Tour boat aground on Red River strands 69

The Canadian Coast Guard was called to remove69 stranded passengersfrom a tourist ship that ran agroundon the Red River just north of Winnipeg Thursday.

The MS River Rouge tour boat was on a journey from Winnipeg's Redwood Bridge to Lower Fort Garry, north of the city, when the ship got stuck on the riverbed around 11 a.m.

A tugboat was called in from Lockport, Man., to try to free the ship, but was unsuccessful.

RCMP said they were notified the ship had run aground on a sandbar or rock reef around 1 p.m. Police said there were 69 passengers and an unknown number of crew members on the ship.

Passenger Andrew Clark said several attempts to free the vessel during the day failed. Passengers were being offered free food and drinks, but it was a long day for the mostly elderlygroup,since they firstboarded the ship at 9:30 a.m.

"I guess the tow rope slipped off and became lodged with the propeller, so now we're not going anywhere," Clark said in the afternoon. "Now they're going to try and get a backhoe on the shore and put a rope on that and see if they can kind of pull us off."

Clark said the RCMPwere monitoring events from the shoreline.A Transport Canada investigator was on the scene.

Asmall coast guardrescue boat from Gimli, on Lake Winnipeg, was moved by truck to the site Thursday evening and began ferryinggroups of passengers to a dock and waiting buses about three kilometres south of the stricken vessel.

The rescue looked to be taking several hours, as the coast guard boat was able to take only six to eight passengers at a time.

Coast guard officials told CBC News reporter Sean Kavanagh that navigation markers have historically been placed in the Red River in that area to mark shallow water. It appears the markers may have been washed away by high water this past spring.