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By Nick Nielsen

Snow clearing

Companies clearing snow working to keep up with demand

Feb 25, 2026 | 10:49 AM

Snow clearing crews have been hard at work across the province cleaning up snow from last week’s storm that came through, but Prince Albert has been especially busy. 

Elton McCleod is the owner and operator of M5 Services in Prince Albert, who handles mostly commercial parking lots in town. While there is a ton of competition in Prince Albert when it comes to snow clearing contract workers, he said they have been working hard to keep up with demand. 

“Not too bad, 16 to 18 hours a day,” said McCleod with a laugh. “I think everybody has been putting in the long hours. It’s been not as bad as I thought because the city is doing a pretty good job of clearing the streets enough so that most commercial people can remain in business and stuff like that. So I was pretty impressed with the city.” 

While members of the public were happy with how quickly main arteries of the city were cleared after the storm last week, their effort to clean up the side streets has been criticized. McCleod is instead sharing praise for city crews as he’s seen them out just as early as him. 

“I generally start at two o’clock in the morning and I go until about eight or nine at night, and the city was out there along with me clearing the streets. I was very impressed because generally, I didn’t think that they actually did that much, but everybody’s doing very well this year with the dump that we’ve had, and so I’m even proud of all my competition. They’re doing very well too.” 

Snow clearing

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The one issue that has popped up has been a place to put all the snow. There are two spots that the city has approved for the public, and private companies, to dump their snow off. Those two spots are: 

• West end of 28th Street West, just south of the Alfred Jenkins Centre 

• On the north side of the river by former drive-in 

The problem is both of those spots are full, and the private companies are having to find other places to move their snow. 

“There’s no room at the dump to dump snow. So I’ve had to utilize my acreage and clear out a big spot to haul snow so I can keep my clients snow free as best I can, so I have to run it out to my acreage all the time,” he said. “The last time I was there, it was right full, and the city probably has their own dump (they do, off Marquis Road), but they don’t allow anybody to use that. So I think most of the contractors, including myself, if we have any land, we clear it so that we can take care of our customers and them in a professional way.” 

There are a ton of different contractors around the city clearing snow, a full week later, since the big snow fall came down. Still, with all those companies going to work and some fresh snow that fell this week too, there are still days’ worth of work left. 

“If I get back to work here very quickly, I should be done in about three days. If I don’t have any issues, breakdowns or people cutting me off in the middle of the street, I should be done in about three days, I think. And then I’m OK for a little bit.” 

—

Nick.Nielsen@pattisonmedia.com