Canvas is really nice but it is not really worth the extra cash and weight unless you are planning to stay in it for several weeks. I worked at an army surplus store and my boss would buy the HUGE army tents which were canvas but usually in rough shape. Unless you can get them direct from the government website I would not bother with those ones. The Canadian military ones are beautifully made though. A friend and I spent a whole afternooon admiring the aluminium poles. The takedown mechanism was so ssexy on those poles I saw men(strangly not a single woman?) stop dead in their tracks on spotting it.

There are the high quality canvas trappers style tents
often with little smokestacks. Those are awesome. They also hold their value fairly well compared to used nylon tents. If you go to mountain man rondevous or black powder/reanactor get togethers they are definitly worth having. I covet one myself. I have a hunch a lot of them don't get much use though. If you are sure you are going to use it for at least a week a year for 5 years then it would probably be worth it.

There are some nice nylon ones. You could get a really slick backpackers tent to sleep in and one of those big cheap mesh wall picnic tents for your campsite from wallmart. Then you could have a cool mountaneering tent for adventuring and
sleeping and a cheap socializing/eating room separate.

If you are not staying in a campgrounds you could just get a bunch of canvas tarp and make a little prospecter softwall. Those are pretty popular here in sask for hunting camps although a lot of them cheap out and use poly now.