The Future Of Diversity In Paddlesports

I’ve always found my deepest joy outdoors. As a kid I enjoyed riding my bike, visiting parks, and camping with my church group. In high school one of my close friends organized a backpacking trip over the holidays, and I remember how excited he was when he came back to school and told us about it. When I asked him why he didn’t invite me, I’ll never forget his response—and he said this very genuinely—“I didn’t think Black people backpacked.”

The Key To Build A Thriving Paddling Community

That set me off on a journey of questioning what it means for a race of people not to be engaged in a particular outdoor activity. “Black people don’t…” messages came not only from my white friends, but also from Black friends and family—stereotypes rooted in both real and perceived notions of belonging and safety in the outdoor community. That I now kayak through remote wilderness, climb some of the world’s biggest mountains, and lead a foundation that promotes outdoor participation is a point of irony my high school friend and I laugh about today.

The future of diversity in paddlesports

I paddled for the first time on Lake Wauburg when I was an undergraduate at the University of Florida, and I remember an alligator brushing underneath my kayak. That was a hell of an introduction to paddling, but I was in love with it and have been paddling ever since.

At first, I didn’t consider myself part of a paddling community. It was just something I did on my own, renting kayaks in places I visited. Having a community to regularly paddle and build skills with would have benefited me, but I didn’t know about local clubs or groups like the American Canoe Association—not to mention, paddling wasn’t something I saw a lot of people that looked like me doing.

In the paddling community we put a lot of emphasis on safety, and for most of us that means technical knowledge of appropriate gear and watercraft, water and weather conditions, and how to conduct rescues as needed. But for folks who look like me, there are other dimensions of safety to consider, for example the risk of racial profiling, harassment and violence in the places we go to paddle. Recently I went on a paddle trip and one of the local shops was decorated in political propaganda and Confederate flags, and the shop owner even made it a point to say to one of the attendees that “this is Trump country,” not as an indicator of support for a political candidate, but to check them—to say they didn’t belong there. Racism is a very real and prevalent concern that I hear from Black friends who paddle, and is a barrier to many even entering the sport.

Some physical risks in paddlesports are also correlated to race. According to the CDC and other studies, Black people are seven times more likely to drown than their white counterparts—and no, it’s not because our bones are denser, as a P.E. teacher once told me. It dates back to redlining and segregated access to public pools and opportunities for swimming. Why is this relevant today? Well, if your parents can’t swim, you are statistically less likely to know how to swim or be exposed to opportunities to swim. So those systemic barriers from decades ago still have compounded effects today.

Pushing paddlesports forward

I’m heartened by organizations genuinely invested in the work of making our sport more accessible and equitable—those working actively to engage underrepresented and historically excluded groups, and support leadership from within those communities. I had the chance recently to experience efforts like these first-hand as I took part in the 2023 Beaver Crew program, which is part of Georgia River Network’s very intentional push to increase diversity in paddlesport instruction.

Beaver Crew provides first-class instructor training to diverse leaders, with scholarship support provided by Georgia Power and other funders. The cohort I joined in 2023 included seven African American participants, and we all earned ACA Level 1 or Level 2 certifications. Since then, classes have added more than two dozen qualified instructors. Many are leaders in Black-led groups and organizations like Middle Georgia Kayakers, West Atlanta Watershed Alliance and Outdoor Afro, a national organization that cultivates Black joy in the outdoors. They will go on to teach thousands the basics of paddling and safety and cultivate the community I wished I had when I first started paddling all those years ago in Florida. The Beaver Crew program was a powerful opportunity for me personally, and is absolutely a model that can be scaled and replicated across the country.

Mainstream organizations can do a lot to facilitate diversity and inclusion, but it has to go beyond simply inviting people of color into existing and traditional spaces. True inclusion means thinking critically about your programming and who its designed for; thinking about your current staff, board and membership and who’s missing; thinking about your culture and who is it most welcoming to. Considerations like where you hold your events and trips, how you conduct outreach or develop partnerships, the progression of your curriculum, or even what type of food is served or music is played may help to expand and diversify your audience. Most importantly, building genuine relationships beyond your own identity groups goes a long way.

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Promising trends

Our country is becoming more diverse, so there’s a business case for outfitters and retailers to embrace a broader participant base. The Census Bureau projects that racial and ethnic minority populations will collectively become the majority by 2045. Part of the work we do at the Outdoor Foundation in advancing outdoor access and equity is publish research on outdoor participation trends in collaboration with the Outdoor Industry Association.

Our recent 2024 Outdoor Participation Trends Report not only shows significant growth in overall outdoor participation but increases in diversity as well, with people of color over-representing among new outdoor participants. For example, African Americans are 12.4 percent of the U.S. population, while 15.6 percent of new outdoor participants are Black. We’ve seen similar gains among Latino, Asian-Pacific Islander and LGBTQ+ participants. That’s credit to the work of pioneering groups like Latino Outdoors and Outdoor Afro that have been working to cultivate affinity spaces for people of color in the outdoors. It’s also credit to organizations like those that are a part of the Outdoor Foundation’s national Thrive Outside Initiative who are working to address systemic barriers to outdoor access and increase youth outdoor programming.

We still have a way to go, but we’re making progress. We’ve reached a point in time where groups that have historically been excluded are engaging with and creating their own community in the outdoors. And that makes me very optimistic for the future of outdoor recreation.