that lets investors get together with the people of the mining

patch and conferences from Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto,

Montreal and heck—even Saskatchewan now (right Tom

MacNeil?)

We had been joking over the last several years that despite

his incredible connections with brokers, analysts, mining

people, etc., Joe had not had a good record of picking

stocks...until this year. His pick from back in January has

tripled.

We put him on the spot and ask for another pick—

something that could create some excitement in a speculators

life and he has obliged. His pick...is

Yes, you’ve got it! He has decided to get into this take-over/

speculation game as Freewest is right in the middle of what

could be a take-over game. And the players involved are

kind of intriguing.

the exploration there and it made a share offer for control to

try and attempt to buy out Freewest. But there are those that

think that the company, despite a big chunk of stock outstanding,

is worth a whole lot more. Some of their drilling

results on their chromite project are absolutely fantastic.

When we caught up with Michael D’Amico who does investor

relations for Freewest, needless to say he is not too

particularly happy with what he considers the low offer

made by Noront and points out that Freewest is currently

trading for more than the equivalent of the offer. He also

makes one point that everyone following this deal should

know and that was the private placement that Cliff’s made

into the company in a $5 million private placement back in

early June.

Cliff’s just happens to be the largest producer of iron ore

pellets in North America and a major supplier of direct shipping

lump and finds iron ore out of Australia and is also a

significant producer of metallurgical coal. It’s a corporate

biggie and now that Cliff’s has their toe-hole in this place, it

is going to be interesting to see what Cliff’s decides to do

about this whole deal.

Meanwhile, D’Amico tells us that he firmly believes

Freewest with their recent drilling results (folks, when you

get 34% CR203 over 174 m, you are into world-class stuff

even if it is in northern Ontario) and D’Amico suggests that

when the stainless steel industry does start to recover, you

won’t find a better resource available anywhere in the world.

So Martin is obviously betting that this take-over game is

going to heat up and just in case he is right, we pick up a

few...more than a few that is.