Take a breather. Its actually getting better.

Back in March I posted that I thought it was strange that Marten Falls was quiet while the four northern Matawa FNs were getting support for studying the EW corridor and potential road. All was quiet until NOT announced that they had acquired CLF's ROF assets. Then everything broke loose. My read was that it looked like Marten Falls had made a move with KWG to acquire CLF's ROF assets. This was supported by a Mar 9th article about (Matawa) Nibinamik First Nation acquiring a percentage ownership of Wall Street brokerage, NativeOne Financial Holdings LLC. The stated reason being that: “They now own a small piece of NativeOne, so they can go directly to Wall Street to get fair and level financial advice,” Smith said. “Up until now, none of them has been able to get capital to do billion-dollar mining operations.”( http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/03/09/two-first-nations-tribes-pull-seat-wall-street-159516)

What they didn't count on was that It was highly unlikely that CLF was going to do a deal with Marten Falls or KWG after they both undermined what must have looked like a certain deal with the McGuinty government to build their NW private road. I suspect that CLF would have given it away to anyone else before CLF allowed that to happened. So with a bunch of people telling them it was their 'right' to control the ROF they wake up to NOT owning the CLF assets. To make matters worse NOT isn't going to develop the chromite until after nickel. That works for just about everyone except for the N-S crowd and they are not happy about it.

So where do we stand. First, there is absolutely no duty to consult over the transfer of title of crown land. It is the exclusive right of the province. The transfer of CLFs assets to NOT will occur. The E-W corridor study is going to find that the four communittes want an all weather road and it will be tied to the EagleNest mine road approval. There will be jobs, there will be FN supplier/contractor deal, there will be revenue sharing of government revenue. These are all now a given based on current practice. All that leaves is the closer/kicker.

To me it looks like there is going to be equity ownership by FNs. It may be in NOT, the chromite deposits, infrastructure or maybe all three. I don't know if it will be a buy in or part of the 'compensation' or how much.

The communities in the Matawa FNs are not homogeneous. Some won't want a mine at all, others only want the mine if they totally control it and then there is everyone in between. Those that want work, access to cheaper/better services/food, better housing, better education or just greed are the ones that are going to drive this forward, especially the youth and their parents. If the northern communities start to align with the project and I think that is starting to happen, it will be a done deal.

I'm only reading tea leafs and don't have insider information but I expect that we will have a deal this summer. If not it will be time for me to dump my shares and move on.

... Been There