Dead spruce
Dead spruce, a photo by Nezara on Flickr.
The white ghostly trees are dead spruce that have been killed by a long-horned beetle. They have caused quite a ruckus up here in Cape Breton with huge patches of dead trees lining up the sides of the highways and in the mountains. Some trees die pretty quickly, you see them flame with a deep red. Others, sort of die from the bottom up with the lower branches dropping and then the rest of the branches needles casting off. I imagine they disappear completely when the snow falls.