s report leaves room for Tesla to bring its own solar panels and energy storage.

Would you take a Tesla up the Dempster if there were a Supercharger waiting in Inuvik?