"Noront likes to paint itself as "the king of the ring" and the only exploration company worth anything in the RoF. Now they want to insinuate that they are the first to have a "histrical" agreement with the FN."

I think you'll find that this agreement goes deeper than anything else thus the "first" monicur. And of more importance in my opinion, this agreement becomes strategic in that whoever inherits NOT, should that be the case, will also have to abide by the agreement set forth by NOT and the FN. I wonder if there won't be some fine print with enough stickyness to it, somewhat insulating NOT from a casual takeover attempt. I expect that everything NOT does from here on in will bear strategic origins. I had heard some time back that the FN favour NOT and can and will make trouble for others should they not play nicely. CLF and others may be larger than NOT, but our FN in Canada have a reputation for dealing with would be aggressors.