Osa Johnson, married to adventure

"Unexpected difficulties are the challenge and, at the same time, the charm of every explorer's life." This sentence, extracted from Osa Johnson's memoirs, perfectly captures the philosophy of life of the woman who, together with her husband, Martin Johnson, was a pioneer of safaris and nature documentaries in the 1920s.

Osa Helen Leighty was born on March 14, 1894, in a small Kansas town. In 1910, a friend introduced her to Martin Johnson, a young adventurous photographer in his twenties who had just traveled to the South Pacific accompanying a writer by the name of Jack London.

Osa was fascinated by the stories and adventures in remote lands that Martin told her, and that same year, they got married. So, at the age of 16, Osa left America and embarked on a seven-year journey to the South Pacific with her husband and a small film crew. An unusual event for a woman of the time, whose supposed destiny was to stay at home, taking care of the children and the household.

Osa and Martin Johnson went deep into jungles inhabited by cannibal tribes that had never seen a white man. As a result of that great journey, their first film was born: On the Cannibal Islands of the South Pacific(1918). Then came Adventures in the Jungle (1920), filmed on the island of Borneo.

The critical success of these films led them to become pioneers in the filming of nature documentaries. But their lucky break came when Carl Ethan Akeley, nature photographer and taxidermist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, needed to complete the museum's African room with some pieces and financed an expedition to East Africa for the Johnsons to film documentaries. The proceeds would be invested in new pieces to complete the museum's collection.
 

The Johnsons lived for 14 years in Africa, during a period of both professional and personal splendor. Their documentaries, in which Osa always appeared, dressed in safari clothes, and with a rifle in hand while facing dangerous animals, made them gain much fame and prestige.

Although wildlife hunting was common, the couple knew how to maintain a good relationship with local tribes, which allowed them to discover unexplored places where no white man had set foot before.

Their greatest discovery took place in 1923. They reached a lake north of Kenya, at the foot of Mount Marsabit, which they named Paradise Lake. They returned to the United States and obtained funding for a second expedition to Africa from George Eastman, owner of the Kodak photography company.

Thus, in 1924, they settled at Paradise Lake for 4 years, creating a small settlement in the form of a village, which had the comforts of Western civilization while in a remote enclave of Kenya.