As Halloween approaches, a walk through the forest can feel a little mysterious. Fallen trees stretch across the forest floor, twisted branches emerge from piles of leaves, and hollow logs sit in the shadows. At first glance, it might look like something out of a spooky story. But don’t be fooled. What may appear lifeless or messy is actually one of the most important parts of a healthy forest ecosystem. …Known as downed woody debris, these fallen pieces of wood may appear lifeless, but they are far from it. …Downed wood provides habitat for wildlife, supports food webs and helps maintain healthy soil. …What looks like just a decaying log is actually a busy hub of activity. Beetles, ants, spiders and other insects move through the wood as it breaks down, creating an important food source for many forest animals. …This Halloween, when you spot a fallen tree … take a closer look. What may seem spooky, messy or forgotten is helping support wildlife, insects, fungi and healthy forest soils. …In nature, appearances can be deceiving. A healthy forest doesn’t always look tidy.
Canada’s first robotic roof truss manufacturing line is located in Huron County, Ontario. “The robotics go slower than human beings, but they’re consistent,” said the Founder and President of Atlas Engineered Products, Hadi Abassi. Abassi bought Clinton Truss in 2018, with the idea of revolutionizing how roof trusses were built in Canada. Two years ago, he started construction of this $20 million facility in Vanastra, Ont., to robotically manufacture roof trusses, streamlining the production process from start to finish. “And not just trusses. We have the same system, and same vision for the component construction, for the walls section and floor sections,” said Abassi. With 10 factories across Canada, Abassi aims to build homes piece by piece, and deliver them to construction sites across North America, speeding up the on-site home construction process. …Helping to enable the expansion in Vanastra, a $4 million grant from Natural Resources Canada’s Forestry Innovation Support Program.
CLINTON, Ontario
THUNDER BAY — The Ontario government is investing more than $2.5 million to advance major upgrades at Thunder Bay Pulp and Paper, as well as two additional projects in Northwestern Ontario that will increase the industry’s use of mill by-products and underused forest biomass. The upgrades will help increase the forest sector’s production and capacity, protecting over 700 direct jobs and more than 3,350 indirect jobs. This Forest Biomass Program funding is part of the government’s plan to protect Ontario forestry workers. …Ontario is investing more than $2.4 million to plan boiler and chemical plant upgrades at Thunder Bay Pulp and Paper, a critical anchor mill in Northwestern Ontario’s forest economy. …AUX Energy is receiving $92,500 to develop plans for a biomass-powered generator project that will increase energy security in Fort Frances. …Weyerhaeuser is receiving $32,650 for a study of production line upgrades to reduce costs while improving efficiency and product quality.
MONTREAL — Stella-Jones announced financial results for its third quarter ended September 30, 2026. …Sales for the third quarter of 2026 increased to $979 million, up from $958 million in the same period last year driven by continued volume growth in wood utility poles and a strong contribution from the acquisition of Brooks Manufacturing. Gross profit was $168 million, or 17.2% of sales, in the third quarter of 2026, compared to $188 million, or 19.6% in the corresponding period last year. …Net income for the third quarter of 2026 was $51 million versus net income of $88 million in the corresponding period of 2025. …”Sales gains were largely offset by an unfavourable wood utility pole product mix, temporary downtime related the ramp-up of the steel structures capacity expansion project in Candiac, and a pricing lag in residential lumber,” said Eric Vachon, President and CEO of Stella-Jones.
EDMUNDSTON, New Brunswick – Acadian Timber reported financial and operating results1 for the three months ended September 26, 2026. During the third quarter, Acadian generated sales of $24.0 million compared to $23.0 million in the third quarter of 2025. Acadian generated $4.4 million of net income, $5.0 million of Adjusted EBITDA and $3.3 million of Free Cash Flow during the third quarter. The Board of Directors declared dividends of $5.4 million, or $0.29 per share, to our shareholders. Acadian’s balance sheet remains solid with $16.4 million of net liquidity as at September 26, 2026, which includes funds available under our credit facilities. …For the nine months ended September 26, 2026 timber sales and services were $62.0 million, $3.0 million lower than the same period of 2025. …”The changes that we made in Maine are paying off, with higher volumes and lower costs driving significantly stronger Adjusted EBITDA,” said Malcolm Cockwell, Interim CEO. 
