Good luck.

I have noticed that my pears only seem to be growing on the north side of the tree....is there a reason for this? Just the most optimal sunlight maybe?

the north side producing may be pollen source related. You could graft a couple other species onto this tree to get good pollen in the future. Bartlett likes to pollinate lots of other pears, so I would add it as one. Don't try to mix Asian pears on the same tree. Also do more then one of each. Even if you graft well there are birds, squirrels, kids etc to knock it off before it is solid. you would do this in the spring

So on pruning start looking at it after the leaves fall. You have a lot of branches overlapping each other. You will want to pick some of the best branches and mark as keepers then see what that leaves in regards to branches to remove. IN removing branches most will be cut away at the trunk. But some will be removing one leg of a Y.

So grafting and pruning are both done early next year. you have time to get your mind around it. Also on things like this you can make it a group project and post photos and bounce ideas off the rest of us. You will get a mix of ideas because that is how these things go. But as you learn you will develop the style that appeals to you.

I was thinking kieffer or bartlett.

When my parents bought their land 30+ years ago, it had a full size pear tree (on its own roots) growing along a farm field. I thought it was most likely a kieffer, but the old timer next door said he had some along his fields too and they were bartlett. This tree is huge and very vertical. It is at least 40' tall with a 24" trunk. There are 3 scaffolds about 10" diameter. Many times I stood in the field and wondered how I could reach the bushels of pears growing at the top. There aren't enough solid horizontal laterals to climb the thing safely. A few times we set up a tarp to catch falling pears.

If the scaffolds have developed branches that are growing into competition for the branch from which they are growing -that's more than about 1/3 the diameter of the scaffold- cut those competitive branches off where they attach. Leave the pencil-sized branches that grow horizontally off of your main scaffolds- those should become fruiting wood.

Expect to continue thinning for the next few weeks as new growth tries to replace what you removed. It takes a while to develop a clear picture of how it all works (I'm certainly still figuring it out) but the tree will forgive a good number of mistakes.