Page 17 - BEC / OCT / 2022

underground uranium mines using a flat-bed truck

and tailgate lift. These barrels were hard to handle

by hand and weighed anywhere from 800-1000 lbs.,
so when he heard that a company called SKB was

selling a small, truck-mounted, hydraulic knuckle
boom that could pick up four barrels at a time, he

got into the lifting business.

Clifford’s son, Scott LaPrairie, now President & CEO,

recalls, “I left high school early and worked with
my Dad lifting engines out of trucks and whatever

else customers wanted moved, when a recession

hit Ontario in the early 80s. Business was slow and
we had a 40-Ton RT740 Grove rough terrain crane

that we were struggling to make payments on. We

heard about an opportunity in northeastern, B.C.
with Denison Mines who was building a coal mine in

HAPPY
40 th

ANNIVERSARY

Congratulations LaPrairie
HISTORY on 40 years of business.

Wishing you much success
Clifford LaPrairie Sr. started in the lifting business in the next 40 years to come,
from your partners at NAPA.
in 1982 Eliot Lake, Ontario. A Ford dealer and Gulf

Oil agent in at the time, he was delivering 45-gallon
barrels of hydraulic and motor oil to the local

OCT 2022 | BUSINESS ELITE CANADA 17