George Dyson is the son of English physicist Freeman J. Dyson and Swiss mathematician Verena Huber-Dyson. He was born in Ithaca, New York in 1953.

He left home at age 16, moving to British Columbia to build canoes, explore the Northwest Coast, and make his home in a treehouse at a height of 95 feet.

In 1978 his resurrection of the baidarka, or Aleut kayak, was contrasted with his father's design for an interplanetary spacecraft in Kenneth Brower's dual biography, The Starship and the Canoe.

He lives in Bellingham, WA.