Jumbo - Jan Van Haasteren Reindeer Races Puzzle 500pc

A reindeer sled race in Lapland, seen from above, and it has already gone wrong in about fifteen separate places. This is Jan van Haasteren, the Dutch cartoonist whose puzzles are their own genre, and the 500 piece format makes this one of the friendliest ways into it.

What you are looking at

A finish line strung between two poles across a snow field. Sleds coming through it from several directions at once, a jury table on the left with a trophy on it, a green Sami tent behind them, and a village on the ridge at the top right. Look for the man being towed on skis behind a reindeer, the police sled, Santa in an open sled with a pot of something, a skier airborne over the hill, a reindeer that has bolted into a spiral track of its own, and a veterinary table on the right where a reindeer is getting far more attention than it wants.

There is an octopus on skis in the lower middle. There is also a shark fin in the snow. Van Haasteren has drawn a shark fin into every puzzle he has ever made, ever since a comic strip where a shark came for a character on the beach, and finding it is part of the ritual. His other recurring motifs include a set of dentures, a pair of loose hands, Saint Nicholas and a self-portrait of the artist.

What it is like to build

500 pieces of cartoon is a comfortable single evening. Everything is hard black outline over flat colour, so almost every piece carries usable information. Start with the blue FINISH banner, which is the only large block of a single strong colour, then the green tent, then the jury table.

The snow is where the time goes. Roughly a third of the image is white or pale blue with only a faint contour line for the piste. Sort those pieces by whether they carry a line, a ski track or a shadow, and place the ones with content first. What is left goes in by shape.

Why Jumbo, and why this artist

Jumbo are Dutch and van Haasteren has drawn for them for decades, to the point that Jumbo set up a whole studio in 2013 to keep up with demand, with four other artists now drawing alongside him. The pictures are dense on purpose: the joke is that you keep finding things weeks after you have finished it.

Specifications

A little context

Van Haasteren is one of the few artists in the category with enough pull to sell a puzzle on the name alone rather than the picture, which is why the 500 piece titles matter: they are how people find out whether they like the style before committing to a 1000 or a 3000. Derived from multiple public data sources across retail, search and community platforms, refreshed 31 August 2026.

Stock is real and it is in Sydney. Free shipping Australia wide over $150, and free same-day delivery inside 6 km of North Bondi with no minimum.

Built it already? Use the Questions section below and tell us how you found it. Which part fought you, how long it took, and whether you would send someone else to it. We answer every one.