At a time when Canada and the U.S. are struggling to address severe housing affordability challenges, the tariff war is pushing construction costs in both countries in precisely the wrong direction. While government leaders on both sides of the border have repeatedly pledged to increase housing supply, lower costs and make homeownership more attainable, escalating tariffs and counter-tariffs on both the residential and industrial, commercial and institutional (ICI) construction industry are having the exact opposite effect. …Developers are already grappling with persistent labour shortages, elevated interest rates, soaring land prices, development charges and regulatory hurdles. Added to that list is now a new and destabilizing force: tariffs on key construction materials and building components that are essential to housing projects. …Every tariff imposed somewhere in the supply chain eventually leads to higher prices. That matters because the Canadian and American construction industries are deeply integrated. 
TORONTO — A new report says Ontario’s housing market is expected to improve “modestly” next year as favourable economic conditions help push buyers off the sidelines, though higher borrowing costs could dull the extent of the rebound. Desjardins senior economist Kari Norman said the province’s housing sector “is in the midst of a striking contradiction.” Her report called the market “weak” despite improved affordability, greater buyer choice and easing rental conditions. The forecast predicts existing home sales will rise nearly five per cent in 2027 compared with this year, driven by lower prices, rising disposable incomes, policy supports for first‑time buyers and some release of pent‑up demand. But activity would still be well below long‑term norms, the report noted, while balanced market conditions should lead to average price growth of 2.4 per cent next year. The analysis said the interest rate backdrop will likely remain challenging.
Halifax will see greater support for housing development after the province announced it will remove barriers to improve growth. “Nova Scotia needs more housing, and these changes help build it. They support new housing in rural communities, make it easier to use new building approaches like mass timber and improve emergency access for existing communities,” said John White, Minister of Housing. …On Oct. 28, the province announced it will amend the Minimum Planning Requirement Regulations under the Halifax Regional Municipality Charter. This means strengthening a rule allowing residential housing in all zones unless specifically excluded. The changes underscore the importance of residential buildings in zones where hotels or other overnight accommodations are allowed to exist. It also require HRM to remove certain design requirements that can be a barrier to building mass timber residential buildings up to 12 storeys using modern methods. HRM must adopt the changes by Jan.15, 2027.
Northwestern Ontario has an abundance of hardwood. That’s what the hosts of an inbound Scandinavian trade mission are promoting in Thunder Bay this week in an attempt to attract offshore investment and new manufacturing to the region’s forest sector. The Northwestern Ontario Innovation Centre will be the venue for the trade mission, Oct. 5-7, that is drawing select companies from Canada and the Nordic countries. The innovation centre, the Thunder Bay Community Economic Development Commission and the Centre for Research and Innovation in the Bio-Economy (CRIBE) are funding and orchestrating this gathering, which will feature a predominant Swedish contingent from as many as seven companies. …CRIBE CEO Scott Jackson said they won’t be shy about drawing attention to underutilized poplar and white birch in the northwest. CRIBE laid out the opportunity and value proposition 
As Canada’s 2026 wildfire season closed having scorched roughly 4.5 million hectares and forced 33,750 people from their homes — making it the country’s fourth-worst fire season on record — researchers in Montréal and Ottawa announced an AI tool that compresses months of hazard computation into hours. On October 23, Mila — the Québec Artificial Intelligence Institute — and the forestry division of Natural Resources Canada jointly announced an AI emulator designed to slot into Canada’s existing wildfire hazard workflow as a radically faster alternative to BurnP3+, the country’s established physics-based simulator. Depending on the hardware it runs on, the model operates between 800 and 3,400 times faster than BurnP3+, according to 
The Lac Simon Anishnabe Nation has filed a lawsuit against the federal government, arguing its failure to protect the caribou from the impacts of mining and forestry threatens their members’ constitutional rights. Since 2020, the last seven caribou of the Val-d’Or herd have lived in a 14-hectare forested enclosure in northwest Quebec. …The Val-d’Or caribou herd faces imminent extinction in Quebec as its habitat is fragmented by industry, with only one-third of its habitat intact. Though the caribou are listed under the federal Species At Risk Act, the nation says the government has focused on consultation rather than action, leaving the caribou vulnerable to the threat of ongoing environmental degradation. The Anishnabe Nation of Lac Simon argues its constitutional right to hunt relies on the continued existence of the caribou herd. If successful, the case could set a precedent at a crucial time when endangered species face escalating risks from major projects across Canada.
