Birthdays are a good time for reflection. A time to think about what we accomplished over the past year. For those in the business of wood, Canada’s 150th year was full of ups and downs. The softwood lumber trade dispute between Canada and the U.S. took an expected turn for the worse in April when the U.S. announced preliminary countervailing duties of 19.88 per cent on most Canadian lumber producers; some were higher, some lower. …Plans to protect Canada’s dwindling number of caribou also made waves in the latter part of the year. …In B.C. wildfires set a new record for damage, consuming an estimated 53 million cubic metres of timber. …A major announcement came in September when the Canadian Council of Forest Ministers unanimously supported a forest bioeconomy framework to increase and ramp up bio-based projects in Canada.