The Drone Transport Initiative is a partnership project co-created by Stellat’en First Nation, the Village of Fraser Lake, and the UBC Faculty of Medicine. Launched in 2020 to address medical supply chain disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Drone Transport Initiative has grown into one of Canada’s longest-running healthcare initiatives involving drone technology. Today, it continues to focus on enhancing access to essential medical supplies, and supporting community- and First Nations-led development in rural and remote areas of British Columbia.
“Through drone technology, we’re hoping to understand how we can positively influence getting medical supplies of a broad range to these communities.”
– Dr. John Pawlovich, Family Physician and Project Co-Sponsor
The Village of Fraser Lake, located on the unceded territories of the Nadleh Whut’en and Stellat’en First Nations.
Healthcare Access in Rural, Remote and Indigenous Communities
Canada’s vast geography poses unique challenges for healthcare access. In British Columbia, rugged mountains and remote coastal regions define the landscape, with about 22% of residents living in rural or remote communities spread across most of the province’s land mass. These lands are home to over 290,000 Indigenous peoples, nearly half of whom live in small population centres or rural areas (Statistics Canada, 2021). These realities make delivering timely, equitable care a significant priority and to Indigenous communities, a provincial commitment outlined in the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA).
For rural, remote and Indigenous communities, key healthcare access challenges include:
- Shortage of healthcare professionals, resulting in long wait times and limited continuity of care.
- Restricted access to specialized services, often requiring patients to travel great distances for appointments.
- Critical gaps in health infrastructure, such as reliable internet connectivity, diagnostic equipment, and facilities needed to support healthcare delivery.
Environmental Reporting BC. 2018. Trends in B.C.’s Population Size & Distribution. State of Environment Reporting, Ministry of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, British Columbia, Canada.
“In remote communities, the roads are not paved. There’s hardly any traffic going in and out. And a drone, that would help so many people. Now I don’t have to worry about getting my medicine. Now, it comes to me.”
– Marie Casimel, Stellat’en First Nation Elder
Bridging Inequities with Technology
Virtual health innovations such as telemedicine allow patients to connect with providers from the comfort of their homes. However, BC’s geography still creates barriers to accessing diagnostic tests and essential medicines. The Drone Transport Initiative helps bridge this gap by delivering critical supplies directly to rural and remote communities when other means of transportation are limited.
“The drone helps have community members stay at home, and that’s a big thing to them.”
– Chief Robert Michell, Stellat’en First Nation
More than Medicine
Rural communities contribute an estimated $84 billion annually to British Columbia’s economy through industries such as forestry, mining, energy, agriculture, and seafood. Despite contributing nearly 20% of BC’s GDP in 2024 (Statistics Canada), the 22% of the population that lives in rural, remote and First Nations communities face persistent challenges: limited access to services and transportation infrastructure, and limited capacity to respond to climate change events. The Drone Transport Initiative responds by strengthening supply chain resilience, advancing health equity, and fostering Indigenous-led innovation to create sustainable solutions for rural and remote regions.
Vision and Guiding Principles
Our work focuses on generating evidence and developing scalable technologies to enable safe, reliable, and equitable drone transport of medical supplies and critical goods to rural, remote, and Indigenous communities. Through the Drone Transport Initiative, we aim to build and evaluate an integrated drone logistics framework that informs provincial health policy and accelerates adoption of drone technology across Canada. Both within and beyond healthcare, this initiative delivers tangible benefits at the community level and contributes to broader conversations about technological innovation and economic development at provincial and national scales.
In the Drone Transport Initiative, we work to…
Co-create with communities and strengthen partnerships with researchers, industry, and government to deliver high-quality health services close to home.
Build community capacity and foster local economic development while ensuring the sustainable and responsible scaling of drone-enabled health solutions.
Expand the scope of drone technology beyond healthcare to support community priorities such as wildfire management, search and rescue, and economic development initiatives.
Implement robust evaluation and monitoring to generate actionable data and continuously improve services, while broadening the range of health and emergency resources available to communities.