Friday was a welcomed day...the end of the blockade that was discussed here on Thursday night was made official by Noront and we saw our share price react pretty quickly to that great news. We still have lots to negotiate over the next six months and we are only 1 of 6 or more entities involved, no easy task with so many different agendas to resolve. However, this lifting of the blockade is a very good first step in everyone showing good will to make the Ring of Fire, the next great Canadian mining district!

Now, as Hoov posted, I had a chance to talk to JJ this morning but was travelling and asked him to post a summary of the conversation we had.

All the equipment/drills was/were already sitting in Geralton and was basically just waiting for the signal to get it to Esker camp. Noront has hired a very large helicopter to transport the big drills and other equipment and fuel into the camp. We will be resuming all our activities up there asap.

Rosedale expressed the thought that we could be vulnerable to a hostile take over at this time. I agree with him and expressed this to JJ and she agreed that it is not a comfortable position for the company right now. Some of my thoughts on this are:

As Strato pointed out, a 30day average share price of $1.49

A share price that on Friday seemed more manipulated than usual, including Citi going short on NOT with 49.3K shares at a price of $1.52. Really, Citi...do you think you will make some serious money shorting NOT at $1.52 average price? This is ridiculous IMO and Citi is either making a really bad bet or they are involved in keeping Noront down.

Window is closing on getting Noront on the cheap IMO-we now have a deep drill on site and JJ told me that the first thing they want to do is drill to 2000meters to see how deep this goes. Anyone wishing to make a hostile take over on the cheap, better do it before this deep hole is drilled because the share price will be much harder to contain if this is done successfully.

If someone is planning to attempt a low ball hostile take over, there is no better time than now IMO. Even if they launch this Monday though, there is no reason to believe they would be successful. These things take some time and our management is doing the right things IMO to raise our share price asap.

They have redone our 43-101 which more than tripled our resources which lays a base foundation for assessing our value. We did this 3 quarters faster than we originally planned because IMO they are nervous about where our share price is and what it could mean for a hostile take over. Drilling another vertical hole will probably create some speculative buying and increase our share price or at least, make it harder for manipulators to control us. We have seen Wes use his personal wallet to purchase 31k shares in the open market. This was a first for our new CEO and I hope to see him and many other insiders duplicate this often. However, this first step is still a signal to the market that they believe we are undervalued and hopefully the market sees it that way also. The lack of insider buying has been a big pet peave for me and so Wes, I thank you for stepping up to the plate!

One of the things that struct me from PDAC was how serious, excited, enthusiatic Wes, Jim Atkinson(who lead the technical presentation), Jeremy Niemi and others were all about the company and our prospects up there. These are all very proud people who would love nothing more than to make Noront into one of the world's big mining companies. For them, a buyout, even at a favorable price is not what they seem to be looking for. They want to develop our company into something they can all be proud of. Some of us shareholders would surely jump at a decent buyout but I truly believe that these guys want to prove themselves and so, I cannot see them selling out " a la Aurelian"

Our current share price remains very low for our current and growing assets. I was a buyer on Friday and plan on buying more this week. If we get a hostile take over scenario, I want to be able to vote my shares-hopefully lots of them. A take over at this point would be at a minimum of $2.50 IMO so buying at $1.60 is a no brainer for me right now. If nothing materializes on the take over front, I still know that we will be drilling to 2000meters very soon and hitting this deep would result in a visual report. If they can start from hole 49 with this new deep drill, they are already half way home and we could get a NR on 2000 meters within 4 weeks.

For all those that have followed this story, and the newer guys who believe, If you know you are right (like after hole 49), just sit tight, the market will catch up to our reality pretty soon.

Glorieux