When I first got interested in wood -- in New England in the sixties -- the go-to light-colored wood was birch. Maple was available, but not common. Today, in California, the situation is reversed. Birch is rare, and maple is common. My hardwood dealer doesn't stock natural birch at all, and has just a little 4/4 red birch. The only birch plywood they stock is Baltic Birch. So what happened? Is it just changing tastes, or has has something happened to the North American birch forests?