When I was just a young girl my grandmother told me that when they were getting ready to harvest the little wild blackberries, they would send a scout ahead to see if the berries were ready. They would go up the rivers, then, from the canoe, just look up on the hillsides and if the fireweed was in bloom the blackberries were ripe. And that way they didn't have to climb the hills to look, they could just tell from the fireweed. When the blooms came out, they knew it was time to go out and gather their wild blackberries. They're really sweet when they're ripe. Everybody thinks it's a real treat to get wild blackberry pie. It's usually late July when the wild blackberries come out.