North Vancouver · three electric vans, two big ones
Pick up at 4.
Wake up at Porteau.
Handover at four on a Thursday, an oceanfront site by five, dinner on the tailgate while it rains sideways. A rooftop tent you climb into from inside the van, forty litres of pumped water, and a kitchen that pulls out of the back on drawers.
- 50 min
- Driveway to Porteau Cove
- 3 + 2
- Electric for two, diesel for five
- 240–270 km
- Loaded electric range we stand behind
- 2 or 5
- Travel seats — we’ll say which first
- Electric vans: travels 2, camps 3
- /
- Large vans: travels 5, sleeps 4
- /
- Rig height 2.24 m / 2.74 m — no parkades
- /
- 40 L fresh · 20 L grey (electric)
- /
- No toilet
- /
- May – October
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Rooftop tent, ladder from inside
Two up top. Climb out of your bag, not out of the van.
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Silent overnight
No idle, no generator, no smell in the box. Heat pump standard.
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40 L pumped water
Real tap at the tailgate. 20 L grey, removable.
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Kitchen slides out
Hob and sink on drawers, out the tailgate. V2L powered.
Why we are here
Every camper van in Vancouver
depots in Delta.
Good operators, all of them. But the drive to collect a van in Richmond, in traffic, with a full kitchen and a hangry kid, eats the first day of a three-day trip. Then you drive over the Pattullo and back into the city you left, because the North Shore is where the mountains actually start.
We are five vans on the North Shore — three of them electric with a rooftop tent and a build log, two of them big enough for your actual family — and a phone number. You leave the driveway at 16:00 and you are at the water by 17:00. We are not the biggest, and we would rather be the ones who tell you the truth about a 4.7-metre van than the ones with the most reviews.
How a rental actually works
2,255 millimetres
The whole van is dictated by one number.
A full adult bed needs 1,900 mm. A two-person dinette needs 1,250. That is 3,150 mm of idea in 2,255 mm of van, and no amount of nice rendering changes the arithmetic. A transverse double bed wants 1,800 mm of width in a van that is 1,565 mm wide inside.
So we built the only version that is actually good: adults sleep on the roof, the interior is a real dinette with a real table, and the table drops into a child's bed. Cooking happens outside at the tailgate, which is where grease and condensation belong in a wet-weather van. It is not a compromise layout. It is the layout — for two people.
Meet the five vansThe electric three, in numbers
The electric three. Every number verified or marked pending. No adjectives.
- Travels
- 2
- two certified front seats
- Camps
- 3
- 2 in the roof tent + 1 child on the table bed
- Rig height
- 2.24 m
- no parkades
- Fresh water
- 40 L
- plus 20 L removable grey
- Real-world range
- 240–270 km
- loaded, tested figure pending van #1
- Toilet
- None
- portable cassette available
And if there are more of you
Two of the five are not this van. They are Sprinters.
Five travel seats, four berths, standing height inside and a diesel heater. Not electric — nothing in that size is electric in Canada without giving up the payload, the height or the price you would pay for it. We would rather run two honest diesels than sell you a two-seat van you cannot use.
The fleet
Five vans. Named. Known by.
Three built by us off one frozen PV5 spec, two bought as completed Sprinter conversions. Each van page lists where it deviates — including which one is still taking dents in our lane.
Cedar 01
Travels 2 · Sleeps 2 + 1 child
Electric
first night 15 May 2027
Basalt 02
Travels 2 · Sleeps 2 + 1 child
Electric
first night 1 June 2027
Tide 03
Travels 2 · Sleeps 2 + 1 child
Electric
first night 15 June 2027
Alder 04
Travels 5 · Sleeps 4 · standing height
Diesel · AWD
first night 1 June 2027
Larch 05
Travels 5 · Sleeps 4 · standing height
Diesel · AWD
first night 1 July 2027
Where to go in it
Routes planned around the charger gaps.
Every route lists where you charge and how full to arrive, because three of our vans need that plan. Take one of the big two and the arithmetic stops mattering — which is honestly one of the two things the Sprinters buy you.
Porteau Cove & Cates Bay
The one-night test. Fifty minutes of highway, then oceanfront sites where the tide comes up to your door and the only noise is water.
2 charge stops noted · arrive with 45%
Sea-to-Sky, Duffey Lake & Joffre
The Highway 99 climb, the tree wall at Callaghan, then the long gravel shoulder of Duffey Lake. Two nights, one hard hike, one very good dinner.
4 charge stops noted · arrive with 60%
Sunshine Coast & Desolation Sound
Two ferries, one tide-dependent marine park, and the slowest four days available within a day's drive of the North Shore.
4 charge stops noted · arrive with 85%
Rates
One price. Kilometres not counted.
Unlimited kilometres in BC and Alberta, on all five. Bedding, kitchen, chairs, bear can and child restraints are in the van, not in a package you upgrade into. What you pay for separately is the road itself: charging or diesel, campsites, ferries.
Rates, extras and the fine printThe electric three
Low
May · October
Cold water, empty campsites, the best light of the year.
$185 / night
2-night minimum
Shoulder
June · September
$225 / night
2-night minimum
Peak
July · August
Book the campground before the van. Then the van.
$275 / night
3-night minimum
The two big ones
Low
May · October
$265 / night
2-night minimum
Shoulder
June · September
$325 / night
2-night minimum
Peak
July · August
$385 / night
3-night minimum
Taxes extra. $500 refundable deposit on the electric vans, $1,000 on the Sprinters. Nothing here is a "from" price designed to be impossible to actually book.
01 · the mule
Cedar gets cut first
One van takes every penetration — the roof opening, the water fill, the awning brackets — so vans two to five are a production run instead of five arguments. Expect a quarter of it to be rebuilt. We will film it.
02 · the numbers
362 kg of fit-out, 740 kg of payload
The electric build, weighed. Interior plus tent plus rack plus two adults and a weekend of gear lands at 582 kg, with 158 kg of margin. The roof is the tight one: 68 kg of a published 100 kg, which is exactly why the awning lives on the body. The Sprinters get the same treatment at pickup — weighed loaded, per van, before their first rental.
03 · the paperwork
Two seats, until it is engineered
In the small vans. A bench bolted into a cargo van is not a passenger seat, and we are not carrying anyone on one — CMVSS 207/209/210 and a BC designated inspection are the real project behind it. The answer today is not a better bench: it is Alder and Larch, five factory belts, bought that way on purpose.
Check dates
Three small, two big — pick the one you need.
There is no booking engine yet — you are not swiping a card on a website that launched last week. Pick your dates and your van, we answer within a day with the vehicle, the campground reality and the honest plan for your route.
- Season
- May 15 – Oct 31, 2027
- Min nights
- 2 · 3 in July/August
- Pickup
- North Van, 16–18 Thu–Sun
- The electric three — Kia PV5 Cargo Plus. Two adults, a rooftop tent you climb into from inside, and a kitchen on drawers out the tailgate. Built by us, on the North Shore.
- The two big ones — Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 2500 AWD, high roof. Standing height, four real berths, five seat belts and a diesel heater. Bought as conversions, not built by us — and they are diesel, which we would rather tell you now.