My earliest recollection of Martin and Osa Johnson is reading Osa’s book, I Married Adventure, when I was in high school. It turned out to be one of the best all-time adventure tales.

From 1917 to 1936, the Johnsons produced some of the most entertaining nature/adventure films in the world.

Osa, who has been billed as the first lady of exploration, was born in Chanute, Kansas. And that’s where you will find the Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum.

Borneo poster

Next April 24-25, the museum will host a Safari Film Festival of several of the Johnsons’ films, including their last safari together while shooting Borneo.

In the late 1940′s, Maggie Potter was a sponsor and entrepreneur of travel adventure film artists in the Greater Los Angeles area for whom I ran the projector. Her audience in 1937 at Burbank High School was eagerly awaiting an evening show by Martin Johnson when news reached her that a Western Air Express airliner had just crashed at nearby Newhall and killed Martin and injured Osa. Maggie sadly turned the audience away.

Lowell Thomas, famous fellow travel film producer, news commentator and lifelong friend, provided Borneo’s overall narration.

The Borneo film relates the adventures of the Johnsons as they flew their Sikorsky amphibian over the rainforests of Borneo—today’s Sabah—to get the first aerial shots of Mt. Kinabalu, its highest peak. They also filmed some of the island’s amazing animals, including flying snakes, walking fish, the proboscis monkey and orangutan.

Jacquelyn Borgeson, the Safari curator, visited Sabah in 2004 to present the Sabah Museum with over 2,000 digital copies of original photos the Johnsons had shot on their two trips to Borneo and donated to the government before heading home for the last time. World War II later destroyed all but a few of the Johnson images.

Martin Johnson filming in Samarkand, Borneo

Reporting on the trip, she wrote, “[The Johnsons hoped the images would] be preserved as a record of the untouched haven they saw vanishing before their eyes.”

Travel Adventure shooters take note: The Safari Film Festival will include a film about Curator Borgeson’s own trip to the island, called Back to Borneo, Saturday, April 25.

Editor’s Note: Travel filmmaker Stan Walsh is an honorary trustee at the Martin and Osa Johnson Safari Museum, Chanute, Kansas.