"the chrome and nickel are worthless until someone wants it and that may be a very longtime!"
Every thing there is worthless until the time when a permanent road or railway or both are built.
However when at least one of these is present those resources will be worth many times their present value and there will be more than one 'someone' that will want those metals.

The question to determine is how long will it take to build the road or railway.

The nickel is not needed right away but the chromite being the only major source in north America is needed right away because it represents security of supply. So the road or railway has to be built. Once one of them is built for the chromite the nickel and the other metals will not only be needed but the value and demand for them may surpass the chromite because the chromite can not be dumped on the market in volume without depressing the price. That is why the Freewest resource is good for 50 or maybe 70 years.
The nickel, copper and precious metals suffer not from such a limitation. If one could deliver all of them in one year's time then the price would hardly be affected ( nickel perhaps a bit), barring world economy.