Embracing wolves: Dr. John Hughes and the Sacred Wolf Foundation’s Mission

Dr. John Hughes D.O., who runs Aspen Integrative Medicine, has a special relationship with wolves.

Hughes, who has ancestry from the Wolf Clan of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation regards wild and domesticated wolves (aka dogs) as sacred totems (kin) who have guided his path in his practice of medicine.

“Back in medical school, I lived in northern Saskatchewan for a rotation for about a month. And I had encounters with people who had been with wolves around that territory and had a special connection with them,” he said. “That was a unique point in my medical education.”

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Hughes realized he was experiencing depression and disillusionment with mainstream medicine that was making him seriously think about dropping out of medical school. Then he came across a book that changed his life.

“I ended up reading a book called, ‘Coyote Medicine: Lessons from Native American Healing,’ by Lewis Mehl-Madrona, who was one of the youngest graduates from Stanford but also a Cherokee native person, which pulled me back into my roots and indigenous cultures,” he said. “I found myself being connected to a different type of medicine and a different way of understanding nature.”

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The wolf and coyote were a big part of his new path and how he related to the world around him, which also included a strong connection to dogs. Through this love of his dogs, he met Heather Conrow, a canine caretaker, who runs Aspen Dog Nanny in Old Snowmass.

They quickly realized they had similar viewpoints toward wolf reintroduction in Colorado and decided to found Sacred Wolf Foundation in 2023.

“The recent reintroduction happening in Colorado is really what made us found this organization,” Conrow said. “There’s a lot of room for us to be a leader and an example of how to do this correctly, which is going to take a lot of conversations with all of these different people that live here in the valley. We have to figure it out. I mean, it’s happening. They’re coming.”

The foundation has three tenets that make up its mission: To love, honor, and celebrate the wolf as sacred and our closest kin, to protect and nurture wild wolves and domesticated wolves through education (in service to local peoples of Colorado), and land preservation, and to donate to the proper care of canids in the state of Colorado (in service to sick or disabled dog owners, neglected or malnourished dogs, and wildlife sanctuaries).

“Dogs are descended from wolves, you can’t have one without the other,” Hughes said. “We want to educate people about the teachings of a wolf, in an indigenous way or spiritual way, as well as in a very natural way, and how they belong in this ecosystem. If we are going to have a sustainable future, it’s going to take a diverse group of humans, animals, and species. And that includes wolves”

In that spirit, Sacred Wolf Foundation is holding its first event at 6 p.m. on Friday at The Hoffman Hotel in Basalt. They hope the event will be a respectful and educational conversation for the community regardless of where they currently stand on wolf reintroduction into the state.

“Welcoming Wolves Back Home” will feature a panel of speakers that includes Michael Waasegiizhig Price (traditional ecological specialist at the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Game), Matt Barnes (coexistence advisor for Rocky Mountain Wolf Project), Jo Stanko, Rout County regional assistant commissioner of agriculture and generational rancher), and Hughes.

“Jo Stanko is a generational rancher from Steamboat Springs, and she has put her ranch into a conservation easement and she’s out where the wolves are now. So she’s coming to talk about being a rancher in the middle of this,” Conrow said. “The first big step is to get the ranchers involved in the conversation.”

The event is free and open to the public and will also include a silent auction with items donated from local businesses to support Sacred Wolf Foundation.

“It’s something that we all have to come together on because it’s so divided and becomes such a political thing, and it shouldn’t be like that,” Conrow said. “There are only 80 chairs so I encourage people to come early to grab a spot. The Hoffman has a bar where folks can grab a drink and a snack and hopefully talk to each other with an open mind. We’re all in this together.”