1. Kate Rice was a Canadian prospector, adventurer, and writer from Ontario who homesteaded, prospected and mined in northern Manitoba.
26 Facts About Kate Rice
1. 2.
Kate Rice garnered widespread attention for her adventurous life, brilliant mind, statuesque beauty, and for succeeding in the mineral industry, which very few women were engaged with at the time.
3.
Kathleen Creighton Starr Rice was born in 1882 to Henry Lincoln Rice and Charlotte "Lottie" Carter Rice, an upper-middle-class family in St Marys, Ontario.
4.
Kate Rice's father struggled with the changing business climate as a grain merchant who had inherited full shares in Carter Milling Co.
5.
Kate Rice's paternal grandfather, Rev Dr Samuel Dwight Rice, was a progressive Methodist Minister who had founded a college for women in Hamilton.
6.
Kate Rice taught his daughter to canoe and to camp along the St Mary's River, at the age of six, regaled her with tales of Daniel Boone, and imparted a life-long taste for adventure and the outdoors.
7.
Kate Rice attended the University of Toronto, winning the Edward Blake Scholarship twice.
8.
Kate Rice studied Mathematics, Physics and Astronomy, graduating in 1906.
9.
In 1908, Kate Rice moved west to Tees, Alberta, where she taught at a summer school.
10.
Kate Rice then took a position as a Professor of Mathematics at Albert College, in Belleville, Ontario, then taught in Yorkton, Saskatchewan during 1911 and 1912.
11.
Kate Rice there began to explore the Canadian Rockies, and took up mountaineering, mainly in the Cascade Mountains.
12.
At the age of 29, Kate Rice decided she wanted to homestead, and to participate in the opening of Canada's "new frontier" in the North.
13.
Kate Rice began studying prospecting and read everything she found on geology.
14.
Kate Rice befriended local Cree, learned their language, and learned to hunt and trap animals.
15.
In 1914, Kate Rice borrowed money, a "grubstake", from an old college friend, and hired a Cree guide to take her north to Beaver Lake by dogsled.
16.
Kate Rice then traveled further north by canoe to Brochet to begin prospecting.
17.
On this first foray Kate Rice discovered zinc showings at Reindeer Lake, but did not stake the claim, as there was no railway to the area and it would be difficult to develop.
18.
In 1917, Kate Rice staked more claims at Herb Lake and had them surveyed, proved, and assessed.
19.
For several decades afterward, Kate Rice prospected the Wekusko Lake, Herb Lake, and Snow Lake areas, as well as in the Burntwood and Flin Flon mineral belts.
20.
Kate Rice occasionally wrote well-received articles for the Toronto Star about topics of more interest to her than to tabloid journalism.
21.
Kate Rice was once offered $500,000 for one of her claims, but decided to hold out for twice that amount.
22.
Kate Rice wrote several articles in scientific journals about meteorological and astronomical observations she had made in her travels through Canada's north.
23.
Kate Rice became well known, as well, for her ability to raise and train sled dogs, and for her skill in mushing them without resorting to the use of a whip.
24.
Kate Rice left the wilderness in 1960 at the age of 77 to check into the Brandon Mental Institution.
25.
Nonetheless, in 1962 Kate Rice moved herself into a nursing home in Minnedosa, Manitoba where she died a year later.
26.
The island upon which Kate Rice lived on Wekusko Lake was officially recognized as Kate Rice Island in 1946.