Maurits Van der Veen was born in Shanghai, China. He spent his early teens in a Japanese Internment camp and was repatriated to Holland after the surrender of Japan. He completed secondary school, served with the Dutch Air Force then emigrated to Canada. In Canada, he took a variety of jobs, from mucker in a mine in Mayo, Yukon, to personnel clerk in Kemano, B.C. He moved on, signing up as a seaman, on an American freighter delivering grain to Japan, and later, as a purser on a small coastal freighter delivering freight up the coast of British Columbia. He attended the University of British Columbia School of Social Work, and worked as a field social worker for the Province of B.C. Later, he became the Director of Welfare for the Yukon Territory. He moved south to B.C. again and worked for the Federal Department of Corrections from where he eventually retired as warden of a Federal penitentiary. He lives in Vancouver during the summer and spends the winter months in southern California.