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.
