Last fall I had the great pleasure of creating a puzzle design for Michael Bainbridge and Brigitte Gall, co-owners of the wonderful Ontario gem The Occurrence, manufacturers and sellers of “Punctilious jigsaw puzzles for art geeks and science nerds.”

Using many of my Great Lakes fishes illustrations, I put together a collage with puzzlers in mind. My parents are puzzle enthusiasts, so I was thinking of them. There are a lot of scales and not too many areas of plain background field, which makes for a challenging puzzle—though at 504 pieces, it’s not TOO challenging. (As Michael and Brigitte say on their product packing, “If 500 is good, 504 is better!”)

Great Lakes fishes puzzle

I have assembled one of Michael and Brigitte’s 504 piece puzzles, so I can say with confidence that their puzzles are of the highest quality. The pieces are sturdy and fit together nicely, and the print quality is excellent. If you’re looking for a good puzzle and also like to support small businesses, check out their selection of science-related and art-related designs, including my Fishes of the Great Lakes puzzle and puzzles by other Ontario artists. Happily for US-based customers, most of their products ship duty-free (I presume because they are wholly made in Canada).

If you do order the fish puzzle, note that The Occurrence provides a link where you can download a “map” of the art to identify the species of fish in the puzzle. The link is in the product description.

Great Lakes fishes puzzle map

Great Lakes fishes puzzle map– To read the entry for each number, download the map from The Occurrence website.

One Comment

Linda Damstra

I will ditto everything you said about the quality of the puzzle itself. Having the map to identify the fishes is a bonus. Thanks, Emily and thanks The Occurrence for a beautiful puzzle.

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