Patrick Lane was born in Nelson, British Columbia, Canada, on March 26, 1939. He has no formal education beyond high school in Vernon, B.C. From 1957 to 1968 with his young wife, Mary, he raised three children, Mark, Christopher, and Kathryn, and began working at a variety of jobs, from common labourer, truck driver, Cat skinner, chokerman, boxcar loader, Industrial First-Aid Man in the northern bush, to clerk at a number of sawmills in the Interior of British Columbia. He has been a salesman, office manager, and an Industrial Accountant.