The unlikely TikTok star
A year ago, Wallacetown local Terressa Kollat knew nothing of the online platform. Siena Yates reports.
She’s an international TikTok star with hundreds of thousands of followers and millions of views, but when she started less than a year ago her first question was: ‘‘What’s TikTok?’’
At 53, Wallacetown local Terressa Kollat is an unlikely social media star not just because the app is the domain of Generation Z, but also because she never realised what she does is special.
While she’s now famous for her hunting and kaimoana-gathering content, Kollat has been living off the land her whole life.
Born and raised in the Mokohinau Islands in the Hauraki Gulf, she has always been close to the sea, thanks to her lighthousekeeper parents. Her father, John Shandley, was a keen hunter and diver and her mother, Hine Kino (Ngāti Porou), was well across the foraging side of things.
‘‘She knew her plants – pikopiko, watercress, pūhā ... So together they were a really good match.’’
Kollat and her eight siblings grew up in their parents’ footsteps.
‘‘Dad never said, ‘Oh, you’re not doing that because you’re a girl.’ And being Ngāti Porou we were quite staunch and Mum enforced it too, like, ‘Yep, you’re gonna give it a go’ . . . It’s not until we came onto the mainland that we realised how unique that upbringing was. People find what I do really fascinating, but it’s so normal to me.’’
One of Kollat’s recent TikTok videos racked up more than
3.2 million views. She got onto the platform thanks to her 14-year-old nephew Michael who, when she was hesitant, pointed out: ‘‘Think of all the people you could teach, Aunty!’’ That was all Kollat needed.
She has been sharing her experiences online for years with friends and whānau as well as on Facebook groups. She has also been sharing in real life, taking people out hunting and gathering since she was a teenager.
Now, she hosts people in her Wallacetown home and takes them hunting and diving and shows them how to prepare and cook kai all on their own. And all for free.
‘‘I couldn’t ever charge people for it. I think our mother taught us that it was wrong to pay money for that sort of thing,’’ says Kollat.
Besides, she loves what she does so much that to see other people reap the benefits is payment enough. She has had feedback from visitors whose lives have been changed by their stay.
Word has apparently spread because Kollat is now regularly getting hundreds of requests from people wanting to stay and learn.
It’s a massive undertaking considering she also works full time doing 12-hour shifts at the Tiwai Point smelter and volunteers at schools teaching kids about nature. But she makes it work. ‘‘To be able to make someone happy or to lift them up is an honour.’’
And sharing what she does on TikTok is just another way to reach people, bring awareness to conservation efforts and show other wāhine that the hunting and gathering lifestyle is for them too.
‘‘I think it’s the way we actually were meant to be . . . I couldn’t exist if I couldn’t go in the bush or the sea,’’ she says.
‘‘I feel most at home out there. I feel at peace. I could be in a whole crowd of people and feel quite lonely and I don’t feel comfortable, but I do when I’m out there.’’