A riverboat that was supposed to serve as a viewing platform for the annual Edmonton Dragon Boat Festival spent Saturday stuck in the mud.

The Edmonton Queen ran aground in the North Saskatchewan River on Saturday. (Andrea Huncar/CBC)The Edmonton Queen remained firmly aground about five metres from shore in the North Saskatchewan River in the late afternoon, despite the best efforts of a fire crew that used a watercraft to try to haul the 50-metre vessel free.

"I'm pretty surprised," said David Johnson, who lives across the street from the site where the grounding occurred. "You don't see this everyday.

"Unfortunately, Edmonton doesn't have a tugboat lying around that can get a large boat like that off the river, so I'm not sure what they'll do."

Not far upstream, Dragon Boat Festival organizer Christine Johnson was disappointed at the turn of events.

"This year we partnered with them and we offered for spectators to watch from the Queen, but it's disappeared," she said.

No passengers were aboard when things went awry, according to Edmonton Queen manager Lorie Jarvis.

When the ship's captain "was trying to find a place to moor," he said, "the current swung the back end a little too close to the shore."

Passengers who had purchased tickets were given refunds or tickets for an upcoming cruise, Jarvis said.

The race festival began Friday and wraps up Sunday.

With files from the CBC's Andrea Huncar