Patricia Roppel was born in Ellensburg, Washington, to dairy farmers. Pat remembers the Nome photographs on the wall of her Uncle Moses’ cabin in Ellensburg, where they darkened over the years from the soot and smoke from his [coal] stove. Pat attended Ellensburg High School and graduated from Oregon State College in 1960. In 1959, she married Frank Roppel of Ketchikan, Alaska, who worked in the timber industry from 1956 to 2002. Pat taught high school and middle school English and home economics until 1965; then she retired from teaching to raise two children and to work as an editor and a management consultant. Pat began writing for magazines in about 1962, and she went on to author numerous books about mining, fishing, wilderness, and the history of Southeast Alaska. In her book, Alaska’s Salmon Hatcheries, 1891-1959, Pat traces the growth and development of Alaska's salmon hatcheries in the face of prevailing anti-conservation attitudes. According to a review by the Alaska Historical Commission, the central theme focuses on “the roles played by the federal government and the salmon industry in using fisheries regulations and artificial propagation to counter the adverse effects of commercial fishing on fish stocks and prevent the depletion and destruction of the Alaska salmon fishery." Other books by Patricia Roppel include the following: Striking it Rich!: Gold Mining in Southern Southeast Alaska; Fortunes from the Earth: A history of the Base and Industrial Minerals of Southeast Alaska; Salmon from Kodiak: A History of the Salmon Fishery of Kodiak Island, Alaska; and, Southeast Alaska: A Pictorial History.