Quality of construction is more important. There are many self-claimed 4 season tents out there, but few of them are what I think of as a bomb-proof expedition tent. We have used 3 and so-called 4 season tents for two decades in Canada and interior Alaska at many elevations and all seasons. A backpackable unheated tent beats being in the open at very low temps but it doesn't hold a candle to a heated tent.

Just because BSA says no flames in tents... most of my "real" camping is not with BSA and there have been many times when it would have been just plain stupid to not run a stove inside the tent - some of my tents have/have had zip-outs in the floor specifically for that purpose.

Unless you're thinking about a VE-24 or -25 or something designed for those kinds of conditions, I think a good and robust 3-season tent is just fine up north. I "lose" tents over time to UV degradation, not weather damage. Example: My Dad and I spent one early blizzard at elevation in interior Alaska in a cheap little dome that it was charitable to call a 3-season tent - huge, heavy wet snow and high winds. It did FINE - we would push out on the bowed poles every so often to shove back the snow load. Were stuck there for almost 48 hours, perched on a razor-back ridge in the lee of a small boulder and we were snug. Snow covered the tent and we did have to clear vents once in a while - type of tent had no impact on that.

There were a few important things about that tent: 1) It was with us when the storm hit - no way could we have made it back to base camp 3,000 ft below us - the storm was that sudden. 2) I had modified it by adding a skirt to the rainfly so it came nearly to the ground and added stake-out loops to the bottom edge - that kept the wind from having its way with the rainfly and kept a layer of water-proof nylon between us and the rapid accumulation of wet snow. 3) We had inspected the tent carefully, re-inforced a few areas that seemed iffy with some bar-tacking on the old Singer, and we seam-sealed everything twice. 4) It was a beast to put up - the poles were ever-so-slightly long, so we trimmed them - that helped us get the tent together much more rapidly when the chips were down.

We had two of those department-store tents with us - one for base camp at 3,500ft and one that walked about with us. Equivalent tents today may or may not be as good, but better ones are readily available for about 3 times the price, which is cheap 20+ years later... I used that tent for years afterwards, including many nights well below -35F; as cold as -52F. I have much better tents now, but they are just as chilly at -35F as that one was... and they still beat the heck out of no tent.

IMHO, if the tent will stand up to high winds in a summer thunderstorm and keep you dry, it will be useable in the winter up north. Getting a decent tent and/or improving what you get is probably more important than a manufacture's advertisment as "3-season" or "4-season".

YMMV, but that's been my experience.

HTH. Tom