Art Napoleon had taken a few sips of coffee and was just settling in for an interview tucked away at one of his preferred greasy diners near his home in Victoria, when someone walked in and recognized him.

"I'm waiting for Moosemeat and Marmalade tomorrow," an excited woman said, as she walked by with a friend, "It's all set to record."

Napoleon is one of the co-stars of the popular APTN TV show Moosemeat and Marmalade, which features chefs from two entirely different walks of life, Napoleon a bush man, and Dan Hayes, a classically-trained chef from central London, England. The first three seasons follow Napoleon and Hayes across Europe and Canada as they visit new territories, seeking permission to hunt, fish, harvest and share the bounty.

Throughout the show, the hosts tease and give each other a hard time. They don't let each other trip, slip, or get seasick, without playfully tallying it all up. The men share their love of hunting, and they've gone out together a few times off air, but they truly do come from entirely different upbringings and worldviews, and they often struggle to reconcile their differences on screen.

Napoleon grew up in the deep woods, on the Saulteau First Nations Reserve on Moberly Lake, Northern British Columbia. His mother died when he was a baby, so his father gave him to his grandparents, who raised him in an all Cree-speaking household, in the bush, on the land, he told me, once we were settled in with coffee in hand.

The first episode of the fourth season of Moosemeat and Marmalade, was released last Thursday. This season upholds the production's effort to shed light on food practices and traditions of urban Indigenous populations and takes viewers on a culinary journey, from Nunavut to Spain to Vancouver to Denman Islands.

Napoleon and Hayes explore topics of food sustainability and food security, traditional cooking, and ways to create minimal waste and show respect for the food sources and communities visited.

A Spanish fish stew ans chilled glass of sangria from one of the episodes on the latest APTN season. Photo by Calvin Stimson

Napoleon said he and Hayes play up their personalities for the show.

"We exaggerate our personalities. We're a little louder and more animated on the show," Napoleon explained. "Dan loves hunting. He respects people, gets along with the elders, makes friends with them, and is sincerely interested in their stories."

Moosemeat & Marmalade Promo from May Street Productions on Vimeo.

Napoleon said he finds the less glamorous part of producing Moosemeat and Marmalade a challenge - fighting for funding, working in post production, translating episodes into Cree, and meeting deadlines. The reason he keeps doing the show, he said, is because "it's working."

"It brings people together. People enjoy the show - Native and non-Native. You're able to look at something in a light way, and teach people, without hitting them on the head, laying a guilt trip, or screaming around," he said. "If you use humour, and are gentler with your approach, you attract more people."

Moosemeat and Marmalade, is being produced by Mooswa Films Inc. with the participation of the Canadian Media Fund, in association with APTN and the Bell Fund, and Napoleon said there are some exciting scenes in store for the fans. In some episodes Hayes leads the show, and in others, Napoleon leads, and those are his favourites, he laughed. Those are the episodes where the team gets to interact more with community members and get out on the land.

In Season 4, they visited the community in Nunavut and headed out on the territories on snowmobiles.

"If you break down out there, you could freeze your ass off," he said. "You get to see how people really live... I have nothing but good memories from that trip... it was amazing."

Beyond the adventure of traveling to new territories and hunting, fishing and cooking with new techniques and teachings, Napoleon said the most important message he hopes to spread is that climate change is real and people need to wake up to it, before it's too late.