Don Wright was a photographer and writer for the BCIT student newspaper the Link from 1976 (while a student at BCIT) until the 1980s after graduation. A long-time Vancouver resident, Wright is currently the Regional Activism Coordinator for Amnesty International.

Vickers was born on the Nass River but raised in Kitkatla, Hazelton, British Columbia, and Victoria, B.C. His father was a fisherman who was matrilineally Tsimshian, also with Haida and Heiltsuk ancestry. His mother was a schoolteacher whose parents had emigrated from England and who was in the 1940s adopted into the Eagle clan at Kitkatla, B.C. (making Roy also Eagle). His grandfather was a Kitkatla canoe-carver. The paintings and works that he has created reflect this mixed heritage as his work has many elements of the traditional art of the First Nations peoples of the Pacific Northwest, but remains quite distinctive.

Vickers became interested in Northwest Coast art partly under the influence of the anthropologist Wilson Duff.

His work has been the official gift of the Province of British Columbia to visiting foreign leaders several times. In 1987 the original of his painting A Meeting of Chiefs was the official gift to Queen Elizabeth II and in 1993 artist's proofs of his print The Homecoming were the Province's gift to Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin.

Vickers has been the artistic advisor to several events in British Columbia. In 1994 he was the artistic advisor to the architects and designers of the 1994 Commonwealth Games. For the Games Vickers also created more than 20 totem poles. Also, from 1987 to 1995, Vickers was the artistic advisor for the Vancouver International Airport's new terminal. Some of his work is prominently displayed there for travellers to admire.

Once a substance abuser, in 1992 he created VisionQuest, a non-profit organization designed to help individuals with addictive personalities.