Tundra Buggies prove an EV is cool

"If you' re not introducing new elements, the next step is decline."

John Gunter, President and CEO of Frontiers North Adventures, could be talking about survival in general. But what he's actually talking about is the evolution of the Tundra Buggy tour to become more climate-friendly by converting the big trucks from diesel engines to electric. The Tundra Buggy tour is a popular tourist attraction in Churchill, Manitoba where tourists get to safely experience wildlife like polar bears, travelling in specially-designed all-terrain vehicles. The Tundra Buggies hold up to 40 people. This, already, is more environmentally friendly than if visitors were all travelling these trails in separate vehicles. The trails they follow were first created by the military in the 1950s. Sticking to these trails helps prevent further damage to the tundra ecosystem. Recent climate change has resulted in Arctic warming and is well documented and changing the habits of wildlife that live there. John Gunter is forever taking note, making connections, and always looking ahead. He knew that making the Tundra Buggies more environmentally friendly was just good sense.

"We knew we needed to address the carbon emissions to maintain our certifications," Gunther says. "These environmental measures didn't exist in the early days -- Frontiers North opened in 1987 and the Tundra Buggy tour began in the late 90s. But we recognize things change and we do want to leave things better than how we found them. Our guests assume we're going to be good corporate citizens and do the right thing. In fact, we're the first B-corp in Canada in the travel and tourism industry. We're just in the process of recertifying our B-corp accreditation, and I'm pleased to say we've improved by 15 to 20 points."

Frontiers North knew they needed a partner and approached RRC Polytechnic to see how they could convert the diesel engines to electric.

"RRC Polytech graciously came to Churchill in 2018 and installed data loggers on our machines to define how much power we needed to go that distance in a day. They did a feasibility study and came up with a recommendation on what we would need for batteries and what we would need for electric motors. They did this in an academic setting, and then our engineers used a completely different methodology -- but we both came up with about the same answers. Some of what we've done with the operating system and the transmission is unique to our application. We're buying batteries, electric motors, and motor controllers, but the difference has been the integration of all these technologies together. I'm pleased with how it went. I wouldn't have done it any differently."

"Anyone looking to do a similar conversion, I would caution them that this is not something you can do overnight. It was a major commitment that took 5 years. It's an extension of what we were already doing anyway -- trying to incorporate sustainable and regenerative business practices. Regenerative is a keyword there, because it goes back to that idea of leaving something better than how we found it."

"The community thought the upgrade was cool. We've taken technologies that already worked in, say, California, and adapted them to our specific application. The cool part about working with an operating system for your vehicle is that a lot of these changes can be applied retroactively through the updates to the software. Just like how you'd install updates on a phone. But here we're improving the braking, or improving acceleration. It's a completely different situation from working with a diesel engine. On days here when you can't get a gas or diesel vehicle started, our EV tundra buggies can burn doughnuts around them!"

Sub-zero temperatures didn't just impact the engine but the interior heating as well. Historically Tundra Buggies interior climate was air heated with propane stoves. Gunther says, "We updated to diesel-fired distributed radiant heat, but we have phased out diesel propulsion. In fact we've reduced our diesel consumption by 95%!"

Gunther is definite about the important role the Conservation and Climate Fund played in enabling them to convert the vehicles to electric. "During the pandemic we ground to a halt. So when the fund became available, we were excited that with it we'd be able to develop our EV Tundra Buggy prototype. It kept us going."

On wider green initiatives Gunther says: "Another sustainable challenge we plan to tackle is food waste. Working with our suppliers, whether it's airlines, hotels, to determine how we can streamline our business processes. For instance, is that take-out container compostable? We want to use our buying power to influence our suppliers to make decisions that the market is going to accept." More proof John Gunter believes in the long term benefits of green changes: "An EV is inexpensive. It's clean. Just having a silent touring experience amongst these wild polar bears under the northern lights is pretty flippin' cool."