Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley is known as a prosperous agricultural area, but it also contains pockets of rural poverty. The most visible aspect of this poverty is substandard housing. In a fascinating look at an isolated and marginalized social group, this film focuses on two couples for whom an improvement in housing has fostered hopes for a better life. A Ballad of South Mountain is the first of two documentaries dealing with some of the problems of, and solutions to, rural poverty in the Annapolis Valley. (See also The Church and the Hearth.)