How Arc’teryx Walk Gently Brings Indigenous Design to Modern Outerwear

A Hometown Connection

When it was started by two climbers in 1989, nothing guaranteed that Arc’teryx (originally called Rock Solid) would become one of the most recognizable outdoor brands in the world. Yet it's gained a following by leaning into technical apparel and crunchy designs that have put it right at the heart of the gorpcore fashion boom, with celebrities rocking Dead Bird jackets and toques. (Arc'teryx, owned by Amer Sports, is reportedly worth between $10-13 billion.) That kind of clout could certainly be used to sell more $900 jackets, so it's refreshing when energy is also put towards raising the profile of cultures that have been historically underrepresented in the outdoor industry. North America's Indigenous people are a particularly glaring example.

Salish Winter is the third iteration of Walk Gently, which began with 2024’s Coast Salish collection and continued with 2025’s Cedar and Salmon collection. The current collection features insulation, shells, trekking boots, and a toque aimed at helping the folks stay warm and dry through the winters of the Pacific Northwest.

Sparrow-Crawford grew up hunting, fishing, and harvesting shellfish and other marine life in the region, and learning about his culture’s connection with the land and its traditional technical design. Cowichan knitting, which produces intricately patterned and warm wool sweaters that became popular in the 1940s and may have peaked culturally with the Dude’s cardigan in 1998’s The Big Lebowski, is one example of this design. Sparrow-Crawford also studied at the Parsons School of Design in New York.

Arc’teryx’s Chief Creative Officer Katie Becker reached out to Sparrow-Crawford in 2022. Prior to that, he didn’t have much of an association with his hometown brand. “I was familiar, but I didn’t see myself in it that much,” he tells Field Mag. “I grew up doing things that are very in relationship to my culture and our ways of being on the land. But I'm not a core mountain athlete the same way that the outdoor industry or Arc'teryx perceives that.”

That first call with Becker, which was scheduled for 30 minutes, turned into a three-hour conversation. “By the end of that, Katie was really interested in bringing me in to partner with the design team and figure out a meaningful way to give me an opportunity as a young Indigenous designer.” And just like that, Walk Gently was born.

Modern Indigenous Design

Sparrow-Crawford approaches each collection drawing inspiration from the season and what Indigenous activities are linked to them. “I've always been super inspired by my ancestors and how we survived in this climate,” he says. “We've been technical designers long before that industry existed, building products around survival within our ways of life.”

Take, for example, the Mutton Insulated Jacket. Historically, the Salish would gather fur from a now-extinct woolly dog and mix it with mountain goat wool and plant fibers, which they would then spin into yarns for sweaters. That process inspired the down-insulated midlayer with a traditional shawl collar, and the pattern is a direct reference to Salish design.

The Walk Gently blanket from the initial collection is another of Sparrow-Crawford’s favorites. Its origins lie in a Salish blanket that three of Sparrow-Crawford’s aunts found. They studied it and learned how to recreate the traditional weaving pattern, which then became an element in the Arc'teryx Walk Gently blanket. “It might not be the most commercial piece,” says Sparrow-Crawford, “but what it represents is so meaningful.”

Other products, like the Dekoi Jacket, draw their inspiration from nature. The team worked with Gore-Tex to use an image of actual deer fur, bringing natural camouflage to a hard shell for hunting. Arc'teryx used a similar process with the Cedar and Salmon collection to create a printed hardshell derived from salmon skin.

Sparrow-Crawford appreciates that the products he and Arc'teryx have developed aren't just replications of pieces that already exist in the Arc'teryx line with new patterns and a Walk Gently logo: “I feel like we’re pushing the envelope and giving the products their own space and development within modern technical design.”

Walking the Walk

The name Walk Gently has a dual meaning. “It’s a call to action to our communities in how to walk in relationship to the land and how to work with and be in community with Indigenous people,” says Sparrow-Crawford. “Walk Gently was the perfect name for it because it spoke to that process of bridging that gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people working in relationship with each other and with the lands and communities that we're a part of.”

The line could’ve been a one-off collaboration, but Becker and Sparrow-Crawford saw it as a platform with the potential to have a much more lasting impact. Walk Gently began as an annual collection, and now the team is looking to build in a seasonal capsule.

Arc’teryx has also made philanthropic investments and is working in partnership with seven Indigenous non-profits. “We're constantly doing panel talks at our headquarters and inviting community members in for workshops and educating ourselves and our employees on how to be in relationship with Indigenous people,” says Sparrow-Crawford. “That doesn't happen very often in the corporate world. People more often than not just check the box with a donation and carry on. But I'm so proud of Arc'teryx and the way that they've approached this partnership. They're investing their hearts into this more than just seeing it as an opportunity, but trying to give that opportunity to Indigenous people.”

At the end of the day, Sparrow-Crawford hopes that Walk Gently and its broader platform not only amplify Indigenous representation and traditional design, but help people connect with their surroundings.

“Whether it is just going on a trail walk in your backyard or wanting to go and climb the tallest peak, it all roots back to that connection to the land,” he says. “We're building something that's truly meaningful at the ground level, and it has been such a beautiful task so far.”

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