Articles

Wood construction: North American tradition.

Trees contribute greatly to the quality of life in Canada and around the world.

Through the ages and still today, trees provide building materials for shelter from the elements. They provide an essential function in balancing oxygen and carbon dioxide in the earth’s atmosphere.

Before the arrival of European settlers to North America, aboriginal peoples used poles and skins to build shelter and logs to build lodges. Early European settlers used logs to build all types of buildings. Initial construction of North America’s transcontinental railways would not have been possible without the use of timbers to construct bridges and trestles.

Today, a wide range of high quality and innovative wood building materials are manufactured. Their performance and relative economy means wood products are unrivalled as the principle structural materials for residential construction. They are also used extensively for the construction of commercial and public buildings.

In North America, wood products dominate the framing and sheathing of the residential construction market. There are also many examples of public, commercial, and industrial buildings which have been constructed using wood products as the principle structural material.