The wood industry has seen a lot of challenges in the last few years during the pandemic, which has caused a lot of price shifts.

Many companies have been affected, from sawmills to contractors, to small woodworkers and even consumers.

Within the last couple of years, the price of processed wood products increased significantly. During the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, processed wood prices nearly quadrupled. Wholesale prices for plywood increased from $400 to $1500 per thousand square sheets, according to NASDAQ information.

Near Portage Lake, Maine you’ll find many different sawmills producing high-quality Maine-grown lumber.

And lumber is one of the things Maine does best.

The logging industry in Maine makes up about 7.8 billion dollars of the U.S.’s economy, according to a study done by the University of Maine.

As for the global wood industry, information from IBISWorld reported the leading timber-producing countries are China, the United States, and Japan. The U.S. contributes 18 percent of the world’s timber production.

As far as the largest wood product exporters, the top three are China, Canada, and the U.S.

The country contributes about 8.4 percent of the world’s total exports of wood products with the primary one being lumber. The lumber industry is growing at an annualized rate of 6.9 percent and generating more than 135 billion dollars over the last five years.

But the price and demand for lumber significantly increased when the pandemic started. Maine Woods Company has been around for more than 20 years, supplying lumber to the entire world while creating jobs for the small community it resides in.

But just like every business in the world, Scott said the supply chain issues over the past couple of years have made production more challenging.

“We have let down a fair amount of our customers not having been able to supply what their needs have been, the same has been true for the supplies we need,” Scott said. “The demand has been excellent for our product, but we’ve struggled to keep a full workforce. It’s been a frustrating time for different reasons, and we have yet to get back to a fully staffed production rate. I don’t know when we will.”

Experts report that some of the major lumber supply chain issues come from a workforce shortage that was triggered by the pandemic. The domino effect continued with a lack of truckers to move materials, and now the increase in gas prices has all led to an increase in wood prices for everyone.

“Manufacturing has certainly become more expensive,” Scott said. “And on top of that we had to try and keep pace with inflation with wages which we thought we have done at the beginning of the year, but we had to recently do it again.”

Scott said more employees are needed in the industry. Most companies have raised their wages; however, it still hasn’t helped much when it comes to recruiting.

Higher pay didn’t result in enough extra workers to make up for increased demand and limited supply because high-level skills are needed to work with the advanced machines.

“Manufacturing is the key to security to the way of life going forward,” Scott said. “If you don’t have manufacturing then what do you have? Cause we all can’t sit at home and sell things if there’s nothing to sell.”

The wood industry, though, never stops. And Maine Woods Company will continue to process and push its suppliers to help keep the country a reliable lumber exporter. If big companies are feeling the weight of the supply chain issues in their operations, then small town made in America businesses may feel the weight even more.

Siders Wood Crafting is in Bangor, Maine, and run by Bruce Graybill and his wife Mary. Even in the high timber-producing state of Maine, Graybill said work has been challenging.

Supply and demand for products determine the price of commodities, and experts say more investment in increasing pay for employees and increasing the number of technically competent employees to help increase production can help drive those prices down.

But this is the lumber industry, and the demand for wood is always going to be there. It’s how to keep up with that demand that the industry consistently is trying to adjust to.

It seems impossible — especially with today's housing market! — but one woman literally traded a single bobby pin for a house.Back in May 2020, Demi Skipper started the Trade Me Project on TikTok, in which she documented a series of trades until she ended up with a house. She finally completed her mission after a year and a half, scoring a home at the end of November.In her 28th and final exchange, Skipper traded a trailer worth $40,000 for a house in Clarksville, Tennessee. Along the way, she traded items including a vacuum, diamond necklace, Peloton, and even a Mustang."For a lot of people, homeownership feels far out of reach, so the entire journey was just about proving it was possible to trade a single bobby pin for a house," Skipper said.When she set out on this adventure, she didn't have a specific location for the home in mind.Wherever it was, though, she planned on living in it. But now, she's made a more generous decision: "After meeting so many amazing people along this journey, I've made the decision to trade the house to someone who really needs it — for a bobby pin," Skipper explains. "Meaning that person will get the new home, and I will get a bobby pin to start the journey all over again."The challenge was inspired by Kyle MacDonald, who completed a similar quest starting with a red paperclip in 2006."I'd love to be the first person who is crazy enough to do it twice," she says.We can't wait to see how she'll do it next time. Now, all we need to satisfy our curious souls is a tour of the inside of the Tennessee house!

BLAINE, Wash. — In between two border checkpoints, for two nations, sits one monument: the Peace Arch.

“The park is a solace,” said Christina Winkler. “It's a refuge.”

Inscribed at the top are the words “Children of a Common Mother.” It’s a reminder of the close ties between the U.S. and Canada.

Those ties also bind the people here.

“My dad was from England. My mom was from Vancouver, BC and they came to America to raise their babies,” said Winkler, who is president of the International Peace Arch Association. “I arrived when I was three days old. Been here ever since.”

Winkler lives in Blaine, Washington, right near the border. For her and many here, COVID wreaked havoc on the land border crossing and their lives.

“What we have been through with the border closure and these families is really unimaginable,” she said.

