Where the water divides
Yesterday's random article was Walpole Island, a reserve at the mouth of the St. Clair River between Ontario and Michigan. The Ojibwe, Potawatomi and Odawa who live there call it Bkejwanong, "where the waters divide." The river splits into channels around a cluster of islands before it reaches Lake St. Clair.
The 1783 Treaty of Paris drew the line between Britain and the new United States through those waters in vague terms, and the two countries argued for years over which islands were whose. They settled it by picking channels. Walpole ended up on the Canadian side, and Harsens, Russell and Dickinson ended up American.
The people living there never signed a treaty giving Walpole up, so it is unceded land, home by default. The First Nation also says Harsens Island is theirs. To them, the governments drew a line through the middle of a place that was already one place.
What stayed with me is that the name got there first. Before anyone argued about the boundary, the people at the river had already described the spot as the place where the water splits. The diplomats only had to choose which split counted.