Vern Simpson was born in Penticton, British Columbia, in the dry sagebrush country of the South Okanagan. After graduation - with a painting and graphics double major from the University of British Columbia - he toured Europe with a backpack and wood block chisels. Wintering in Ibiza, Spain, Vern created a successful series of prints that helped extend his tour to Scandinavia and then back to Britain and Ireland.

He returned to Canada to teach for 10 months in Prince George, completing a group of expressionist landscapes of spruce forests, sawmills, and a mix of raw industrial landscapes on the edge of the northern frontier. The paintings, in an international competition, won Vern a scholarship to the Institute Allende in Mexico. His graduation thesis was the large historical mural Independencia - a homage to the Revolution of 1810 - painted on the wall of the main office.