Skip to main content
facts & arguments

Facts & Arguments is a daily personal piece submitted by readers. Have a story to tell? See our guidelines at tgam.ca/essayguide.

Last summer, a friend was gathering berries by the side of the Gatineau Parkway near her West Quebec home when a van slowed. Vehicles often stop or slow down in the park but she immediately took notice because of the van's proximity. She continued to pick and pretended to look around for a better patch in order to assess the situation: one occupant, male. While the van kept pace close behind she considered her options. Instead of running or trying to flag down one of the few vehicles on the road, she chose to lead the man to an exit ramp where he couldn't easily turn back.

Had she overreacted, she wondered? Perhaps he had slowed to look at a map or admire the trees. If so, why did the hair on the back of her neck stand up, just as mine had three decades earlier in Turkey when, in a terrifying moment, I went from enjoying a walk along a windy Mediterranean peninsula to running as fast as I could from five men about to encircle me?

The peninsula fright was a couple of years behind me and forgotten when I canoed with a boyfriend into a remote lake off the French River in Central Ontario. We spent the better part of an afternoon paddling through marsh and dragging our canoe over beaver dams. When we finally entered the lake, a powerful outboard with two burly men immediately revved up and headed straight for us. I became hysterical and my boyfriend pleaded with me from the back of the canoe to shut up. It turned out the men had been camped for a month, mapping and studying fish for the Ministry of Natural Resources. We were invited for beer, and my boyfriend talked with them about bass fishing. The conversation would have been pleasant for me if I hadn't, regretfully, remained so wary. The two men were interesting and had done nothing to cause my fear. Apparently, I had not forgotten the men in Turkey.

Several years later, I was visiting my mother and taking a brisk walk in a sleepy town in B.C.'s Fraser Valley when a van pulled over and stopped in front of me. A man got out, quickly went to the back, and opened the rear doors before I reached the vehicle. He blocked the sidewalk and tried to engage me in conversation. I stopped and stiffened as the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I stepped back, but I couldn't get around him unless I walked through a flower garden or went across the open van doors to the road. He sounded friendly, but the situation was strange. If he needed directions why would he ask for them at the back with the doors open? Why was he standing so close, and what was cupped in his hand? I moved farther away.

A woman in the house with the flower garden opened the front door and asked me if everything was all right. Clearly, she sensed something, too. She stood on her porch watching until he drove away. But where was he going, and whom would he stop next?

I got cold and began to shake the moment he was out of sight. If I had forced myself to be polite, to relax, to be drawn into conversation, where would he have taken me in that windowless van? Would my remains be hundreds of miles away in a shallow grave? Perhaps these questions sound paranoid. Appearing innocent is an obvious tactic, but had I taken a perfectly innocent situation and imagined the worst?

Reason tells me chances are extremely low that I'll ever relive these terrifying incidents. Nevertheless, I long ago stopped walking alone in the countryside of foreign countries, and I can't resist the impulse to avoid a vehicle that stops on a quiet street. I don't live in fear like some women in other parts of the world. I remain open to people and continue to give advice to lost travellers, enjoy conversations with strangers, and assume a group of guys really are out for a walk. But I also know that some day I will face another terrifying situation involving a man simply because I am female. When that moment comes, I trust my instincts will warn me.

Barb Webb lives in Limerick Township, Ont.

Interact with The Globe