I've been enjoying the extra quality time (i.e. in the woods) with my 2.5 year old daughter during this pandemic. We have had time to go to the "old camp" and rebuild the firepit, consisting of a couple of dozen cinder blocks that were previously disposed of nearby. I have to say that I like my firepit to have 3 walls that keeps the fire hot and reflects the heat out front, and I always rearrange the loose rocks on any Algonquin firepit to suit my taste. FYI, the current fire ban is not province wide! Then one day we brought in a cheap 12' by 12' cheap poly tarp that I set up in a "Plow Point", where tension is applied from on corner on the ground to the diagonal corner in the air and 2 sides are fully pegged into the ground.
After trying several other setups, hoping to block the wind, retain the heat, and avoid the smoke, I think I'm in love with this setup. The Plow Point effectively blocks the wind and has reasonable headroom while allowing one to stretch their feet towheads the back, or that space can be used to keep wood dry. I have the high corner just covering the fire and the smoke mostly follows the slope up and out of our faces. Sometimes when the wind is acting up the smoke does fill the tarp but when laying down on a camping mat you can easily keep your head down to breath the least smokey air, until the smoke clears out. The setup is so warm and "cozy", as my daughter puts it, that she took off her jacket and was lifting up her shirt while the recent recurrence of winter weather was hurling down tons of icy snow pellets.

I can't wait to try this setup in Algonquin but I'm little worried that the shallow soil and underlying rock will make it hard to peg down the sides. I'm also concerned that the typical arrangement of bench seating will interfere with this set up. Does anybody else use this setup or have another configuration that achieves similar results?