GREAT FALLS, Mont. — When a study recently found Great Falls the least gay-friendly city in Montana, one man wrote on a local news website, “Let’s keep it that way.”

Mermaids are totally tolerable, though.

Great Falls, home to 59,000 mostly conservative citizens, can be a soul-deadening place. Big-box stores and chain restaurants line the weary main drag. The primary employer is Malmstrom Air Force Base, which services nuclear missile silos. The wind chill has been known to hit 40 below.

But you can’t hold life back. It always breaks through — sometimes in unintentionally hilarious ways — even in the most unlikely places.

I don’t know how else to account for the Sip ‘n Dip, a kitsch-tastic tiki bar hidden inside the O’Haire Motor Inn here. To find this treasure, you walk past the stack of Western Ag Reporter newspapers in the lobby and climb a narrow set of carpeted stairs. There, swimming behind glass six nights a week on a rotating schedule, you will find 12 women dressed very convincingly as mermaids.