The Nature Conservancy of Canada says it has acquired 814 square kilometres of boreal forest and peatlands south of Kapuskasing, previously owned by a company selling carbon offset credits. The non-profit says where the landscape is healthy and free of vulnerable species, some day-use recreational activities such as hiking and paddling may continue, in line with provincial laws. The federal government says it’s contributing $13 million to the project as part of a total $64-million investment from both public and private donors. The announcement comes ahead of next week’s annual United Nations biodiversity summit, where the talks are expected to focus on global progress toward conservation goals. Ottawa unveiled a new $3.8-billion nature protection strategy earlier this year intended to put Canada’s goals within reach, months after the federal environmental watchdog found it to be more than one-million square kilometres short of its 2025 goal to protect 25 per cent of its lands and inland water.
FREDERICTON, NB — …The Honourable Tim Hodgson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, announced an investment of up to $50 million for the establishment of the New Brunswick Strategic Innovation Centre in Digital Forestry, an initiative led by the Northern Hardwoods Research Institute in collaboration with ResearchNB. …The new Centre will establish a pilot for digitalizing the forest sector, helping the industry and its stakeholders better identify, track and use fibre resources across the supply chain. By increasing certainty of fibre supply and matching that fibre supply to facilities’ specific manufacturing requirements, the initiative would modernize the forest products sector in New Brunswick and create a model for other regions — attracting investment, reducing costs and improving operational efficiency for businesses. The digital infrastructure will place New Brunswick at the forefront of innovation and support the long-term resilience of Canada’s forest industry. Minister Hodgson confirmed that Budget 2026 will contain further details related to the federal forest sector strategy. 
NEW BRUNSWICK — Ken Thomas has been harvesting lumber from forests in Stanley for over 32 years. …But these days, he’s consumed with the thought of what to do next, when he pulls these 20-foot logs out of the forest and looks for a buyer, now that his longtime purchaser is pulling out of the game — at least temporarily. Earlier this month, the AV Nackawic mill announced it will temporarily shut down at the end of October. The mill owner, AV Group, had already stopped purchasing wood in August. …If the Nackawic mill closes permanently, there will be about 257,000 hectares of Crown land licensed to AV Group that will be up for grabs. …In the meantime, while the province decides the next steps for the licence, Herron has allowed the mixed hardwood cut and grown for the Nackawic mill to be exempt from regulations keeping it in the province.
HURKETT — The Ontario government is investing over $1.1 million in five projects that will increase Indigenous participation in forestry and build a stronger, more resilient forest sector. As part its plan to protect Ontario, the government is fighting back against unjustified U.S. tariffs and economic attacks by making strategic investments through the Forest Biomass Program that will support economic development and clean energy projects to help the forestry sector increase productivity and capacity, with the long-term potential to create over 200 good-paying jobs in the sector. …Since launching the Forest Biomass Program in 2023, Ontario has invested close to $5 million in 22 projects under the Indigenous Bioeconomy Partnerships funding stream. The government’s latest investments will build a more resilient forest sector by developing projects with the potential to add annual demand for over 100,000 tonnes of mill by-products and underused wood, known as forest biomass.
