Karavansara

East of Constantinople, West of Shanghai


Leave a comment

Companions on the Road – Martin & Osa Johnson

Sometimes it feels like a conspiracy.

lMartin Johnson was the cook on Jack London’s Snark during the ship’s two-year cruise in the Pacific.
Johnson put together a sideshow with photos and stuff from that adventure, and made a living travelling through rural America.
In Kansas, he met a young woman called Osa Leighty.
They fell in love, got married, and became adventurers.
It was 1910.

In the following years, Martin and Osa Johnson were captured by cannibals on tropical islands in the Pacific, explored Africa, met European royalty and assorted savages, and made lots of documentaries, which were extremely popular.
Much of the material in the films – some of which were among the first talkie documentaries ever produced – was later remixed and restyled as a series of TV documentaries in the ’50s.
Continue reading