Hide Article Text (OCR)
athleen Rice - a woman ahead of her ti me□ The “Lady of the Lake” led a most unconventional life in northern ManitobaKathleen Lincoln Rice may have died largely forgotten in a Minnedosa personal care home, but during much of her life she was the stuff of legend. A feminist before feminism became part of our vernacular, a female prospector in an era when mining was strictly for men, she survived living mostly alone in one of nature’s most unforgiving environments. Then she checked herself into a Westman mental hospital, saying only, “I am insane.”Rice was born into money if not wealth. Her greatgrandfather sold his British army commission in his native Ireland and moved to pre-Confederation Ontario, where he quickly established himself as a grain trader and mill owner. In a time and place where the norm was a small log house, his huge brick residence was a mansion.Rice’s mother was a woman of little ambition and no passion, before or after her marriage to the tall, handsome son of an American Methodist minister. When Henry Lincoln Rice met his future wife, he was an instructor at Galt, ON’s famous Dr. Tassie’s School, arguably the best known secondary school in Canada.Kathleen was born in St. Marys, ON in 1882 and inherited her father’s good looks and his affinity for book learning. She graduated from the University of Toronto with a gold medal in mathematics in 1906 and for the next three years taught school in St. Catharines and Yorkton. Although she quickly tired of the succession of boarding houses and cold bedrooms to which early 20th century teachers were subjected, it was during this period she began reading government mining manuals and dreaming of life as a prospector.Rice enjoyed the frontier spirit of Yorkton and was popular with students and parents alike, but she increasingly felt the pull of the north, attracted by the dreams of wealth which followed the 1910 discovery of gold near what is now Flin Flon. Staggering under the weight of a stuffed back pack and carrying a rifle in one hand and a bird cage in the other, she arrived to confront muskeg, manure piles and bushes so thick they blocked out the sun. Her new home consisted of a row of tents and log cabins, and two cookhouses.Residents of the boom town of Beaver City did not know what to make of the young, six foot tall, strikingly beautiful Amazon who strode into their midst. Out-spoken and opinionated, and possessed of a direct, penetrating gaze and large, expressive eyes accentuated by a highCharles Dale Brawnforehead, she was nothing like the other women in town. With names like Suicide Sally, Cut-Throat Rosie and the Moose Jaw Kid, females in the shanty town were not known for their virtue.Shortly after she arrived in the north, Rice joined one of the many prospecting forays into the Island Lake region. Trudging behind six horses pulling a snow plow, a four-horse team carrying a small sleeping shed and two horses dragging a tent, the men ignored the only woman among them, intimidated not just a little by the rifle she was never without.Prospecting at the turn of the 20th century was usually done alone or with a single partner. So it was with Kathleen. Her first years in the north were solitary and, from a prospecting perspective, unproductive. The lake country in which she prospected and trapped furs consisted of hundreds of miles of muskeg, impenetrable spruce forests and swarms of black flies.Business partnerKathleen Rice’s life changed when Dick Woosey, a short, gregarious British army veteran, paddled up to her camp. The two hit it off and soon agreed to prospect as partners - business rather than sexual. For a quarter of a century were nearly inseparable. Woosey later recounted his first impression of Rice. “Seems a nice enough woman, very good looking, a bit on the vinegar side. Strange her being there alone. With the fire blazing must be 90 degrees in here. It’s the life, but wish I had a partner.”Although Woosey was a friend of famous northern Manitoba miners Dan Mosher and Tom Creighton, his diaries offer a clue why he found it more appealing to prospect with a woman than a man. “Dan and Tom can’t lift their eyes off the rocks for fear of missing something and they miss plenty - the earth, the sky, the berries, all those raspberries, blueberries, snowberries, bearber-ries. As an old Regular Army man I like to take in the terrain, even a soft wind means something to me.”In the years Rice and Woosey prospected in the Wekusko (Herb) Lake district east of The Pas, the warmth of the former cavalry officer slowly chipped away at theinflexibility and aloofness of his partner. Never, however, did she lose her sense of superiority. She was, after all, a university graduate, with the capacity to express herself in a way Woosey could not.An example of both her expressive ability and her love of the north is evident in “The Aurora - Arctic Will O’ The Wisp”, published in 1932 by The Journal of The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. After starting out the way Manitobans traditionally do - mentioning the winter cold (“the intense cold has crystallized the snowy nights into a strange stillness that seems to hold the very stars themselves in its spell”), she describes the northern lights in markedly romantic tones.