A literature review was conducted to identify potentially effective nano-based technology for improving wood attributes in order to develop competitive specialty wood products. The review covered both conventional chemical treatment methods and nano-based methods. Traditional chemical treatments have shown to be effective in improving wood hardness, dimensional stability, stiffness, fire resistance, UV resistance, biological resistance and aesthetic appeal. However, nanotechnology offers new opportunities for further improving wood product attributes due to some very unique and desirable properties of chemical materials in the form of particles in nano scale. The advantages of nanotechnology appear to be particularly obvious when applied to create polymer nanocomposites such as wood coatings. Polymer nanocomposites consist of a continuous polymer matrix which contains inorganic particles of a size below approximately 100 nm at least in one dimension. Due to the material nature of solid wood products, creating a continuous polymer matrix with effective inorganic nanoparticles inside wood cells and lumens would be very difficult. The most promising areas of applying nanotechnology to create improvement opportunities would be wood coatings and wood adhesives. It is recommended that research be carried out to explore the potential of nanotechnology in wood coatings and adhesives and their applications in B.C. wood species and wood products.