CAPE BRETON, Nova Scotia — The ultimate goal of government negotiations with Mi’kmaw leaders is a fair and just settlement of outstanding land claims. That shared objective is the foundation upon which reconciliation must be built. Yet today, the province’s embrace of clear-cutting on contested Crown land is systematically undermining that very goal — turning potential partners into adversaries and turning forests into bargaining chips that will no longer exist when the real talks begin. For weeks, Mi’kmaw land protectors maintained a checkpoint at Hunter’s Mountain in Unama’ki (Cape Breton), standing firm against clear-cutting on land they consider sacred. Their protest is about more than trees. It is about treaty rights, reconciliation, and the future of fair land claim settlements. Premier Tim Houston’s government passed the Protecting Nova Scotians Act, which criminalizes blocking forest access roads. …The choice is clear: stop clear-cutting or jeopardize any hope of a fair settlement.
…When the Species Conservation Act replaced Ontario’s long-standing Endangered Species Act, the change, introduced under Bill 5 in June 2025, stripped provincial protection from several species and narrowed habitat protection for others — 106 species lost protections, a July 2026 report by Ontario Nature found. It also introduced a new model for environmental assessments that is “proponent-led,” leaving developers largely responsible for assessing their own environmental impact and cutting government biologists out of the process almost entirely. A recording of the meeting, which involved about 25 staff members in the species at risk branch of the Ministry of Environment, was shared with The Narwhal by one participant… sources reveal the new act has had a significant impact on the people tasked with protecting Ontario’s most vulnerable species — reducing them from experts to rubber stamps, if anything at all, for the industries they once held to account.
THUNDER BAY — The City of Thunder Bay is benefiting from an infusion of government cash as it continues to plant thousands of trees, largely to mitigate the destruction of the urban forest canopy caused by the invasive emerald ash borer. The federal government and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities have announced details of a recent round of funding under the Growing Canada’s 
ARC Bio has successfully demonstrated a pathway to produce sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from Canadian forest residues through refinery co-processing. The project connects Canada’s forest sector with existing refining infrastructure, demonstrating how residual woody biomass can be converted into a refinery-ready biocrude and processed alongside conventional feedstocks to produce transportation fuels, including SAF. “Canada has the biomass feedstock, forest sector expertise, industrial capability and refining infrastructure to build an important new clean fuel value chain,” said Serge Mercier, President of Bioénergie AECN. “This work creates a direct connection between Canada’s forest economy and the growing need for low-carbon fuels in aviation and marine transportation markets.” The demonstration began with fast pyrolysis oil produced from Canadian forest residues by Bioénergie AECN in Port-Cartier, Quebec. The bio-oil was upgraded into barrel-scale quantities of Alder Renewable Crude (ARC), a transportable biocrude designed for integration with existing refinery infrastructure.
NB Power is pushing ahead with the conversion of its Belledune Generating Station from coal to biomass. A Thursday announcement is expected to reveal the proponents that will supply the repurposed power plant – one of New Brunswick’s largest – with 300,000 tonnes of wood pellets annually. Among them is expected to be a partnership proposing to build a torrefied wood pellet production facility at the Port of Belledune. “Once it’s officially confirmed, we are going to have a plant right at the port,” said Pabineau First Nation Chief Terry Richardson in an interview. “What’s great about this project is it’s Canadian technology, Canadian companies, and First Nations all partnering together.” Brunswick News reported in May on a partnership between Pabineau First Nation, Eel River Bar First Nation, Arbec Forest Products, and Airex Energy, a Quebec company proposing to build a torrefied wood pellet production facility at the Port of Belledune. [A Telegraph-Journal subscription is required for full access]
THUNDER BAY, Ontaro — Former workers of Dryden’s Weyerhaeuser Pulp and Paper Mill who were exposed to toxic fumes in the early 2000s gathered Thursday to provide updates on the lifelong impacts it has had on their health. The Occupational Health Clinics for Ontario Workers (OHCOW) invited the former employees to the Thunder Bay OPSEU offices to conduct updated interviews on their health and employment history, to be used in WSIB claims. In total, about 400 workers were exposed to fumes between 2002 and 2004, during the construction of the mill’s recovery boiler #4, said OHCOW’s executive director for projects, Andrew Zarnke. By midday Thursday, 35 of those workers had come to be interviewed. …Many records, according to OHCOW, state that there were no controls, forced ventilation, extraction or plume-control systems. Further records state that emissions were blown into the construction site that was covered with unsealed tarp and siding.
