By Michele Beacom - 09 February 2026

Above: The 2025 Turnbull Cup winner: Earth Warrior, Fording River Operations of Glencore’s Elk Valley Resources, by Mashrur Rashid, third-year mining engineering student at University of British Columbia

The Turnbull Cup elevates mining students and honours an educator

Every year in November at the CIM Vancouver Student Night, the Turnbull Cup is awarded to the student for the best photo from a mining work site. The contest is open to mining students at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Simon Fraser University (SFU) and the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT).

The Turnbull Cup is named in honour of Montreal-born John Moncrieff “Jake” Turnbull, who graduated from McGill University in 1897 and soon after went to British Columbia to work as a mining engineer. In 1915, at the request of UBC President F.F. Wesbrook, Turnbull advised the university on the establishment of a mining education program.

Turnbull was appointed as head of the new mining and metallurgy department in the faculty of applied science, where he remained until retiring in 1945. As an emeritus professor, he lectured often, giving his last lecture in 1979, at the age of 101. Upon his death in 1982, at the age of 104, the university lost its last original faculty member and CIM lost its oldest member.

Turnbull played a major role in developing the mining industry of British Columbia. The trophy, which travels from winning school to winning school, acts as a symbol of the century-long evolution of professionals in the mining industry in British Columbia.

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