“I recall that upon one such winter night there appeared at the very zenith of the sky a golden bar of light, and knotted around it, soft folds of deepest red, like a scarf of fine tulle with lengths of free ends which lifted and gently wafted about as in a whiff of breeze, - a beautiful emblem of the wonder and mystery of all things.”Later she wrote of what she saw when she opened the door of her isolated cabin one winter afternoon. “I beheld a miracle of colour over the lake. There lay a monster spectrum spread out to a depth of a few feet upon the hoar-frosted surface of the ice, - electric-blue, green, on through to deep aurora red ... its lovely ethereal hues a benediction of beauty against the foil of towering grey cliffs on either hand, with their pine-darkened seams and crests.”Lived off the landWoosey was a well-known and highly regarded prospector before he met Rice, but remained throughout his life inclined to trust those not deserving of his confidence. Kathleen, on the other hand, had no such weakness. On more than one occasion she shot at mining agents and strangers found on one of her claims.Rice and Woosey loved the north, and winter and summer lived off the land. Summers, Kathleen, known by contemporaries as Kate, gathered wild rice along the sides of creeks, picked red andCommunity p\.Calendar•Aug. 4-8Avalanche Ranch Vacation Bible School, 12:304:00 p.m., Hilltop Baptist Church, EricksonCommunity Calendar listings are free for area non-profit organizations who also run a paid advertisement in South Mountain Press. For information on advertising your event, for as low as $7.00 per week, call Cate at 636-2280.black currants, blackberries and plump, juicy raspberries, and fished for whitefish, perch, trout and walleye.Woosey was equally busy. In winters he prospected and trapped beaver, muskrat, lynx, ermine, mink and marten when not hunting moose. Deep snow and the weight of the meat he packed often meant he had to build caches and leave behind much of the animals he killed. He often returned to an empty larder.“Went to third meat cache. Wolves got almost all moose meat. Put poison bait around remainder. Visited poison bait found three dead wolves many dead ravens... Heard wolves howling direction of first moose cache ... Wolves cleaned up everything. No meat left there.”The death of Woosey in 1940 was a huge emotionaland psychological blow to Rice. Now almost 60 and completely alone, she became the eccentric she was only rumoured to have been. She continued to live alone on her island, occasionally firing her shotgun in the direction of uninvited guests. Known locally as the Lady of the Lake because of her “elegant manners and fondness for ceremonial tea”, she sold some of her nickel claims for $45,000 in cash and is believed to have buried the proceeds near her cabin.Rice seems to have realized she was slipping perilously close to a mental precipice, and in her late 70s made her way to Brandon, where she committed herself to the city’s mental hospital.When Minnedosa’s Lady Minto Hospital was converted to a nursing home, Riceagreed to become a resident, spending her last two years much as she had her first 78, keeping to herself. She was a unique and very private woman who, according to one of her former nurses, “Used to sit on the veranda and rub whiskers off her chin with sandpaper.”Kathleen Lincoln Rice died on Jan. 3, 1963. She is buried in an unmarked grave near the entrance to the Minnedosa cemetery. Her money is believed to remain buried on Woosey Island.■Dak Brawn practiced law in Shoal Lake in the 1980s before entering graduate school, and is now teaching in the Department of Law and Justice at Laurentian University in Sudbury, ON. His father Charles is a resident of Brandon.YOU CANPROTECT YOURSELF FROMWEST NILE VIRUSWHAT ARE THE SYMPTOMS?• A severe case of West Nile virus (WNV) can be life-threatening and may result in long-term disability.• Some people develop an illness with symptoms such as fever, headache, fatigue, body aches and rash.• Most people infected with WNV have no symptoms and do not become ill.WHO IS AT RISK?• In southern Manitoba, anyone can be exposed to an infected Culextarsalis mosquito during the summer months.• Severe illness most often occurs among older adults or people with chronic health conditions or weakened immune systems. However, severe illness has occurred in all age groups.WHEN ISTHE RISK HIGHEST?• The risk of WNV infection is highest during late June, July, August and early September.• The risk varies from year to year based on temperature, precipitation, mosquito population and other factors.HOW DO I PROTECT AGAINST WNV?• Reduce the time you spend outside between dusk and dawn.• Apply an appropriate mosquito repellent.• Wear light-coloured, loose-fitting, long-sleeved clothing.• Get rid of standing water around your home.• Make sure your door and window screens fit tightly and are free of holes.For more information about West Nile virus (WNV), including information about risk, visit our website at manitoba.ca.For WNV health concerns, contact your doctor or call Health Links-lnfo Sante at 788-8200 (in Winnipeg); toll-free 1-888-315-9257.DON’T BE A“Chronic fatigue and bouts of depression - all from the bite of a mosquito. Please take the time to protect yourself and those you love.■ Wayne, age 60 (Diagnosed with WNV in 2005)“Mosquitoes infected with West Nile virus can bite anyone - and that ‘anyone’could be you! Take precautions to cut down the risk”■ Rachel (Lost her 66-year-old father to WNV in 2007)
Newspaper Details
Erickson South Mountain Press
Erickson, Manitoba, CA
Sat, Aug 02, 2008
Page 8
Full Page
Clipped by
Katherine J.
USA 14 Sep 2024
Other Publications Near Erickson, Manitoba
Erickson South Mountain Press
