If it's night and you can see both the Southern Cross and the Pointers it's pretty trivial to determine south; if you're in the northern hemisphere you get it even easier with Polaris to mark north.
My initial thought when reading your comment was a response about differentiation of both hemispheres, but the way you wrote it was actually quite clever, so kudos for that! :D
Haha, yes there's that extreme. However that effect is a gradient. You start to notice it north of the 60th parallel (Canada where the bulk of the population lives) but it's only slight. In winter the sun is just slightly south of the middle of the sky.
Here in Campbell River BC we are at the 50th parallel, and on Saturday at Noon (we are out of DST now so we are talking true noon) the sun was to the direct south, 45 degrees to the horizon. It rises and sets... but to the SE, S and SW.