Stornoway Ventures Ltd. (SWV) and Northern Empire Minerals Ltd. (NEM) are pleased to announce that they have entered into two separate option agreements covering approximately 1.5 million acres of land on the Melville Peninsula. The landholdings under option do not include any of the core areas totalling over 5 million acres surrounding the recently announced diamondiferous AV-1 kimberlite occurrence on the Aviat Project (see company press release of February 3, 2003).

Under the terms of the first agreement, Navigator Exploration Corp. and NDT Ventures Ltd. may earn a 60%collective interest (30% interest each) in approximately 1,000,000 acres of permits situated throughout the Melville Peninsula (see attached map) from Northern Empire, Stornoway and Hunter Exploration Group ("Hunter") by funding all permit acquisition costs (complete), issuing 100,000 shares and warrants of each company and incurring $1 million in exploration costs.

Under the terms of a second agreement, Strongbow Resources Inc. may earn a 60% interest in approximately 465,000 acres of permits situated on the Melville Peninsula (see attached map), from Northern Empire, Stornoway and Hunter by funding all permit acquisition costs (complete), issuing 100,000 shares and warrants of Strongbow and incurring $500,000 in exploration costs.

Navigator, NDT and Strongbow negotiated option terms of the agreement and advanced all acquisition costs in December, 2002. The agreements were subject to receipt of the exploration permits and approval of the option terms by independent directors of each of Northern Empire, Stornoway, Navigator and NDT, both of which have now occurred.

Upon exercise of both options, Stornoway, Northern Empire and Hunter retain 15%, 15% and 10% interests, respectively in the properties optioned. The 10% interest retained by Hunter is carried until a total of $10,000,000 in exploration expenditures has been spent on the properties optioned by Navigator and NDT and $5,000,000 in exploration expenditures has been spent on the properties optioned by Strongbow. The properties are subject to a 2% gross overriding royalty in favour of Hunter. Catherine McLeod-Seltzer states, "These strategic joint ventures provide Northern Empire and Stornoway with a broader exposure to diamond exploration on the Melville Peninsula and allows the Companies to focus their efforts on exploring the core property which hosts the AV-1 diamond discovery."

On behalf of the Board
NORTHERN EMPIRE MINERALS LTD.
/s/ "John Robins"
John E. Robins, P. Geo
President

For further information, please contact the Company at 604-331-2267 or (888) 338-2200
www.northernempireminerals.com

The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept Responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release