House GOP Leader Lisa Demuth praised Castro’s ruling in a statement, saying the evidence was “overwhelming” that the DFLer didn’t live in the district and that she looks “forward to ensuring that a valid candidate represents District 40B during the upcoming legislative session.”

A possible special election to fill the seat likely wouldn’t be held until after the legislative session begins on Jan. 14, meaning Republicans would have temporary control of the chamber, and an opportunity to set the committee structure and pick a speaker, which could be hard for Democrats to undo even if a special election would bring the House back to a tie.

Until now, Democrats and Republicans had been negotiating power-sharing agreements and had agreed on House committee membership but still hadn’t decided who would serve as the speaker.

This is a developing story, check back for updates.

He needed to make money. When he found that spruce top buyers would come to nearby towns like Floodwood and Embarrass, he decided to give it a try.

“I just kind of went with it,” Buschman said. “I got better at it. It’s not a common thing.”

The season is short. It starts in early September, ideally after the first freeze so the tops will stay green and fresh. It ends in early November, when stores have typically stocked up all the fresh spruce they’ll be able to sell through the holidays.

Buschman looks for areas where the spruce is mostly short, in the 9- to 15-foot range. He’ll snip off the top 2 to 3 feet. He’ll spend several hours or days in a good location, cutting and tying the tops into the bundles of 10 buyers prefer. Years ago, he would sometimes have help from his brother or friends. Mostly, he’s been on his own. In some seasons, he would use his black ATV — a three-wheeler — and a makeshift trailer with a bed-frame propped up as one of the sides to haul the tops from the woods. Other years, he goes by bicycle and on foot into the bogs and drags the tops out with a sled.

“I used to do it straight by the book,” he said. “Completely legitimate. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if I cut them in a legitimate place or not, he’s taking them from me. It’s become a head-butting battle, this Bermel character and me.”

Bermel said he’s frustrated, too, and that sometimes as fast as he can write a ticket, people are back cutting more. He likens it to any other kind of theft, but in this case people are stealing trees.

Selling bikes is interesting, but being in the woods in spring, gathering maple sap, is addictive, a distinction Mark and Melinda Spinler know well.

The Spinlers live about 7 miles outside of Grand Marais, the small town on the North Shore that was more quaint than trendy when the couple moved there in 1984.

Mountain biking wasn’t yet a thing when the Spinlers arrived in Grand Marais. But they were into it, and opened the town’s first bike shop, which they operated for about 30 years before selling it.

Now, instead of two-wheelers, they peddle wood-burning stoves. Also, Mark has a chimney-cleaning business. And together, come March, he and Melinda, both 65, decamp to two relatively small stands of maple trees — one they own and one the state owns — to begin a process that will produce about 270 gallons of syrup, which they market to local businesses.

“Northern Minnesota is a wonderful place to live,” Melinda said. “But a hard place to make a living.”

It’s the syrup business that has embroiled the Spinlers in a standoff with the Department of Natural Resources that speaks to a larger debate about public lands and their proper use. Similar issues have affected northeast Minnesota residents since at least 1926, when the border region that would become the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness was first established as a roadless area.

But the Spinlers’ brouhaha has nothing to do with paddling or camping.

At issue instead is a 13-acre tract of relatively isolated state land adjoining their property that they have leased from the DNR for about 25 years.