Blending legal traditions at school and artistic practices after class, Emily Sabourin is exploring new ideas far from home. She grew up in Yellowknife and after she graduated, she went to Carleton University in Ottawa where she majored in psychology and minored in law. Now she is in law school at the University of Victoria where she is taking a four-year program that is a Joint Indigenous legal orders and Canadian Common Law.

She was interested in taking psychology because of her interest in people. Watching Suits on Netflix sparked her interest in law and her undergraduate common law classes helped Sabourin understand how many gaps there were in the legal system, particularly in the North. Realizing how Dene laws could complement the system and the issues there are within the system that are problematic for people’s well being inspired her to apply for law school and for this program in particular.

Sabourin’s advice for students leaving their home communities to study is to find their community away from home. Meeting other Indigenous students helped her deal with being away from family support. Studying, joining reading circles, attending programming in the Indigenous student space made finding community easier far from home and it was a good starting point as a shy person to start talking to people. She also got to learn from other Indigenous cultures and share her own knowledge.

One of the biggest obstacles she faced was leaving her home and her family as a 17 year old. She chose Ottawa because of the direct flights through Air North but in her second year they stopped offering them. That meant she was just far from home without easy access for travel like she hoped. Sabourin had a hard time being so distant from the family she was used to receiving so much support from. She overcame the loneliness by connecting with other students through activities at the Indigenous centre.

If Sabourin could give advice to her younger self it would be, “Listen to your mom. She is so smart, she's so wise.” While her mom is her best friend and she loves her, she often learned things the hard way instead of listening to her mom’s advice. She ended up learning things by experiencing the consequences instead of hearing the wisdom of her mother’s life experiences.

To balance her mental health, Sabourin leans into her art and has found great value in having a creative outlet to express herself. With all the writing and research in school, art has been a source of freedom for her. Her dad is an artist, too, so it’s something she was raised around. “I really think that art is for everybody. You don't have to be good to have that creative outlet. Sometimes all you need to do is grab a pencil and paper and see what comes up, see what your brain is trying to get out,” she explains. Getting a dog in her second year has also helped because it gets her out of the house.

Leaving the house inspires Sabourin so her dog has been a big help for her inspiration and her confidence, too. They go for hikes, reconnect with nature and spend time on the land. Being separated from the land where she was raised has been really hard but spending time in nature where she is helps. From an artistic perspective, connecting with nature is also beneficial, inspiring her to start painting, something she never really did before and also bringing a unique quality to her beadwork. The beadwork she does at home looks different from her beadwork when she is away at school.

In conclusion, Emily Sabourin encourages youth to be open as a way to help adjust to new surroundings when they are away, to find their people and spaces in a new community, to move out of their comfort zone and move forward as they embark on new adventures. With her dog by her side, she has a four-legged friend for her second round of university, nudging her out into nature to help her find the light. Far from home, she’s learning the law and art of bringing together legal traditions as she paints her way through lonely days.

Thanks to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article.