He is the man whose Bonanza Creek discovery started the Klondike Gold Rush. George was born Sep. 24,1860 in Contra Costa Country, California to his proud parents Perry & Hannah Carmack. George grew up on a small ranch near Bull Valley.
George's mother, after his birth, slowly declined in health and died when he was three. His sister only was only 8 years old at the time but quickly assumed the position of mother and did so most of his life. At 11 year's old, George's father died and he moved in with his sister and her husband James Watson who was the same age as her father, 38.
George was an excellent student and quit school at the 5th grade level. After he went on to become a sheep herder. For 11 years he herded sheep for one of his neighbors but after 11 years he decided to go somewhere. At 21 years old, he went to a naval ship yard and joined the U.S. Marine corps which brought him to the north, were he started a new life away from his sister.
The Carmacks site was always a central camp for a few Indian families. Indian people used to come here to trade as far west as Aishihik. Caribou crossed the Yukon River near here each year until 1938.
But the settlement began it's permanent life late in the last century when George Carmack, one of the later discoverers of Yukon gold, built a trading post here. During the gold rush, Carmacks became a service center for transients. A roadhouse was used by both summer travelers on the river and by winter travelers on the stage coach route north. In early years, it had a trading post, a Northwest Mounted Police Detachment, a telegraph office, a fox farm and a coal mine. Coal was mined in Carmacks until recently when the mine caught on fire. It has been burning underground ever since.
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