Ottawa - Two ships, one of them carrying hundreds of passengers were stuck in the ice in the Saint Lawrence Seaway off Matane in eastern Canada, news reports said.

Ice breakers had failed to clear a path for the two stricken ships, the CTMA Vacancier ferry with 300 people on board, and the Georges-Alexandre-Lebel, a cargo ship owned by Canada's COGEMA shipping company, Canadian television CTV reported Tuesday. A third ship was freed on Monday.

Passengers on the cruise ship were on their way to a one-week cross country ski tour on Monday when the ship became enmeshed in the ice, but the detour has dampened their holiday mood.

"It's a 24 hour party on board," passenger James Gray told the broadcaster by telephone.

"It's an absolutely incredible experience. I think it's a historic moment to be on a passenger ship stuck in the ice on the St Lawrence in the middle of winter. It's about -40 Celsious outside right now," he added.

COGEMA general director Andre Landry told the French-language newspaper Le Soleil that ice of that thickness has not been observed in the seaway that early in the year for many years.

"That is usually expected in February and March," Landry said.

Initial attempts to help the ship by the ice breaker Terry Fox failed.

A 5-square-kilometre-large ice blanket has been blocking access to the port at Matane since the weekend, Le Soleil wrote.

The Saint Lawrence Seaway connected North America's Great Lakes with the Atlantic. (dpa)