Rescue crews and an Ontario-based vacation company are scrambling to bring roughly 128 tourists and employees home after a small cruise ship beached atop a massive rock Friday night in Canada's frigid Arctic waters.
The passengers have been stranded aboard the MV Clipper Adventurer -- owned by Mississauga-based Adventure Canada -- since the mishap and now the company is planning to fly them to Edmonton International Airport sometime Monday morning.
Cedar Bradley-Swan, co-owner of the vacation company, said the chartered ship carrying 128 vacationers and staff was pushed up on the large rock shortly after 7 p.m. as it was heading from Port Epworth to Kugluktuk Nunavut, a remote community on the territory's northwestern shores.
"We were simply following the chart that we had and right where there wasn't any indication that there was something in the water, there was this large rock," said Bradley-Swan during a phone interview.
"There will be some type of work that will be done to repair (the Clipper), but the problem is -- even with her own power -- she can't get off the rock.
"All (the passengers) would have felt was a small jolt."
The company says the boat struck the rock in sunny conditions while the waters were calm.
And Bradley-Swan said no one was injured during the mishap, but vacationers aboard the small ship were sitting in the boat waiting for an icebreaker and the Canadian Coast Guard to arrive Sunday morning.
"The ship was that far away that it had to take the icebreaker two days to get to the ship," said Jean Pierre Sharp, a maritime search and rescue coordinator with the Canadian Coast Guard.
Efforts to move the passengers continued throughout most of the day Sunday, and they were later shipped to Kugluktuk where they will be waiting for a chartered flight to Edmonton "first thing in the morning," said Sharp
The company says the tourists won't be receiving any type of refunds, but it has made arrangements to bring them home.
Most of the passengers are connecting onto other flights from Edmonton, said Bradley-Swan.
But the group of vacationers have been taking the mishap in stride as they enjoyed the final two days of their trip by "sun-tanning on the deck", Bradley-Swan says.
"Fortunately, the weather has been fabulous for them," said Bradley-Swan. "They were on deck in their T-shirts sitting around in lawn chairs."
The passengers were on their second-last day of the a tour through Canada's Northwest Passage.
Since Adventure Canada launched its business in 1987, Bradley-Swan said the company has never had an incident like this one.
The passengers have been stranded aboard the MV Clipper Adventurer -- owned by Mississauga-based Adventure Canada -- since the mishap and now the company is planning to fly them to Edmonton International Airport sometime Monday morning.
Cedar Bradley-Swan, co-owner of the vacation company, said the chartered ship carrying 128 vacationers and staff was pushed up on the large rock shortly after 7 p.m. as it was heading from Port Epworth to Kugluktuk Nunavut, a remote community on the territory's northwestern shores.
"We were simply following the chart that we had and right where there wasn't any indication that there was something in the water, there was this large rock," said Bradley-Swan during a phone interview.
"There will be some type of work that will be done to repair (the Clipper), but the problem is -- even with her own power -- she can't get off the rock.
"All (the passengers) would have felt was a small jolt."
The company says the boat struck the rock in sunny conditions while the waters were calm.
And Bradley-Swan said no one was injured during the mishap, but vacationers aboard the small ship were sitting in the boat waiting for an icebreaker and the Canadian Coast Guard to arrive Sunday morning.
"The ship was that far away that it had to take the icebreaker two days to get to the ship," said Jean Pierre Sharp, a maritime search and rescue coordinator with the Canadian Coast Guard.
Efforts to move the passengers continued throughout most of the day Sunday, and they were later shipped to Kugluktuk where they will be waiting for a chartered flight to Edmonton "first thing in the morning," said Sharp
The company says the tourists won't be receiving any type of refunds, but it has made arrangements to bring them home.
Most of the passengers are connecting onto other flights from Edmonton, said Bradley-Swan.
But the group of vacationers have been taking the mishap in stride as they enjoyed the final two days of their trip by "sun-tanning on the deck", Bradley-Swan says.
"Fortunately, the weather has been fabulous for them," said Bradley-Swan. "They were on deck in their T-shirts sitting around in lawn chairs."
The passengers were on their second-last day of the a tour through Canada's Northwest Passage.
Since Adventure Canada launched its business in 1987, Bradley-Swan said the company has never had an incident like this one.