It was also unimaginable to those whose business is the border.

“It was so heavily restricted that it was closed to the vast majority of people that would typically cross it,” said Laurie Trautman, director of the Border Policy Research Institute at Western Washington University.

Trautman said border communities on the U.S. side, which tend to be smaller, more rural and rely heavily on Canadian visitors, have been hit hard.

“It was pretty staggering, especially things like the gas tax. Communities here that are adjacent to the border can put in an additional fuel tax, and that really drew on Canadians who would come over and fill up their tanks when they were going shopping,” Trautman said.

She added that border communities felt ignored by both the U.S. and Canadian governments.

“I don't think that people in borderline communities were really heard by either administration and particularly by the White House,” Trautman said. “We need a land border. That's how we're tied together and that's how we've evolved together.

Amid all the restrictions at the border, though, something unexpected happened at Peace Arch Park, a renewed purpose.

Because of its unusual location, spanning both sides of the border, it’s become a place where people can come in from both countries and meet one another freely, as long as they don’t venture beyond the park’s borders.

“I have been brought to tears many times,” Winkler said. “I have seen people see their grandbabies for the first time after a year and a half.”

It’s all thanks to a park with a special arch, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. Its builders came back from World War I and survived the Spanish Flu pandemic, before finally finishing the arch in 1921.

They left behind one last message inscribed within it: “May these gates never be closed.”

“If they can go through a war and a pandemic and come home and survive tough, tough times and leave us, their children, a beautiful gift like this, I think it's a great place for us to start,” Winkler said.

The hope now is that any step at the border towards a return to normalcy is a step in the right direction so that the gates remain open for a century more and beyond.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Co. — The pandemic flipped almost everything on its head; is time now to do the same for higher education?

"If you had a good GPA, you're going to go to college, right? And that is a good choice for a lot of people, but there are plenty of people where that's not necessarily a good choice," said Tatiana Bailey, the executive director of the University of Colorado Colorado Springs economic forum.

She’s noticed what’s called “the skills gap” – basically more tradesmen are retiring than starting work, and it has been growing since the pandemic.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the three fastest-growing jobs right now are wind turbine technicians, nurse practitioners, and solar panel installers--all jobs with skills that can be gained through trade school, not a typical four-year college degree.

"Computer systems, administrators, as an example, you don't need a computer science degree for that. You can do a six to 12-month certification to be that IT person," she said.

While a college graduate technically makes more over time, with a trade education, you can spend less time in school and more time working on a career, many with median salaries between $50,000 and $100,000 a year.

Another plus: many trade jobs are considered “essential” and can weather a recession.

"Since COVID, we've grown about 20% and we still have more job opportunities than students," said Scott Shaw, the president and CEO of Lincoln Tech, which has campuses nationwide.

He says most of their students are in their mid to late twenties, looking to make a career change or follow a passion not offered by a traditional college.

As infrastructure has taken center stage with President Biden’s $1.5 trillion bill, more skilled workers are going to be needed. Shaw hopes more attention is put on vocational programs.

"We should be trying to figure out what is the best next step for these individuals to get skills, to get into the workforce so that they can increase their productivity, increase their self-esteem work towards something better," he said.

Working towards something better that's not necessarily getting a four-year degree.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — Steve Negaard knows one thing better than most. It’s in his blood.

“You know, my grandfather came over from Sweden and he didn’t really know much except shoe repair. I’m the owner of a family business here in Minneapolis. We’ve been in business since 1929. It’s called Nokomis Shoe."

Nokomis Shoe is an unassuming but quaint store in south Minneapolis. And while Negaard knows shoes, lately he hasn’t known when his next order will be filled.

“I’ve never had it where it’s so slow to get the product that I’ve ordered. It’s a day-to-day battle to get product,” said Negaard.

This isn’t just a problem for Negaard, and not just a problem for businesses selling shoes.

“The last few weeks, feels like the last few months, we’ve had a lot of a lot supply chain challenges, the result of COVID-19. And obviously a couple weeks ago we had the incident with the Evergiven in the Suez Canal, which is further stressing the supply chain,” said Jonathan Gold, the VP of Supply Chain and Customs Policy for the National Retail Federation.

He says the late March obstruction of the Suez Canal in Egypt only made global trade issues even worse.

“You’ve seen the congestion on the West Coast for a couple of months now,” said Gold.

Or maybe you haven’t seen it. Ports on the West Coast have been clogged since before Christmas. Now, the same thing is likely to happen on the East Coast, even though ships are flowing through the now unblocked canal.

“Your vessels are now heading to the East Coast and it’s going to cause some port congestion as a result. Instead of the vessels being staggered as they normally are, they’re all going to come at once,” said Gold.

And that is going to affect you when you go shopping on items you might not ever think about.

“Even soaps out of Seattle, it’s everything. I don’t see the situation improving for at least 120 days,” said Negaard.

Negaard has made a ton of adjustments and Nokomis is doing OK. But he’s worried about other small businesses around the country.

“I just, I hope the consumer shops local and thinks about these people that are supporting their neighborhoods and communities, because we won’t be around if they don’t.”