Back from the Klondike facts for kids
The Back from the Klondike is a super famous puzzle created by Sam Loyd. It first appeared in a newspaper called the New York Journal and Advertiser on April 24, 1898. Sam Loyd designed this puzzle to be tricky, especially to fool a common way of solving mazes. That method, created by a smart mathematician named Leonhard Euler, involves working backward from the end. But this puzzle needed a different approach!
How to Play the Puzzle
Here are Sam Loyd's original instructions, made a bit simpler:
- Start at the heart symbol in the very center of the puzzle.
- From the heart, move exactly three steps in a straight line. You can go in any of the eight directions: north, south, east, west, northeast, northwest, southeast, or southwest.
- After three steps, you will land on a square with a number. This number tells you how many steps to take for your next move.
- Again, move that many steps in a straight line in any of the eight directions.
- Keep going like this! Each new square you land on will have a number telling you how many steps to take next.
- The goal is to land on a square that will let you take just one more step to go *beyond* the border of the puzzle. That's how you win!
Finding the Solution
Sam Loyd also shared his own solution to the puzzle. A puzzle expert named Martin Gardner called Loyd's solution "sneaky" because it wasn't obvious. Loyd's way to solve it was to move southwest twice, then northeast three times, then southwest three more times. Finally, he said to make a "bold strike" southeast to get off the board!
In 1976, some university students used a computer program to solve the puzzle. They found hundreds of different ways to solve it! All these different paths eventually led to a square that was part of Loyd's own solution.
Interestingly, the students also noticed that all the solutions they found passed through a specific square that was *not* part of Loyd's original path. This made them think there might have been a small mistake when the puzzle was first drawn. If you change the number on that one square from a "2" to a "1", the puzzle suddenly has only one possible solution, making it even more challenging!
