Kansas couple explores the worldMartin Johnson was a young man from Independence, Kansas, when Jack London hired him as a crew member on his yacht, the Snark, as detailed in Martin’s book Through the South Seas with Jack London (1913). London became ill and had to return to the U.S., but Johnson continued his journey and actually made it all the way around the world. After returning to Kansas, he married Osa Leighty from the equally small town of Chanute. Rather than settle down with his new bride, Martin was determined to continue his life of adventure. He invited Osa to share in his exotic exploits, and she was game for the challenge. The couple traveled the world and achieved fame for their wildlife photography, documentary filmmaking, and travel books. After Martin’s death, Osa published her autobiography I Married Adventure. It was the bestselling nonfiction book of 1940.
I Married Adventure recounts the couple’s youth and courtship in Kansas and details their subsequent adventures in the Solomon Islands, Borneo, and four trips to Africa, where they lived for a few years. Martin, the photography expert, bought the camera equipment and developed all the film. Osa was not just a passive passenger, however. She served as Martin’s right-hand woman. In addition to appearing on camera, Osa shot photos and film, shot dinner when necessary, drove a truck, managed staff, and entertained visiting dignitaries to camp like George Eastman of the Kodak company and the Duke and Duchess of York.
I admire Martin and Osa for their adventurous spirits, and I envy their travels. As a Kansan for most of my life, I also enjoyed the small-town-couple-make-it-big aspect of the story. The era in which the Johnsons traveled, however, wasn’t known for its ecological or ethnographical consciousness. The Johnsons hire 250 native porters to carry their supplies through hundreds of miles of wilderness, knowing full well that some of those porters are probably going to die along the way. If the porters aren’t moving fast enough, Martin whips them. When they reach their destination, they level swaths of forest to build a small, semi-permanent town, complete with decorative curtains and other frivolous amenities that some poor laborer had to schlep to the site. Osa brags about scattering invasive American flower seeds all over Africa. The couple have no qualms about shooting with guns the animals that they are shooting with cameras. Many anecdotes explain how the Johnsons would get as close as they could to the animals they were filming—lions, rhinos, water buffalo—until the animal would charge one spouse, and then the other would shoot the animal dead. Although the Johnsons occasionally traveled with zoologists from the American Museum of Natural History, Martin and Osa were photographers not scientists, not even amateur scientists. As a result, from this account by Osa you don’t really learn a whole lot about the animals or indigenous people that they encountered.
Although Osa clearly loved Martin, you don’t get much of a sense of his personality from this book, in which he comes across as something of a cipher. You almost get the impression that Osa really didn’t know him very well. That’s not a comment on their marriage, but rather a comment on her writing. This, however, was my grandparents’ generation, when people were more private and dignified when discussing their relationships. If spouses ever disagreed on anything, you wouldn’t hear it from Osa or my grandmother.
I don’t know about the rest of the world, but the Johnsons are still fondly remembered in their home state of Kansas. The Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum in Chanute is devoted to their lives, travels, and works. Reading this entertaining biography definitely makes we want to check it out.
I sailed with AdventureWhen word got out that Jack London was building a yacht with the intention of sailing around the world, hundreds of fans and would-be adventurers wrote to the famous writer to apply for a spot on his crew. As the 45-foot boat finally set sail on April 23, 1907, one of the chosen applicants on board was 22-year-old Martin Johnson of Independence, Kansas. Johnson was signed on as ship’s cook, despite having no culinary experience. Later Johnson would assume the role of engineer, and he also served as London’s photographic assistant, developing all of the author’s photos as well as many of his own. In its two years at sea, the Snark underwent many crew changes, but Johnson was the one sailor who stuck it out with London from start to finish. After sailing to Hawaii, the Marquesas, Tahiti, the Solomons, and many more islands in the South Pacific, the voyage came to an end in Australia due to London’s medical problems. Johnson writes about his experience of the trip in his 1913 book Through the South Seas with Jack London.
London published his own account of the journey, The Cruise of the Snark, in 1911. While London’s book is written as a series of magazine articles, Johnson’s book is more of a straight-up memoir. I didn’t care so much for London’s account of the expedition. His ego often gets in the way, resulting in self-praise and pretentious prose that only make the travelogue duller. Johnson relates many of the same events that one finds in The Cruise of the Snark, but his writing is clear, engaging, and free of ostentation. He comes across as a very likable guy, one the reader would gladly accept as a traveling companion, and he conveys the average Joe’s wonder at exotic locations and peoples in a way that the larger-than-life London could not. While London and his wife are off having dinner with the king or governor of whatever island the Snark is visiting, Johnson is frequently living the life of a common sailor, hanging out with the locals, or merely exploring the sites—activities which make for a far more interesting travel memoir. Though Johnson’s account is not free of romanticization, and one can infer that he withheld some racy details from the prudish American reading public, his telling of the tale feels more honest and authentic than London’s.
One caveat is that on a few occasions Johnson uses racial labels for Blacks and Asians that are no longer acceptable (not the n-word, but in the same ballpark). Given the time period, one could safely say he just didn’t know any better. For the most part, he speaks favorably of other races and demonstrates an openness towards diverse cultures and perspectives. Johnson actually comes across as less of a racist than London, probably because Martin doesn’t share Jack’s superiority complex. Johnson only uses the term “savages” when he is speaking about actual cannibals, which is an improvement over most white writers of his day.
The Snark may not have made it all the way around the world, but Johnson did, and then some. Johnson’s voyage with London was but the first step in a life filled with adventure. Martin and his future wife Osa would become celebrities through a series of wildlife documentaries and travel films shot in Africa and the South Seas. After Martin’s death, Osa’s autobiography I Married Adventure was a bestseller in 1940. The Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum in Chanute, Kansas, is devoted to artifacts from the couple’s adventures.
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