TORONTO - The TV dramedy "Men in Trees" returns from a winter hiatus this week with wildlife biologist Jack Slattery, played by Canadian actor James Tupper, surviving a harrowing ordeal at sea and getting a new furry, fanged friend in the fictional town of Elmo, Alaska.

Or maybe not.

"I'm terrible at teasers," Tupper, 42, said in a recent telephone interview when asked what happens to his character in the new batch of episodes that begin Wednesday on ABC and Citytv.

"What can I tell you? Well, there's a lot of romance gone wrong. I'll tell you this - I might be getting a wolf."

A real wolf? "Yeah, a real wolf," he said with a laugh. "There's a big surprise coming up that I think is going to change the way that life in Elmo happens."

But wait - the last we saw of Jack, he was stranded on a life raft in the Bering Sea after his ship sank, so does the possible acquisition of said wolf mean he lives? "There's a chance that I survive ... I'm not supposed to say," Tupper said.

It's probably safe to bet that Jack does indeed pull through since the character is a central part of the quirky, charming show, which is taped in Vancouver and Squamish, B.C., and is in the middle of its second season.

The curly-haired, ruggedly handsome Jack is the on-again, off-again love interest of relationship coach and radio host Marin Frist, played by Anne Heche. He's also struggled with feelings for his ex-girlfriend, played by Justine Bateman.

Tupper and Heche are also a couple off-screen, a relationship they acknowledged about a year ago after each had separated from their spouses. Both have made it clear in the media that their relationship didn't start up until they were single.

"The way that our relationship worked, we had kind of eight months where we just worked together every day and became really close friends and had very clear boundaries where that's all we were ever going to be, and I think we got to know each other in a kind of great way," said the soft-spoken Tupper, who hails from Dartmouth, N.S., and shares a home with Heche in Vancouver.

Details of Heche's bitter divorce from cameraman Coley Laffoon have garnered media attention in the past year, but Tupper says fans don't pry about his relationship with the blond American actress, who once dated talk show host Ellen DeGeneres.

"We live a pretty private life and I find that people in Vancouver are really respectful. They're very sweet with us here," said Tupper.

"I've always been one of those guys that would just love to do the work and be in the show and have that be the thing mostly that is talked about, but I guess the other side is interesting too. I've adopted Anne's style. I have a very open approach about it."

"Men in Trees" has been Tupper's breakthrough role after years of smaller parts and odd jobs as a swimming instructor, a carpenter, a Canada World Youth worker on a coffee farm in Africa and a deliveryman in Montreal.

The actor, who once made Us Weekly's list of sexiest TV men, marvels at how his career has evolved since those days.

"Two years ago, I was working as a carpenter in Los Angeles and now I'm stuck in a love triangle with Anne Heche and Justine Bateman," he chuckled. "That's pretty good, don't you think?"

Being one of five siblings, Tupper enjoys bonding with his family when he can. His parents still live in Dartmouth and he travels from his home in Los Angeles to his family's cottage on Prince Edward Island every summer, he said.

"We all play guitar and sit around a fire in the evening right on the coast, it's such a beautiful place and it's all cottage country and it's all cousins and uncles and you don't even know how you're related to half of them," he recalled.

Tupper wasn't able to make the trip last year because he was working. Hearing a funny story about how one of his brothers fell into the fire pit during the family get-together made him pine for the East Coast, he said.

"He went backwards into the fire so my uncle grabbed a pail of mussels, a pail of mussel water and he put him out with it," said Tupper. "He was fine. That moment made me really miss being back home."