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WEKU
WEKU
National
Aaron Bolton

Tribal leaders sound the alarm after fentanyl overdoses spike at Blackfeet Nation

Marla Ollinger lives on a 300-acre ranch near Browning, Montana. Her son, Justin Lee Littledog, moved in with her in 2020. He died of a fentanyl overdose in March. (Tony Bynum for KHN)

BROWNING, Mont. — In summer 2020, as the pandemic was setting in, Justin Lee Littledog called his mom to tell her he was moving from Texas back home to the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana. And he was taking his girlfriend, stepson and son.

They moved in with his mom, Marla Ollinger, who lived on a 300-acre ranch on the rolling prairie outside Browning — and had what Ollinger says was the best summer of her life. "That was the first time I've gotten to meet Arlin, my first grandson," Ollinger says. Another grandson was born in the spring of 2021 — and Littledog, 33, found maintenance work at the casino in Browning to support his growing family.

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