Ed Hill was born in Paris, Ontario, moving to Peterborough, Ontario at a very young age. At 20 he joined the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and in 1969 he found himself posted to Surrey, British Columbia. He had studied art at the high school level only, but his youthful dream of becoming a productive professional artist didn’t take shape until the mid 1980’s. Over the years Ed continually dabbled and experimented with various art forms. In the summer of 1985 Hill and his family were posted to Tofino, British Columbia where he met and befriended renowned west coast artist Roy Henry Vickers. Ed’s interest in Vickers’ art and techniques meant that the two became fast friends. Hill became a student of Vickers. Hill spent many hours watching, questioning and listening before ever putting brush to paper in the Vickers’ style. After tutoring and encouragement from Vickers did he produce his first limited edition print entitled “Old Man”. The two men shared a great interest in the wilderness, fishing, native culture and their art. Hill is inspired by the awesome beauty, power and energy of British Columbia as a landscape.
Hill has retired from the RCMP to Gibsons BC. He continue to create art and be inspired by the West Coast.

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.