The author of several books on the flora and landscape of the Pacific Northwest, Lyons is best known for his popular and widely cited botanical field guides.

[1] Lyons grew up in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia and in 1938 became a forestry engineer at a time when the Parks Branch was part of the B.C.

His four-month expedition produced the first maps of the new Park and he established about a quarter of its current place names, all carefully researched to remember settlers, prospectors, explorers, forest rangers, and other people who had lived and worked in the Clearwater Valley.

Lyons persuaded the Summerland Agricultural Research Station to part with some federal land along Okanagan Lake which became the popular parks of Sun-Oka Beach, Pyramid, Kickininee, and Soorimpt.

British Columbia travellers in the 1960s and 1970s remember the "Garbage Gobblers" at many viewpoints; Lyons designed these concrete green and yellow figures with big white teeth and a sign "Please Feed Me".

[2] Starting in the late 1960s, Lyons became a well-known outdoors photographer with frequent appearances on the CBC nature show, Klahanie.

As a film lecturer for the National Audubon Society and the World Around Us travel series, he brought British Columbia to audiences in many North American cities.