At a time when women were expected to be at home, raising children and managing the house, Kate Rice chose a road less travelled and had one amazing life because of it.
Born Kathleen Creighton Starr Rice on Dec. 22, 1882 in St. Marys, Ontario, her family was upper-middle-class thanks to her father’s success as a grain merchant. Her grandfather, Reverend Dr. Samuel Dwight Rice, was a Methodist minister who founded a college for women in Hamilton.
From a young age, Kate’s father Henry taught his daughter about the outdoors. The two often camped and canoed along the St. Mary’s River beginning when Kate was six. Her father told her stories about Daniel Boone, and fostered a love and respect of the wilderness in her.
As a young adult, Kate attended the University of Toronto where she won the Edward Blake scholarship twice. She studied Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy and graduated in 1906.
Two years later, she was in Tees, Alberta where she taught summer school. She then went to Albert College in Belleville, Ontario to become a Professor of Mathematics.
Around this time, she became interested in the Canadian Rockies and set out to explore them. Throughout her adulthood, she visited the Rockies to climb mountains and became a member of the Alpine Club of Canada.
When she turned 29, Kate decided she wanted to homestead. Since she was not considered a legal person under the law, her brother Lincoln purchased land for her in his name near The Pas, Manitoba. In 1913, she began to farm but a new adventure awaited.
Hearing of gold 90 kilometres north near Beaver Lake, Kate began to study prospecting and read several books on geology. She then befriended the local Cree, learned their language and how to hunt and trap animals.
In 1914, she borrowed money from a college friend, hired a Cree guide and went to Beaver Lake by dogsled. During her first bit of prospecting at Reindeer Lake, she found zinc but didn’t stake a claim since there was no railway in the area.
One year later, she took her own dog team to Beaver Lake and staked her first claims. The local Cree called her Mooniasquao, meaning White Woman.
In 1915, she began working in a partnership with Boer War veteran Richard Woosey. The two built a remote cabin and worked as a prospecting team until his death in 1940. Throughout that time, they prospected, surveyed and assessed land and potential mining claims.
By the late-1920s, Kate was becoming known in Canada for her adventures in Northern Canada. Standing at six-foot-tall with blonde hair, whenever she visited Toronto to see her parents she was hounded by the Toronto Star for interviews. Newspapers as far away as Australia also began to try and contact her.
Rather than just be interviewed, Kate wrote articles for the Toronto Star on topics that interested her.
Meanwhile, in Northern Manitoba, her many copper and nickel discoveries led to major mining operations and the creation of the mining hub of Thompson, Manitoba.
By 1940, with the death of Woosey, and the fact she was approaching 60, she decided to stay at her log cabin on Wekusko Lake where she wrote, gardened and prospected in her canvas canoe she called Duckling.
During that time, she wrote articles on meteorological and astronomical observations for scientific journals. She also raised and trained sled dogs and was able to control them without ever using a whip.
As she reached her late 70s, Kate began to worry about her own isolation on her little island and the impact it could have on her mental health. In 1960, she checked into the Brandon Mental Institution. The doctors examined her and stated she was completely sane.
In 1962, Rice moved to a nursing home in Minnedosa, Manitoba where she died on Jan. 2, 1963 at the age of 80.
Today, the island she lived on is called Rice Island and includes a plaque in her memory. In 2013, she was inducted into the Canadian Mining Hall of Fame.