Marginalised explorers are finding more allies in the outdoor community

Over the last few years, the out­door com­mu­ni­ty has recog­nised that it needs to work hard­er to become a more wel­com­ing and diverse space. The more we unpick the chal­lenges, the more we dis­cov­er what we need to do to build an out­doors which recog­nis­es dif­fer­ence and acknowl­edges bias. As com­mu­ni­ties explore envi­ron­ments out­side of the city into nature-based land­scapes, diver­si­ty in the out­doors becomes an increas­ing­ly hot top­ic. Frus­trat­ing­ly, the incum­bents, those with the pow­er to open up the out­doors, often lack the tools to make a difference. 

In the wake of George Floyd and the glob­al Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment, The North Face formed their ​‘Explore Fund Coun­cil’. Unveiled in 2020 and com­ing with a $7m diver­si­ty, equi­ty and inclu­sion (DEI) pledge, it was a very vis­i­ble com­mit­ment to ramp up their exist­ing Explore Fund and to take in and learn from voic­es that have been tra­di­tion­al­ly mar­gin­alised in the world of out­door sports. It launched first in North Amer­i­ca, front­ed by pro­duc­er, writer and actor Lena Wait­he and moun­taineer, direc­tor and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Jim­my Chin. The fol­low­ing year it was fol­lowed up in Europe with sev­en mem­bers from the sport­ing, wildlife, activist and polit­i­cal worlds; a con­ti­nent-span­ning team that took in an array of lived expe­ri­ence, all unit­ed by their melanat­ed skin. The aim of the Coun­cil was to dis­cuss the chal­lenges they faced in their out­door lives, with a view to try and land upon an area in which The North Face could make a mean­ing­ful change. 

For a brand such as The North Face, oper­at­ing in this space is fraught with pit­falls. There’s a very valid argu­ment that sug­gests that they them­selves are part­ly respon­si­ble for the lack of diver­si­ty in the out­doors. A look at their ath­lete ros­ter just a few years ago would be devoid of any­one of African her­itage and any adver­tis­ing fea­tur­ing a Black or Brown face was more like­ly to be shot at the bot­tom of a hous­ing estate stair­well than a moun­tain range. Yet this crit­i­cism should be levied indus­try-wide and as a lead­ing brand, The North Face can be seen to, well, lead.

By lis­ten­ing to voic­es and ring-fenc­ing bud­gets, The North Face can now try and open their world to those who have felt pre­vi­ous­ly exclud­ed, and in doing so encour­age oth­er brands to go on their own journeys.

One of the com­mon threads with­in the Council’s con­ver­sa­tion was the point of entry: how do you first go on a hike, climb, trail run or even a snow­board trip? It’s not uncom­mon to hear peo­ple scoff­ing when this ques­tion is raised. The old ​“no one’s stop­ping you” trope often gets rolled out around the same time. Yet mak­ing that first step is often the hard­est. When feel­ing con­scious of your lack of knowl­edge of the envi­ron­ment and the rules, being around peo­ple who look dif­fer­ent to you and have been doing it all their lives is a huge fear to over­come, some­times enough of one to not even try.

But let’s say you have made a com­mit­ment, that you decide the time is right to take the climb­ing les­son or to try kayak­ing. You invest the time and mon­ey, you do the research and find an organ­i­sa­tion that can give you your first intro­duc­tion to what has the poten­tial to be a life chang­ing moment, you turn up full of excite­ment and the expe­ri­ence is shit.

“But where are you real­ly from?”

“Are you sure you can swim 50 metres?”

“Wow, your hair is amaz­ing, can I touch it?”

“Can I just call you Jim? I can’t real­ly pro­nounce your name.”

I can be rea­son­ably con­fi­dent that the major­i­ty of Peo­ple of Colour read­ing this will have expe­ri­enced some vari­a­tion of the above and be able to rat­tle off numer­ous microag­gres­sions. We nav­i­gate these inci­dents every day in some form – be it at the shop, the work­place or just going about our dai­ly lives, but at such a piv­otal on-ramp­ing moment this added bur­den could make you call it quits. This is of course ampli­fied if you are a child still try­ing to come to terms with how the world sees and treats you.

With this knowl­edge, The North Face’s Ally­ship Course was devised and plat­formed through the mul­ti-brand diver­si­ty con­sor­tium OUTO. The four-part online mod­ule is designed to inform and edu­cate coach­es, organ­i­sa­tions and ser­vice providers who are look­ing to offer mar­gin­alised par­tic­i­pants instruc­tion with more empa­thy and under­stand­ing. Pep­pered with video inter­views from The North Face ath­letes and ambas­sadors, par­tic­i­pants are led through the course by answer­ing ques­tions, with nudges and deep­er expla­na­tion for incor­rect respons­es. An ever-grow­ing resource list sup­ports those look­ing to go fur­ther in their search for learn­ing. It’s cur­rent­ly avail­able in Eng­lish with trans­la­tions planned in the com­ing months.

It’s hard at this stage to know if the course will reap rewards as large as its ambi­tion, it can be com­plet­ed in a lunch break (prob­a­bly too short a time to give a 50-some­thing climb­ing instruc­tor from Northum­ber­land the insight into the per­spec­tive of a young Hack­ney local), but it will def­i­nite­ly give them pause for thought. In its short exis­tence, the sign-ups are already in the thou­sands, demon­strat­ing an appetite from instruc­tors to add anoth­er form of cer­ti­fi­ca­tion for their CV; the com­ple­tion of the course is soon to pro­vide valu­able Moun­tain Train­ing CPD points (con­tin­ued personal/​professional development).

In the short-term, it’s a bea­con to indi­vid­u­als and com­mu­ni­ty groups look­ing for a provider who has demon­strat­ed their desire to con­nect more authen­ti­cal­ly with their clients. This is to my mind a move in the right direc­tion and a state­ment that says The North Face are aware of some of the issues at play in this com­plex con­ver­sa­tion. How­ev­er, the goal must ulti­mate­ly be not just to edu­cate the incum­bent instruc­tors, but to encour­age and facil­i­tate those from mar­gin­alised com­mu­ni­ties to be instruc­tors them­selves. This obvi­ous­ly takes time as we need to bring peo­ple through the sys­tem and gain the prac­ti­cal out­door expe­ri­ence that’s vital to keep peo­ple safe and hap­py. The process is dif­fi­cult and the route unchart­ed, but the desire to explore a path to change is now clear­ly evident.

The Ally­ship in the Out­doors course is host­ed on Open­ing Up The Out­doors and accessed via The North Face XPLR pass.