It doesn't hurt being a miser when running a junior exploration company since spending a lot of money means dilution of shares.

My guess is that Noront and others have already been looking a preliminary results of those aerial surveys and while they don't guarantee valuable mineralization they sure will indicate if there is high probablility of Noront's kind of mineralization extending onto FNC property.

R. Nemis of Noront isn't going to want to pay over the odds for unproven property as he has his hands full with what he already controls. Still doing a share for jv deal (at the current $5+ valuation) could not only increase FNC's market value but also the value of NOT on the market.  Only going to increase NOT's value if they can pretty definately point at continued mineralization.