Northern Middle-Earth
 

Who dwelt far north? or was it desolate and uninhabited? I have often wondered this becuase i live up north myself. It would be nice to know if there was some kind of high elven lord that governed that area of middle-earth.

Well, the Northern Wastes are about that, after Utumno and Angbad were destroyed, everything was laid to waste, not that it wasn't already dreadful place to live, but if you read carefully, I think I remember there being a people living near or around the Ice Bay of Forachel.

After the fall of Annuminas, and then Fornost, not many dwelt there. Beyond Erebor was known as the desolation of the dragons.

The Northern Waste was apparently uninhabited, yet the Lossoth, the snowmen of Forochel, were there. And bearing in mind the thought of Angband, Utumno and later Angmar you might expect a good deal of nasty creatures still lingering there. The wights in the barrow-downs were from Angmar and I don´t think they were all the wights the Witch-king had to offer, not to mention all the evilness gathered in the strongholds of Morgoth. Also there is the Withered Heath, the place of the dragons.
Not much is said in the books about it but I´d say it´s not altogether a happy place up north. The land is not able to get rid of the memory of Morgoth, or so it seems.