Question
Good Day,
Over the weekend we were at my father's farm in Southern Alberta and there was an amazing display of a blanket of spiderwebs covering the ground, grass, plowed fields, pasture land...everything.  The whole area shimmered like silver.  This is not a regular occurance in this area and we would like to know what kind of phenomena this is.  
Thank you for your time!

Answer
Kim,

Certain cobweb spiders make huge communial webs usually near a body of water that supports aquatic insects like mosquitoes on which the spiders feed. That could be what's happening here. If you get pictures of the webs plus spiders in the webs I might be able to confirm. Also, you could contact a local university biology department to see if anyone else is reporting the same thing.

Jack DeAngelis