ascribed the name of 'Pointed Hearts' to one of the tribes he traded with and "Pointed Heart Lake" for the lake they lived near. Since Thompson traveled with French-speaking Iroquois guides and scouts, it has been speculated that they may have been the first to refer to the tribe as the Coeur d'Alene. As French was the spoken language of the Canadian fur traders, it is likely that "pointed heart" has its origins in the French transliteration of Cœur or "heart", d’ or "in the middle of" and Alêne or "awl", meaning the tribal traders had hearts as sharp as the tip of an awl – or that they were sharp businessmen. The Oregon boundary dispute (or Oregon question) arose as a result of competing British and American claims to the Pacific Northwest of North America in the first half of the 19th century. The British had trading ties extending from Canada and had started settlements at Fort Vancouver and at Fort Astoria on the Pacific coast near the mouth of the Columbia River. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 ended the disputed joint occupation of the area in present-day Idaho when Britain ceded all rights to land south of the 49th parallel to the United States. In another territorial dispute, the U.S. government through Washington Territory Governor Isaac Stevens began to negotiate treaties that would begin to move the various tribes of the region onto reservation lands to make way for American settlement. This angered the Coeur d'Alene, as several treaty re-negotiations continually reduced their tribal lands. The tribe also perceived the planned construction a military wagon road as a precursor to a land-grab by the United States. These talks and increasing settler encroachment sparked armed hostilities between the native Coeur d'Alene, Spokane and Palouse and the settler populations that resulted in an initial victory for the tribes at the Battle of Steptoe Butte but were followed up with George Wright's campaign that subdued the natives. The Coeur d'Alene Reservation is located in Benewah and Kootenai counties south of Coeur d'Alene in communities focused around Worley and Plummer. In 1859, with U.S. funding in place, Governor Stevens appointed John Mullan to survey the interior of the Northwestern United States for possible railroad routes and oversee the construction of the Mullan Road that bears his name, from Fort Walla Walla on the Columbia River through the Rocky Mountains to Fort Benton