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Writer's pictureOntario Métis Facts

Turner Family Pt. 1: Moose Factory Origins


Joseph Turner Sr., a devoted servant of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), began his career in 1799 at the depot at Moose Factory, a key trading post on the coast of James Bay.


Like many HBC employees and “factory boys” of his time, Joseph Sr. spent years traveling between Moose Factory and its connected inland posts, navigating vast distances and forging relationships essential to the fur trade.


Joseph Sr. married Emma, a Métis woman whose life was equally defined by resilience, connection-building, and professional skill. Though historical details about Emma are sparse, like many Métis women, she contributed immeasurably to the life of the fort.


In 1812, for example, the postmaster at Kenogamissi described sending Emma and others, “to the fishing place with as many kegs as could be found for curing fish in.”


Throughout her adulthood, Emma prepared and preserved food, made snowshoes, hunted, and maintained their household, all while nurturing their children within Métis traditions.


The Turners lived in the Kenogamissi District during the early years of their family life, about 350 km inland from Moose Factory, up the Moose and Mattagami Rivers, in an area where competing traders fought for trading partners and furs in the early decades of the nineteenth century.


By 1821, Joseph Sr. and his family had returned to Moose Factory, where he continued his service with the HBC until retiring in 1863.


On June 30, 1822, Joseph Sr. and Emma’s Métis children—Elizabeth, Joseph Jr., and Philip—were baptized together at Moose Factory.


Over the next few decades, these Turner siblings, and their younger brothers and sisters, would travel vast distances, growing their family and relationship networks throughout important Métis settlements across the Métis Homeland.


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