Marian Penner Bancroft was born in Chilliwack, B.C. Educated at the University of British Columbia, the Vancouver School of Art and Ryerson University, Bancroft has worked primarily in the medium of photography since the early Seventies. Bancroft's early project, Lost Streams, charted the "invisible veins"; of water systems that in turn attest to the shifting face of the landscape under increasingly urban conditions. Also during the 1970s, she created a series of black & white images entitled For Dennis and Susan: Running Arms to a Civil War that centered upon friend and fellow artist Dennis Wheeler's battle with leukemia. Her published series, By Land and Sea (Prospect and Refuge) (Presentation House Gallery, 2000) addresses the migration of Bancroft's familial ancestors from Scotland and the Ukraine.