In Greenland they had a system to encode what purpose a building had. For example, if you were in a medical emergency, you would look for a yellow building.
> Red buildings signified churches, schools, teachers’ or ministers’ houses. Yellow colours were assigned to hospitals, doctors, and health care personnel. Green was at first the symbol for radio communication and later became the colour of telecommunications. The colour blue was often reserved for fish factories. Police stations were black.
Is there a reason why they used those specific colors? I don't understand why a hospital would be yellow or a police station would be black by default. My guess would be white and blue, respectively.
Snow in the air is probably a bigger problem than snow on the ground, blizzards with 20m or less visibility aren't that uncommon far north, really easy to get lost and die during those since the snow also blots out the terrain unlike fog.
Imagine trying to find a hospital under these conditions, vibrant color coding helps save lives then:
> Red buildings signified churches, schools, teachers’ or ministers’ houses. Yellow colours were assigned to hospitals, doctors, and health care personnel. Green was at first the symbol for radio communication and later became the colour of telecommunications. The colour blue was often reserved for fish factories. Police stations were black.
https://www.polar-quest.com/blog/greenland/the-backstory-of-...