Somewhere in the Anchorage Museum is or was a sign to the effect that, "The task of the historian is not to remove the marks made by man on the earth, but rather to explain and interpret the marks for future generations."  Sometimes European visitors would see the abandoned telegraph poles along the Alaska Railroad right of way and ask why someone did not remove these unsightly objects, which marred their view of what Alaska ought to be.

McCandless and his fate, like the telegraph poles, are part of the historical package, and just trying to push it down the Orwellian memory hole is simply not honest.