Hefferton Causeway

In 1951, the year when the Town of Clarenville was incorporated, work began on the Hefferton Causeway to Random Island.

The causeway (also known as the Bar Bridge) crosses a shallow tidal sandbar to connect Random Island to the rest of Newfoundland. When it opened in 1952 it provided year-round vehicular access to the island's outport communities replacing the need for seasonal ferries and making it easier for island residents to commute to Clarenville for work. It is named after Samuel J. Hefferton, a minister in the first provincial cabinet.

The side of the causeway which is at the boundary of Milton and Clarenville was the historic departure point for explorer William Epps Cormack’s 1822 trek across the Island of Newfoundland.

Storyteller Dale Jarvis previously shared this legend about the Bar Light

The Bar Light

In 1952 the Hefferton Causeway was built across The Bar, connecting Random Island to the rest of the province. On certain nights, a ball of light can be seen bobbing up over the water from the furthest reaches of Smith Sound.

Legend has it that the light is that of the kerosene lamp which belonged to a party of four young people lost on a winter night in the 1920s. They were headed home from a church gathering, one of the men holding a lantern in one hand. As they drew closer to The Bar, the ice gave way without warning. All four sank beneath the bitterly cold waters of the Sound. The kerosene lantern sank like a stone, its pale flame guttering and extinguishing in the wet darkness.

The only memorial to their passing is a strange light bobbing along the surface of the water, looking for all the world like a lost soul desperately trying to find its way back to solid ground.

*Photo credit: Atlantic Guardian, vol. 13, no. 03 (March 1956)