SUNSET BEACH, N.C. — Every summer in Sunset Beach, a rare phenomenon occurs — elaborate mazes start showing up along the shore, stumping beachgoers of all ages. These perplexing puzzles come from the mind of a man who calls himself “The Mazematician.”
Aaron Gutknecht discovered his love of mazes when he was in preschool. It’s a passion that began in an unexpected place: a diner.
“We’d go out to eat,” Gutknecht said, “And I was always enthralled by the simple stupid mazes on the back of the child’s placemat.”
Decades later, he’s a maze maker himself. He grew up drawing mazes anywhere he could, challenging his friends or school crushes to try them out. Now, he’s moved onto his biggest canvas: the beach.
“When I was sitting with my wife on the beach one day… I said… I’m gonna try to put out a maze,” he said. “And she looked at me and goes, can you do that?”
That was in 2001. Gutknehct says he’s made hundreds of mazes since then. The Mazematician said he tries to make three or four a week if he can.
Drawing these massive mazes on the beach provides its own challenges. Not only does he have to beat the crowd and claim some real estate, but he’s also working against the tide.
“That body of water right there, that’s the Library of Alexandria, and it’s gonna burn the Mona Lisa every time I put it up,” Gutknecht said. “And the next day I get a brand-new canvas.”
Gutknecht said the only logic in making a maze is to defy the logic of those that are going to try to traverse it, which is why his mazes are so elaborate and tricky. In fact, every now and then, even the maze maker himself falls for one of his own tricks.
“There were these two ladies I was trying to walk through and one of the tricks I put up, it tricked me as well and they got frustrated and it took me about five minutes to find my mistake,” he said. “And it wasn’t a mistake, it was part of the tricks.”
Gutknecht, who is a bit of a trickster, enjoys watching people try to figure out the correct path.
“This is one of the loops that people are just gonna go round and round and round in circles all the way back to the beginning,” he said. “So they get up this far and end up right back at the beginning.”
None of his mazes are premeditated — he comes up with it all on the spot.
“I think that would be incredibly difficult to remap this,” Gutknecht said. “It just comes out completely on the fly.”
It takes about two to three hours to complete a large maze. After that, the fun begins.
“When this is done and people are running through it, no one’s gonna be on their phones, no one’s gonna be using technology,” he said. “People are gonna be working together.”
The Mazematician said that being able to put his hard work and time into something that excites and enthralls people is both humbling and gratifying.
“It’s Kevin Costner’s field of dreams, you build it, and they come,” he said. “I mean, it's instant, I mean you can’t describe the feeling.”
Sunset Beach might be the only beach in the world with two maze makers.
Last year, we introduced you to Hunter Gibbes, the “Sunset Beach Maze Man.” Gutknecht says there’s no competition between the two and he’s happy so many people get to enjoy a variety of mazes along the beach he loves.