CARMACK OF THE KLONDIKE<i> By James Albert Johnson (Epicenter Press: $14.95, illustrated) </i>

James Johnson based this biography on George Carmack’s private papers, which he found in a second-hand bookstore in Seattle. In 1897, Carmack discovered the first gold in the Klondike, precipitating one of history’s great gold rushes: An estimated 500,000 people headed for the Yukon to seek their fortunes in the frozen stream beds. Unlike many Klondike sourdoughs, Carmack and his two Tagish Indian partners not only extracted a fortune from Bonanza Creek, they managed to hang onto it. Their success produced a knotty romantic triangle involving Carmack, his common-law Tagish wife Kate and the acquisitive Marguerite Saftig, who became his second wife. In his first book, Johnson does a creditable job of blending these two stories and evoking the bleak splendor of the Canadian wilderness.