Joseph Turner Jr. was born into the Métis world of the coastal and inland fur trade posts of western James Bay in 1816 and was baptized alongside his siblings, Elizabeth and Philip, at Moose Factory on June 30, 1822.
Joseph Turner Jr.’s father, Joseph Sr., had worked at the Hudson’s Bay Company depot at Moose Factory and its connected inland posts since 1799. Like many of the Métis “factory boys” who grew up at the fur trade posts of James Bay, Joseph Sr. had a long career with the HBC.
Joseph Turner Jr.’s mother, Emma, was a Métis woman from the region who fished, hunted, made snowshoes, cooked, and cleaned in and around the fort, all while raising the next generation of Métis children within their traditions.
In 1829, Joseph Turner Jr. began his own career with the HBC.
For his first posting, Joseph Jr. travelled nearly 1,000km west to the Island Lake District, northeast of Lake Winnipeg. The Island Lake District’s headquarters at Oxford House, was also the headquarters for a winter road connecting York Factory and the Red River settlement.
As an apprentice in the district, Joseph Jr. would have crossed paths with and worked alongside many other Métis travelling this route, like fellow Métis HBC servants George Taylor and Bakie Sinclair, who also worked in the district.
Joseph Turner Jr.’s career with the HBC would eventually see him travel even more extensively throughout the fur trade world and further grow his deep connections across the Métis Homeland.