It's because the actual true statement is that the sun is in the East at 6 o'clock in the morning and in the West at 6 o'clock in the evening, and of course, if

It's because the actual true statement is that the sun is in the East at 6 o'clock in the morning and in the West at 6 o'clock in the evening, and of course, if the sun rises at 3 or 9 (and perhaps you've got a timezone that's more than half an hour off of 'local sun time' and one more hour shift caused by daylights savings time) then it makes quite a difference. But if you would have an analog watch with a 24-hour dial tuned to your local sun time, then you should be able to effectively treat it as a compass everywhere, also way up north.