time) at $5 million. Her many copper and nickel discoveries ultimately led to the development of large mining operations and the creation of the mining hub of Thompson, Manitoba. Later years From 1940 onwards Rice lived in her log cabin on her island on Wekusko Lake, writing, gardening, fishing, trapping, and prospecting in her small 12 ft canvas canoe "Duckling". She wrote several articles in scientific journals about meteorological and astronomical observations she had made in her travels through Canada's north. She 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. After so many years living in isolation on her island, Rice became worried for her own sanity. She left the wilderness in 1960 at the age of 77 to check into the Brandon Mental Institution. After examination, the doctors assured her she was not crazy, but rather was "just a prospector". Nonetheless, in 1962 Rice moved herself into a nursing home in Minnedosa, Manitoba where she died a year later. Penniless in the end, she was buried in an unmarked grave. Recognition The island upon which Rice lived on Wekusko Lake was officially recognized as Rice Island in 1946. In 2013 a plaque was installed on the island that read: "In Memory of Kathleen ‘Kate’ Rice. With the aurora borealis illuminating her pioneering trail, her courage and ethics spoke volumes, while her deeds and prospecting helped define the North we know." In 2009, the Snow Lake newspaper, Underground Press, spearheaded a fundraising campaign to erect a headstone on Rice’s grave in Minnedosa which read "Prospector and Pioneer of the North, Extraordinary Woman of the Wilds". A similar stone was erected in The Pas on Dick Woosey's grave. The Canadian Mining Hall of Fame inducted Kate Rice in 2013. A relative donated Rice's papers, including an unpublished memoir and drawings, to the University of Manitoba Archives. See also History of Manitoba List of Female Adventurers References Further reading Headframes, Happiness and Heartaches: Mines of Manitoba, by Richard Brent Parres and Marc Jackson, James and Audrey Parres, 2009. CBC Radio - Extraordinary Woman of the Wilds: Kate Rice 1882 births 1963 deaths Female polar explorers People from St. Mary's, Ontario Canadian gold prospectors Canadian miners Canadian prospectors Women in mining Writers from Ontario 20th-century Canadian women writers University of Toronto alumni