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A ship hired by oil companies to study Canadian waters for potential drilling made an unexpected stop Tuesday afternoon when it and two support vessels found themselves temporarily stuck in sea ice near Barrow, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

A tug reported the three vessels became trapped roughly 60 miles north of Point Barrow at about 3 p.m., said a Coast Guard spokesman.

By the time a C-130 arrived from Nome three hours later to take a look, the ships had freed themselves said Petty Officer Levi Read.

The vessels included the Western Patriot, the Riverton and the Hudson Bay Explorer.

The Patriot is a seismic vessel hired by Canadian oil giant Imperial Oil and its partner Exxon Mobil Canada. The ship is expected to conduct seismic studies in Canadian waters between mid-August and October, said Imperial Oil spokesman Pius Rolheiser.

"Depending, obviously, on weather and ice conditions," Rolheiser said from his Calgary home Tuesday night.

The Western Patriot was inspected in Vancouver last month. Rolheiser said the ship departed about a week ago.

The plan is for the vessel to create three-dimensional seismic models of subsurface rock formations about 75 miles offshore -- north of the border between the Yukon and Northwest Territories.

The aim is to find potential spots for future drilling in the Beaufort Sea.

Exxon Mobil owns a majority stake in Imperial Oil, which is Canada's largest integrated oil company, Rolheiser said.

Early last month, a Calgary Herald oil industry blog reported on the Western Patriot's impending trip past Alaska: "The 3-D seismic work it has planned will map some of the deepest Beaufort waters ever surveyed for oil and gas development."

A University of Alaska Fairbanks Web cam image from atop a four-story building in Barrow Tuesday showed thick ice crowding the shore near Barrow.

Find Kyle Hopkins' political blog online at adn.com/alaskapolitics or call him at 257-4334.