If his Backroad Bounty gig ever ends, Peter “Bam Bam” Bamford is plotting his next TV role: Big Brother Canada.
“I think I would stand out, to say the least,” says Bamford, sporting his trademark cowboy hat, bushy beard, green army jacket, jeans and motorcycle boots. “I’m very old-school train of thought, very militant and punctual, and I’m very OCD. I don’t know if I would get along with everybody, but it would make for some interesting TV.”
We think Bamford would do pretty well. After all, he does interact with strangers—alongside Marty Gebel—as they crisscross Ontario in search of quality antiques and oddities for Season 2 of Backroad Bounty, returning to Cottage Life tonight at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT. Earlier this year, I tracked down the duo in Ingersoll, Ont.—home to Gebel’s Modern Hipster Antiques—as they got dusty and dirty hunting around the top floor of E. W. McKim Quality Home Hardware, seeking hidden treasure and discovering Canadian history in the process.
Season 1 tracked the fellows as they dusted off items and dickered with owners over prices, and that formula is in place for Season 2 too, though a focus on those folks and the hosts has been amped up.
“This season is going to be funnier,” Gebel teases. “We’ll be talking a little bit more about values and selling this year, because the audience wants to know how much things are worth.”
“Because we have a season under our belt, people are opening up to us a lot more,” Bamford explains. “It’s more like a road trip with two guys and the incredible people they meet along the way.” That road trip includes provincial stops in Grand Bend, Quinte West, Harcourt, Port Dover, Walkerton, Wiarton and Owen Sound.
When the cameras aren’t rolling, Bamford is working to expand his business. Always a buyer at trade shows, he’s evolving his Bamtiques brand on social media and at shows, selling items and seeing if he can make a go of it as a full-time gig.
And if the Big Brother Canada thing doesn’t work out? Bamford has another idea in the works where he travels the world exposing silly local rules and regulations.
“It’s called Bam Bam Breaks the Law,” he says. “There’s a law in Pennsylvania where you can’t carry an ice cream sandwich in your back pocket. I want to break that law. There are laws in France about dolls with certain faces. If they’re willing to arrest me for putting an ice cream sandwich in my back pocket, I’m willing to accept that charge.”
Backroad Bounty airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT on Cottage Life.
