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All-Inuit drone company showcases technology at Nunavut Trade Show

Published 8:46 am Tuesday, September 22, 2026

By William Koblensky Varela Local Journalism Initiative Northern News Service

An animation of a helicopter flying over Iqaluit shooting at adversaries in the four-corners intersection plays at the Arctic UAV booth during the Nunavut Trade Show in the Arctic Winter Games Arena.

The realistic visuals of the city were mapped out by the all-Inuit drone company.

“We are working to use our drone maps for video games, for small films, for animated projects,” said Arctic UAV founder Kirt Ejesiak.

The business creates digital maps of Nunavut’s land and sea for governments.

Infrastructure planning is aided by Arctic UAV’s high-flying surveys, Ejesiak explained.

“The GN actually had an ambitious project to try to capture drone data for all of Nunavut, which, kudos to them. We’ve sold tons of data to the Nunavut government, and it was their planning department. We’re assuming that they’re using it for all the community projects,” he said.

Arctic UAV’s prices are tailored to government customers, as the drone industry is highly regulated and requires safety protocols. But assisting private property development is in the company’s plans for the future.

“To get a permit to develop your property is a bit of a pain,” said Ejesiak. “You need to figure out where your pins [property boundaries] are. You need to, you know, get a permit plan, a plot plan. So we’ve developed an app to automate that.”

Sister company Sedna ROV maps the sea using underwater drones.

The company got a $4.5-million contract from the federal government in April for underwater environmental and military surveys of the Arctic. With that contract, the company was able to buy a massive underwater drone.

“We were just in Halifax training on it. It’s a 40-foot unmanned surface vehicle. So that system, we actually got work in Churchill, basically to do ocean bathymetry [measuring depths],” Ejesiak said. “Our goal is to train Inuit hydrographers [ocean map makers], so we actually are training two people now.”

Arctic UAV and Sedna ROV are the first Indigenous companies in Canada to own a large unmanned vessel, according to Ejesiak.

Following a successful test over the weekend, Arctic UAV became the first in Canada to use a drone to carry a heavy lift drill.

Ejesiak hopes the two companies can offer emergency response, mining assistance and defence capabilities in the future.

“We’re on the ground. We are also hunters, harvesters. Basically, we need to be able to get from point A to point B without getting into trouble. We could save groups tons of time and money,” he said.