He earned a BA in English Language and Literature from Victoria College at the University of Toronto in 1957, and began a teaching career in 1961 at the high school in Port Perry, Ontario.
Drew began to write seriously in high school and published a number of short stories (to magazines such as The Tamarack Review) and non-fiction pieces throughout his career, while also selling radio and film scripts.
While rooted in Northern Ontario, the story indicted modern industrial civilization as an extension of the European colonization of Canada by depicting an entire society's fall into ruin.
Many readers, though, surely know him better as the author of an ecological science fiction trilogy, the Erthring Cycle (1984-1986), and of several movie novelizations (Corvette Summer, Dragonslayer, *batteries not included, and Willow, the last three of which were translated into French and the second in German).
His non-fiction also reflected his concern for the environment and interest for Canadian landscapes, as seen in books such as Superior: The Haunted Shore and A Sea Within: the Gulf of St. Lawrence.