low frequency counter

I'm looking for a counter on a chip thats able to keep track of a pulse every 1-3 seconds, and keep up with them for about a minute.

Sounds simple enough. You can use simple logic ICs to build up a counter, based on something like this:
https://www.electro-tech-online.com/custompdfs/2007/05/MM74C925202620272028.pdf

or you could use a very simple PIC or AVR chip to implement this with very little software work.

I would use an AVR chip if I were doing this. Something like the the ATTINY11-6PC which costs about half a dollar. It has one 8 bit counter built-in which should be adequate for your application.