How are we doing?

For someone who’s spent more than two weeks aboard a ship rocked by heavy winds and rough seas, Elena Labranche, Nunavik’s new assistant director of public health, sounds surprisingly upbeat as she speaks via satellite phone to Iqaluit.

Labranche says the voyage of the CCGS Amundsen along Nunavik’s coastline, which started in Kuujjuaraapik at the end of August and was to wrap up today in Kuujjuaq, has gone almost according to plan.

“It’s been going very well,” Labranche says. “People are happy to see the ship come into the community, and we’ve been welcomed by everyone.”

Before the Amundsen set sail, a random selection of 1,800 residents, aged 15 and older, had been asked to come aboard the revamped icebreaker, which is now a sailing scientific and medical laboratory, and participate in the Qanuippitaa health survey.

The health survey would involve a questionnaire and physical exams to gauge general health, lifestyle, diet, heart disease and exposure to environmental contaminants.

The health survey’s organizers, Nunavik’s regional board of health and social services, the public health research centre at Université Laval and Quebec’s Institute of Public Health, hoped for a participation rate of 56 per cent. It looks as if the final tally may be higher, despite some delays, poor weather and unforeseen circumstances that prevented some from participating.

Labranche says, by the time the boat reached Kangirsuk, 657 Nunavimmiut had come on board to participate in the health survey.

In Quaqtaq, many residents were out of the community for meetings or to attend a funeral — but, in Akulivik, 80 per cent of those asked to participate came out.

Labranche first boarded the Amundsen in Puvirnituq on the Hudson Bay coast, where she joined the 40-member field team involved in the health survey and the ship’s crew of 30.

Every morning, it was Labranche’s job to go on shore to meet and greet those scheduled to head out to the Amundsen.

In good weather, a zodiac took everyone to the ship, although in windy weather — which was often the case — a helicopter, nicknamed “the big mosquito,” provided transportation out.

Some were wary of the Amundsen because it recalled the C.D. Howe hospital boat, which sailed the Arctic from 1950 to 1969, testing Inuit for tuberculosis and whisking many off for prolonged treatment in the South, before they could even say goodbye to their families.

“I tell them they’re safe on board and they’re going to be going home,” says Labranche.

Most participants were able to leave the Amundsen after only a few hours, although, due to extraordinarily high winds in Kangirsuk, one group had to stay longer and ended up dining on board.

“Some liked it so much, they didn’t want to leave!” said Isabelle Dubois, who is in charge of communications for the survey and updating its trilingual Web site at www.qanuippitaa.com.

At the same time as the health survey, Arctic Net, a five-year research project on the impact of climate change in coastal Arctic regions, conducted tests and collected samples along the coast of Nunavik. Researchers will analyze data to see if the climate change has any impact on health.

Quebec’s bureau of statistics, Institut de la statistique du Québec, will process the health new data, presenting the results in 2005. Researchers will compare these with other studies and data on northern populations, before publishing the results in 2006.