"'In the settlements of the Hudson Bay Company tents are made of the bark of this tree, which for that purpose is cut into pieces twelve feet long and four feet wide. These are sewed together by threads made of the white-spruce roots; and so rapidly is a tent put up that a circular one twenty feet in diameter and ten feet high does not occupy more than half an hour in pitching. Every traveler and hunter in Canada enjoys these "rind-tents," as they are called, which are used only during the hot summer months, when they are found particularly comfortable.'"